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diff --git a/39547-8.txt b/39547-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4b4337 --- /dev/null +++ b/39547-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6338 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beaumaroy Home from the Wars, by Anthony Hope + +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/license + + +Title: Beaumaroy Home from the Wars + +Author: Anthony Hope + +Release Date: April 27, 2012 [EBook #39547] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUMAROY HOME FROM THE WARS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + + + BEAUMAROY HOME FROM THE WARS + + BY ANTHONY HOPE + + + METHUEN & CO. LTD. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + _First Published in 1919_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST 1 + +II. THE GENERAL REMEMBERS 13 + +III. MR. SAFFRON AT HOME 27 + +IV. PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE 39 + +V. A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT 53 + +VI. ODD STORY OF CAPTAIN DUGGLE! 66 + +VII. A GENTLEMANLY STRANGER 80 + +VIII. CAPTAIN ALEC RAISES HIS VOICE 94 + +IX. DOCTOR MARY'S ULTIMATUM 107 + +X. THAT MAGICAL WORD MOROCCO! 123 + +XI. THE CAR BEHIND THE TREES 138 + +XII. THE SECRET OF THE TOWER 151 + +XIII. RIGHT OF CONQUEST 163 + +XIV. THE SCEPTRE IN THE GRAVE 178 + +XV. A NORMAL CASE 192 + +XVI. DEAD MAJESTY 206 + +XVII. THE CHIEF MOURNERS 220 + +XVIII. THE GOLD AND THE TREASURE 234 + + + + +BEAUMAROY HOME FROM THE WARS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST + + +"Just in time, wasn't it?" asked Mary Arkroyd. + +"Two days before the--the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very +quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I +forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?" + +"Only once--in Collingham Gardens. He had an _exeat_, and dashed in one +Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don't you +remember?" + +"Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I'd gone into colours--oh, +of course, I've gone back into mourning now!--and everything was +ready--settlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth. +And then it all came out!" + +"How?" + +"Well, Eustace--Captain Cranster, I mean----Oh, I think he really must +have had shell-shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt +it! He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, and--and the bank +wouldn't pay the cheque. Other cheques turned up too; and in the end the +police went through his papers, and found letters from--well, from her, +you know. From Bogota. South America, isn't it? He'd lived there ten +years, you know, growing something--beans, or coffee, or coffee-beans, +or something--I don't know what. He tried to say the marriage wasn't +binding, but the Colonel--wasn't it providential that the Colonel was +home on leave? Mamma could never have grappled with it! The Colonel was +sure it was, and so were the lawyers." + +"What happened then?" + +"The great thing was to keep it quiet. Now wasn't it? And there was the +shell-shock--or so Eustace--Captain Cranster, I mean--said, anyhow. So, +on the Colonel's advice, Mamma squared the cheque business and--and they +gave him twenty-four hours to clear out. Papa--I call the Colonel papa, +you know, though he's really my stepfather--used a little influence, I +think. Anyhow it was managed. I never saw him again, Mary." + +"Poor dear! Was it very bad?" + +"Yes! But--suppose we had been married! Mary, where should I have been?" + +Mary Arkroyd left that problem alone. "Were you very fond of him?" she +asked. + +"Awfully!" Cynthia turned up to her friend pretty blue eyes suffused in +tears. "It was the end of the world to me. That there could be such men! +I went to bed. Mamma could do nothing with me. Oh, well, she wrote to +you about all that." + +"She told me you were in a pretty bad way." + +"I was just desperate! Then one day--in bed--the thought of you came. It +seemed an absolute inspiration. I remembered the card you sent on my +last birthday--you've never forgotten my birthdays, though it's years +since we met--with your new address here--and your 'Doctor,' and all the +letters after your name! I thought it rather funny." A faint smile, the +first since Miss Walford's arrival at Inkston, probably the first since +Captain Eustace Cranster's shell-shock had wrought catastrophe--appeared +on her lips. "How I waited for your answer! You don't mind having me, do +you, dear? Mamma insisted on suggesting the P.G. arrangement. I was +afraid you'd shy at it." + +"Not a bit! I should have liked to have you anyhow, but I can make you +much more comfortable with the P.G. money. And your maid too--she looks +as if she was accustomed to the best! By the way, need she be quite so +tearful? She's more tearful than you are yourself." + +"Jeanne's very, very fond of me," Cynthia murmured reproachfully. + +"Oh, we'll get her out of that," said Mary briskly. "The tears, I mean, +not the fondness. I'm very fond of you myself. Six years ago you were a +charming kitten, and I used to enjoy being your 'visiting governess'--to +say nothing of finding the guineas very handy while I was waiting to +qualify. You're rather like a kitten still, one of those blue-eyed +ones--Siamese, aren't they?--with close fur and a wondering look. But +you mustn't mew down here, and you must have lots of milk and cream. +Even if rations go on, I can certify all the extras for you. That's the +good of being a doctor!" She laughed cheerfully as she took a cigarette +from the mantelpiece and lit it. + +Cynthia, on the other hand, began to sob, prettily and not in a noisy +fashion, yet evidently heading towards a bout of grief. Moreover, no +sooner had the first sound of lamentation escaped from her lips, than +the door was opened smartly and a buxom girl, in lady's-maid uniform, +rushed in, darted across the room, and knelt by Cynthia, sobbing also +and exclaiming, "Oh, my poor Mees Cynthia!" + +Mary smiled in a humorous contempt. "Stop this!" she commanded rather +brusquely. "You've not been deceived too, have you, Jeanne?" + +"Me, madame? No. But my poor Mees----" + +"Leave your poor Mees to me." She took a paper bag from the mantelpiece. +"Go and eat chocolates." + +Fixed with a firm and decidedly professional glance, Jeanne stopped +sobbing and rose slowly to her feet. + +"Don't listen outside the door. You must have been listening. Wait till +you're rung for. Miss Cynthia will be all right with me. We're going for +a walk. Take her upstairs and put on her hat for her, and a thick coat; +it's cold and going to rain, I think." + +"A walk, Mary?" Cynthia's sobs stopped to make way for this protest. The +description of the weather did not sound attractive. + +"Yes, yes. Now off with both of you! Here, take the chocolates, Jeanne, +and try to remember that it might have been worse." + +Jeanne's brown eyes were eloquent of reproach. + +"Captain Cranster might have been found out too late--after the +wedding," Mary explained with a smile. "Try to look at it like that. +Five minutes to get ready, Cynthia!" She was ready for the weather +herself, in the stout coat and skirt and weather-proof hat in which she +had driven the two-seater on her round that morning. + +The disconsolate pair drifted ruefully from the room, though Jeanne did +recollect to take the chocolates. Doctor Mary stood looking down at the +fire, her lips still shaped in that firm, wise, and philosophical smile +with which doctors and nurses--and indeed, sometimes, anybody who +happens to be feeling pretty well himself--console or exasperate +suffering humanity. "A very good thing the poor silly child did come to +me!" That was the form her thoughts took. For although Dr. Mary Arkroyd +was, and knew herself to be, no dazzling genius at her profession--in +moments of candour she would speak of having "scraped through" her +qualifying examinations--she had a high opinion of her own common sense +and her power of guiding weaker mortals. + +For all that Jeanne's cheek bulged with a chocolate, there was open +resentment on her full pouting lips, and a hint of the same feeling in +Cynthia's still liquid eyes, when mistress and maid came downstairs +again. Without heeding these signs, Mary drew on her gauntlets, took her +walking-stick, and flung the hall door open. A rush of cold wind filled +the little hall. Jeanne shivered ostentatiously; Cynthia sighed and +muffled herself deeper in her fur collar. "A good walking day!" said +Mary decisively. + +Up to now, Inkston had not impressed Cynthia Walford very favourably. It +was indeed a mixed kind of a place. Like many villages which lie near to +London and have been made, by modern developments, more accessible than +once they were, it showed chronological strata in its buildings. Down by +the station all was new, red, suburban. Mounting the tarred road, the +wayfarer bore slightly to the right along the original village street; +bating the aggressive "fronts" of one or two commercial innovators, this +was old, calm, serene, grey in tone and restful, ornamented by three or +four good-class Georgian houses, one quite fine, with well-wrought iron +gates (this was Dr. Irechester's); turning to the right again, but more +sharply, the wayfarer found himself once more in villadom, but a +villadom more ornate, more costly, with gardens to be measured in +acres--or nearly. This was Hinton Avenue (Hinton because it was the +builder's wife's maiden name, Avenue because avenue is genteel). Here +Mary dwelt, but by good luck her predecessor, Dr. Christian Evans, had +seized upon a surviving old cottage at the end of the avenue, and, +indeed, of Inkston village itself. Beyond it stretched meadows, while +the road, turning again, ran across an open heath, and pursued its way +to Sprotsfield, four miles distant, a place of greater size where all +amenities could be found. + +It was along this road that the friends now walked, Mary setting a brisk +pace. "When once you've turned your back on the Avenue, it's heaps +better," she said. "Might be real country, looking this way, mightn't +it? Except the Naylors' place--oh, and Tower Cottage--there are no +houses between this and Sprotsfield." + +The wind blew shrewdly, with an occasional spatter of rain; the withered +bracken lay like a vast carpet of dull copper colour under the cloudy +sky; scattered fir trees made fantastic shapes in the early gloom of a +December day. A sombre scene, yet wanting only sunshine to make it flash +in a richness of colour; even to-day its quiet and spaciousness, its +melancholy and monotony, seemed to bid a sympathetic and soothing +welcome to aching and fretted hearts. + +"It really is rather nice out here," Cynthia admitted. + +"I come almost every afternoon. Oh, I've plenty of time! My round in the +morning generally sees me through--except for emergencies--births and +deaths, and so on. You see, my predecessor, poor Christian Evans, never +had more than the leavings, and that's all I've got. I believe the real +doctor--the old-established one--Dr. Irechester, was angry at first with +Dr. Evans for coming; he didn't want a rival. But Christian was such a +meek, mild, simple little Welshman, not the least pushing or ambitious; +and very soon Dr. Irechester, who's quite well off, was glad to leave +him the dirty work--I mean," she explained, smiling, "the cottages and +the panel work--National Insurance, you know--and so on. Well, as you +know, I came down as _locum_ for Christian--he was a fellow-student of +mine--and when the dear little man was killed in France, Dr. Irechester +himself suggested that I should stay on. He was rather nice. He said, +'We all started to laugh at you, at first, but we don't laugh +now--anyhow, only my wife does! So, if you stay on, I don't doubt we +shall work very well together, my dear colleague.' Wasn't that rather +nice of him, Cynthia?" + +"Yes, dear," said Cynthia, in a voice that sounded a good many miles +away. + +Mary laughed. "I'm bound to be interested in you, but I suppose you're +not bound to be interested in me," she observed resignedly. "All the +same, I made a sensation at Inkston just at first. And they were even +more astonished when it turned out that I could dance and play lawn +tennis." + +"That's a funny little place," said Cynthia, pointing to the left side +of the road. + +"Tower Cottage, that's called." + +"But what a funny place!" Cynthia insisted. "A round tower, like a +Martello tower, only smaller, of course; and what looks just like an +ordinary cottage--or small farmhouse--joined on to it. What could the +tower have been for?" + +"I'm sure I don't know. Origin lost in the mists of antiquity! An old +gentleman named Saffron lives there now." + +"A patient of yours, Mary?" + +"Oh no! He's well off--rich, I believe. So he belongs to Dr. Irechester. +But I often meet him along the road. Lately there's always been a +younger man with him--a companion, or secretary, or something of that +sort, I hear he is." + +"There are two men coming along the road now." + +"Yes, that's them--the old man and his friend. He's rather striking to +look at." + +"Which of them?" + +"The old man, of course. I haven't looked at the secretary. Cynthia, I +believe you're beginning to feel a little better!" + +"Oh no, I'm not! I'm afraid I'm not, really!" But there had been a +cheerfully roguish little smile on her face. It vanished very promptly +when observed. + +The two men approached them, on their way, no doubt, to Tower Cottage. +The old man was not above middle height, indeed scarcely reached it; +but he made the most of his inches, carrying himself very upright, with +an air of high dignity. Close-cut white hair showed under an +old-fashioned peaked cap; he wore a plaid shawl swathed round him, his +left arm being enveloped in its folds; his right rested in the arm of +his companion, who was taller than he, lean and loose-built, clad in an +almost white (and very unseasonable-looking) suit of some homespun +material. He wore no covering on his head, a thick crop of curly hair +(of a colour indistinguishable in the dim light) presumably affording +such protection as he needed. His face was turned down towards the old +man, who was looking up at him and apparently talking to him, though in +so low a tone that no sound reached Mary and Cynthia as they passed by. +Neither man gave any sign of noticing their presence. + +"Mr. Saffron, you said? Rather a queer name, but he looks a nice old +man; patriarchal, you know. What's the name of the other one?" + +"I did hear; somebody mentioned him at the Naylors'--somebody who had +heard something about him in France. What was the name? It was something +queer too, I think." + +"They've got queer names and they live in a queer house!" Cynthia +actually gave a little laugh. "But are you going to walk all night, Mary +dear?" + +"Oh, poor thing! I forgot you! You're tired? We'll turn back." + +They retraced their steps, again passing Tower Cottage, into which its +occupants must have gone, for they were no longer to be seen. + +"That name's on the tip of my tongue," said Mary in amused vexation. "I +shall get it in a moment!" + +Cynthia had relapsed into gloom. "It doesn't matter in the least," she +murmured. + +"It's Beaumaroy!" said Mary in triumph. + +"I don't wonder you couldn't remember that!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GENERAL REMEMBERS + + +Amongst many various, and no doubt useful, functions, Miss Delia Wall +performed that of gossip and newsagent-general to the village of +Inkston. A hard-featured, swarthy spinster of forty, with a roving, +inquisitive, yet not unkindly eye, she perambulated--or rather +percycled--the district, taking stock of every incident. Not a cat could +kitten or a dog have the mange without her privity; critics of her +mental activity went near to insinuating connivance. Naturally, +therefore, she was well acquainted with the new development at Tower +Cottage, although the isolated position of that dwelling made thorough +observation piquantly difficult. She laid her information before an +attentive, if not very respectful, audience gathered round the tea-table +at Old Place, the Naylors' handsome house on the outskirts of +Sprotsfield and on the far side of the heath from Inkston. She was +enjoying herself, although she was, as usual, a trifle distrustful of +the quality of Mr. Naylor's smile; it smacked of the satiric. "He looks +at you as if you were a specimen," she had once been heard to complain; +and, when she said "specimen," it was obviously beetles that she had in +mind. + +"Everybody knows old Mr. Saffron--by sight, I mean--and the woman who +does for him," she said. "There's never been anything remarkable about +_them_. He took his walk as regular as clock-work every afternoon, and +she bought just the same things every week; her books must have tallied +almost to a penny every month, Mrs. Naylor! I know it! And it was a very +rare thing indeed for Mr. Saffron to go to London, though I have known +him to be away once or twice; but very, very rarely!" She paused and +added dramatically, "Until the armistice!" + +"Full of ramifications, that event, Miss Wall. It affects even my +business." Mr. Naylor, though now withdrawn from an active share in its +conduct, was still interested in the large shipping firm from which he +had drawn his comfortable fortune. + +She looked at him suspiciously, as he put the ends of the slender white +fingers of his two hands together, and leant forward to listen--with +that smile of his and eyes faintly twinkling. But the problem was +seething in her brain; she had to go on. + +"A week after the armistice Mr. Saffron went to London by the 9.50. He +travelled first, Anna." + +"Did he, dear?" Mrs. Naylor, a stout and placid dame, was not yet +stirred to excitement. + +"He came down by the 4.11, and those two men with him. And they've been +there ever since!" + +"Two men, Delia! I've only seen one." + +"Oh yes, there's another! Sergeant Hooper they call him; a short +thickset man with a black moustache. He buys two bottles of rum every +week at the 'Green Man.' And--one minute, please, Mr. Naylor----" + +"I was only going to say that it looks to me as if this man Hooper were, +or had been, a soldier. What do you think?" + +"Never mind papa! Go on, Miss Wall. _I'm_ interested." This +encouragement came from Gertie Naylor, a pretty girl of seventeen who +was consuming much tea, bread, and honey. + +"And since then the old gentleman and this Mr. Beaumaroy go to town +regularly every week on Wednesdays! Now who are they, how did Mr. +Saffron get hold of them, and what are they doing here? I'm at a loss, +Anna." + +Apparently an _impasse_! And Mr. Naylor did not seem to assist matters +by asking whether Miss Wall had kept a constant eye on the Agony +Column. Mrs. Naylor took up her knitting and switched off to another +topic. + +"Dr. Arkroyd's friend, Delia dear! What a charming girl she looks!" + +"Friend, Anna? I didn't know that! A patient, I understand, anyhow. +She's taking Valentine's beef juice. Of course they _do_ give that in +drink cases, but I should be sorry to think----" + +"Drugs, more likely," Mr. Naylor suavely interposed. Then he rose from +his chair and began to pace slowly up and down the long room, looking at +his beautiful pictures, his beautiful china, his beautiful chairs, all +the beautiful things that were his. His family took no notice of this +roving up and down; it was a habit, and was tacitly accepted as meaning +that he had--for the moment--had enough of the company, and even of his +own sallies at its expense. + +"I've asked Dr. Arkroyd to bring her over--Miss Walford, I mean--the +first day it's fine enough for tennis," Mrs. Naylor pursued. There was a +hard court at Old Place, so that winter did not stop the game entirely. + +"What a name, too!" + +"Walford? It's quite a good name, Delia." + +"No, no, Anna! Beaumaroy, of course." Miss Wall was back at the larger +problem. + +"There's Alec's voice--he and the General are back from their golf. +Ring for another teapot, Gertie dear." + +The door opened; not Alec but the General came in, and closed the door +carefully behind him; it was obviously an act of precaution and not +merely a normal exercise of good manners. Then he walked up to his +hostess and said, "It's not my fault, Anna. Alec would do it, though I +shook my head at him, behind the fellow's back." + +"What do you mean, General?" cried the hostess. Mr. Naylor, for his +part, stopped roving. + +The door again! "Come in, Mr. Beaumaroy--here's tea." + +Mr. Beaumaroy obediently entered, in the wake of Captain Alec Naylor, +who duly presented him to Mrs. Naylor, adding that Beaumaroy had been +kind enough to make the fourth in a game with the General, the Rector of +Sprotsfield, and himself. "And he and the parson were too tough a nut +for us, weren't they, sir?" he added to the General. + +Besides being an excellent officer and a capital fellow, Alec Naylor was +also reputed to be one of the handsomest men in the Service; six feet +three, very straight, very fair, with features as regular as any +romantic hero of them all, and eyes as blue. The honourable limp that at +present marked his movements would, it was hoped, pass away. Even his +own family were often surprised into a new admiration of his physical +perfections, remarking, one to the other, how Alec took the shine out of +every other man in the room. + +There was no shine--no external obvious shine--to take out of Mr. +Beaumaroy--Miss Wall's puzzling, unaccounted-for Mr. Beaumaroy. The +light showed him now more clearly than when Mary Arkroyd met him on the +heath road, but perhaps thereby did him no service. His features, though +irregular, were not ugly or insignificant, but he wore a rather battered +aspect; there were deep lines running from the corners of his mouth, and +crowsfeet had started under the grey eyes which, in their turn, looked +more sceptical than ardent, rather mocking than eager. Yet when he +smiled, his face became not merely pleasant, but confidentially +pleasant; he seemed to smile especially to and for the person to whom he +was talking; and his voice was notably agreeable, soft and clear--the +voice of a high-bred man, but not exactly of a high-bred Englishman. +There was no accent definite enough to be called foreign, certainly not +to be assigned to any particular race; but there was an exotic touch +about his manner of speech suggesting that, even if not that of a +foreigner, it was shaped and coloured by the inflexions of foreign +tongues. The hue of his plentiful and curly hair, indistinguishable to +Mary and Cynthia, now stood revealed as neither black, nor red, nor +auburn, nor brown, nor golden, but just--and rather surprisingly--a +plain yellow, the colour of a cowslip or thereabouts. Altogether rather +a rum-looking fellow! This had been Alec Naylor's first remark when the +Rector of Sprotsfield pointed him out, as a possible fourth, at the golf +club, and the rough justice of the description could not be denied. He, +like Alec, bore his scars; the little finger of his right hand was +amputated down to the knuckle. + +Yet, after all this description--in particularity, if not otherwise, +worthy of a classic novelist--the thing still remains that most struck +observers. Mr. Hector Beaumaroy had an adorable candour of manner. He +answered questions with innocent readiness and pellucid sincerity. It +would be impossible to think him guilty of a lie; ungenerous to suspect +so much as a suppression of the truth. Even Mr. Naylor, hardened by +five-and-thirty years' experience of what sailors will blandly swear to +in collision cases, was struck with the open candour of his bearing. + +"Yes," he said. "Yes, Miss Wall, that's right, we go to town every +Wednesday. No particular reason why it should be Wednesday, but old +gentlemen somehow do better--don't you think so?--with method and +regular habits." + +"I'm sure you know what's best for Mr. Saffron," said Delia. "You've +known him a long time, haven't you?" + +Mr. Naylor drew a little nearer and listened. The General had put +himself into the corner--a remote corner of the room--and sat there with +an uneasy and rather glowering aspect. + +"Oh, no, no!" answered Beaumaroy. "A matter of weeks only. But the dear +old fellow seemed to take to me--a friend put us in touch originally. I +seem to be able to do just what he wants." + +"I hope your friend is not really ill--not seriously?" This time the +question was Mrs. Naylor's, not Miss Delia's. + +"His health is really not so bad, but"--he gave a glance round the +company, as though inviting their understanding--"he insists that he's +not the man he was." + +"Absurd!" smiled Naylor. "Not much older than I am, is he?" + +"Only just turned seventy, I believe. But the idea's very persistent." + +"Hypochondria!" snapped Miss Delia. + +"Not altogether. I'm afraid there is a little real heart trouble. Dr. +Irechester----" + +"Oh, with Dr. Irechester, dear Mr. Beaumaroy, you're all right!" + +Again Beaumaroy's glance--that glance of innocent appeal--ranged over +the company (except the General, out of its reach). He seemed troubled +and embarrassed. + +"A most accomplished man, evidently, and a friend of yours, of course. +But--well, there it is--a mere fancy, of course, but unhappily my old +friend doesn't take to him. He--he thinks that he's rather +inquisitorial. A doctor's duty, I suppose----" + +"Irechester's a sound man, a very sound man," said Mr. Naylor. "And, +after all, one can ask almost any question if one does it +tactfully--can't one, Miss Wall?" + +"As a matter of fact, he's only seen Mr. Saffron twice--he had a little +chill. But his manner, unfortunately, rather--er--alarmed----" + +Gertie Naylor, with the directness of youth, propounded a solution of +the difficulty. "If you don't like Dr. Irechester----" + +"Oh, it's not I who----" + +"Why not have Mary?" Gertie made her suggestion eagerly. She was very +fond of Mary, who, from the height of age, wisdom, and professional +dignity, had stooped to offer her an equal friendship. + +"She means Dr. Mary Arkroyd," Mrs. Naylor explained. + +"Yes, I know, Mrs. Naylor--I know about Dr. Arkroyd. In fact, I know her +by sight. But----" + +"Perhaps you don't believe in women doctors?" Alec suggested. + +"It's not that. I've no prejudices. But the responsibility is on me, and +I know very little of her; and--well, to change one's doctor--it's +rather invidious----" + +"Oh, as to that, Irechester's a sensible man; he's got as much work as +he wants, and as much money too. He won't resent an old man's fancy." + +"Well, I'd never thought of a change, but if you all suggest it----" +Somehow it did seem as if they all--and not merely youthful Gertie--had +suggested it. "But I should rather like to know Dr. Arkroyd first." + +"Come and meet her here; that's very simple. She often comes to tennis +and tea. We'll let you know the first time she's coming." + +Beaumaroy most cordially accepted the idea--and the invitation. "Any +afternoon I shall be delighted--except Wednesdays. Wednesdays are +sacred--aren't they, Miss Wall? London on Wednesdays for Mr. Saffron and +me--and the old brown bag!" He laughed in a quiet merriment. "That old +bag's been in a lot of places with me and has carried some queer +cargoes. Now it just goes to and fro, between here and town, with Mudie +books. Must have books, living so much alone as we do!" He had risen as +he spoke, and approached Mrs. Naylor to take leave. + +She gave him her hand very cordially. "I don't suppose Mr. Saffron cares +to meet people; but any spare time you have, Mr. Beaumaroy, we shall be +delighted to see you." + +Beaumaroy bowed as he thanked her, adding, "And I'm promised a chance of +meeting Dr. Arkroyd before long?" + +The promise was renewed, and the visitor took his leave, declining +Alec's offer to "run him home" in the car. "The car might startle my old +friend," he pleaded. Alec saw him off, and returned to find the General, +who had contrived to avoid more than a distant bow of farewell to +Beaumaroy, standing on the hearthrug, apparently in a state of some +agitation. + +The envious years had refused to Major-General Punnit, C.B.--he was a +distant cousin of Mrs. Naylor's--the privilege of serving his country in +the Great War. His career had lain mainly in India and was mostly behind +him even at the date of the South African War, in which, however, he had +done valuable work in one of the supply services. He was short, stout, +honest, brave, shrewd, obstinate, and as full of prejudices, religious, +political, and personal, as an egg is of meat. And all this time he had +been slowly and painfully recalling what his young friend Colonel Merman +(the Colonel was young only relatively to the General) had told him +about Hector Beaumaroy. The name had struck on his memory the moment the +Rector pronounced it, but it had taken him a long while to "place it" +accurately. However, now he had it pat; the conversation in the club +came back. He retailed it now to the company at Old Place. + +A pleasant fellow, Beaumaroy, socially a very agreeable fellow. And as +for courage, as brave as you like. Indeed he might have had letters +after his name save for the fact that he--the Colonel--would never +recommend a man unless his discipline was as good as his leading, and +his conduct at the base as praiseworthy as at the front. (Alec Naylor +nodded his handsome head in grave approval; his father looked a little +discontented, as though he were swallowing unpalatable, though +wholesome, food.) His whole idea--Beaumaroy's, that is--was to shield +offenders, to prevent the punishment fitting the crime, even to console +and countenance the wrongdoer. No sense of discipline, no moral +sense--the Colonel had gone as far as that. Impossible to promote or to +recommend for reward--almost impossible to keep. Of course, if he had +been caught young and put through the mill, it might have been +different--"it _might_"--the Colonel heavily underlined the +possibility--but he came from Heaven knew where, after a life spent +Heaven knew how. "And he seemed to know it himself," the Colonel had +said, thoughtfully rolling his port round in the glass. "Whenever I +wigged him, he offered to go--said he'd chuck his commission and +enlist--said he'd be happier in the ranks. But I was weak, I couldn't +bear to do it." After thus quoting his friend, the General added: "He +was weak--damned weak--and I told him so." + +"Of course he ought to have got rid of him," said Alec. "Still, sir, +there's nothing--er--disgraceful." + +"It seems hardly to have come to that," the General admitted +reluctantly. + +"It all rather makes me like him," Gertie affirmed courageously. + +"I think that, on the whole, we may venture to know him in times of +peace," Mr. Naylor summed up. + +"That's your look out," remarked the General. "I've warned you. You can +do as you like." + +Delia Wall had sat silent through the story. Now she spoke up and got +back to the real point: + +"There's nothing in all that to show how he comes to be at Mr. +Saffron's." + +The General shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, Saffron be hanged! He's not the +British Army," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MR. SAFFRON AT HOME + + +To put it plainly, Sergeant Hooper--he had been a sergeant for a brief +and precarious three weeks, but he used the title in civil life whenever +he safely could--and he could at Inkston--Sergeant Hooper was a +villainous-looking dog. Beaumaroy, fresh from the comely presences of +Old Place, unconscious of how the General had ripped up his character +and record, pleasantly nursing a little project concerning Dr. Mary +Arkroyd, had never been more forcibly struck with his protégé's +ill-favouredness than when he arrived home on this same evening, and the +Sergeant met him at the door. + +"By Gad, Sergeant," he observed pleasantly, "I don't think anybody could +be such a rascal as you look. It's that faith that carries me through." + +The Sergeant helped him off with his coat. "It's some people's +stock-in-trade," he remarked, "not to look a rascal like they really +are, sir." The "sir" stuck--out of pure habit; it carried no real +implication of respect. + +"Meaning me!" laughed Beaumaroy. "How is the old man to-night?" + +"Quiet enough. He's in the Tower there--been there an hour or more." + +The cottage door opened on to a narrow passage, with a staircase on one +side, and on the other a door leading to a small square parlour, +cheerfully if cheaply furnished, and well lit by an oil lamp. A fire +blazed on the hearth, and Beaumaroy sank into a "saddle-bag" arm-chair +beside it, with a sigh of comfort. The Sergeant had jerked his head +towards another door, on the right of the fireplace; it led to the +Tower. Beaumaroy's eyes settled on it. + +"An hour or more, has he? Have you heard anything?" + +"He was making a speech a little while back, that's all." + +"No more complaints of palpitations, or anything of that sort?" + +"Not as I've heard. But he never says much to me. Mrs. Wiles gets the +benefit of his symptoms mostly." + +"You're not sympathetic, perhaps." + +During the talk Hooper had been to a cupboard and mixed a glass of +whisky and soda. He brought it to Beaumaroy and put it on a small table +by him. Beaumaroy regarded his squat paunchy figure, red face, small +eyes (a squint in one of them), and bulbous nose with a patient and +benign toleration. + +"Since you can't expect, Sergeant, to prepossess the Judge and Jury in +your favour, the instant you make your appearance in the box----" + +"Here, what are you on to, sir?" + +"It's the more important for you to have it clearly in your mind that we +are labouring in the cause of humanity, freedom, and justice. Exactly +like the Allies in the late war, you know, Sergeant. Keep that in your +mind--clinch it! He hasn't wanted you to do anything particular +to-night--or asked for me?" + +"No, sir. He's happy with--with what you call his playthings." + +"What are they but playthings?" asked Beaumaroy, tilting his glass to +his lips with a smile perhaps a little wry. + +"Only I wish as you wouldn't talk about judges and juries," the Sergeant +complained. + +"I really don't know whether it's a civil or a criminal matter, or both, +or neither," Beaumaroy admitted candidly. "But what we do know, +Sergeant, is that it provides us with excellent billets and rations. +Moreover--a thing that you certainly will not appreciate--it gratifies +my taste for the mysterious." + +"I hope there's a bit more coming from it than that," said the +Sergeant. "That is, if we stick together faithful, sir." + +"Oh, we shall! One thing puzzles me about you, Sergeant. I don't think +I've mentioned it before. Sometimes you speak almost like an educated +man; at others your speech is--well, illiterate." + +"Well, sir, it's a sort of mixture of my mother--she was class--the +blighter who come after my father, and the board school----" + +"Of course! What they call the educational ladder! That explains it. By +the way, I'm thinking of changing our doctor." + +"Good job too. I 'ate that Irechester. Stares at you, that chap does." + +"Does he stare at your eyes?" asked Beaumaroy thoughtfully. + +"I don't know that he does at _my_ eyes particularly. Nothing wrong with +'em, is there?" The Sergeant sounded rather truculent. + +"Never mind that; but I fancied he stared at Mr. Saffron's. And I've +read somewhere, in some book or other, that doctors can tell, or guess, +by the eyes----Well, that's only an idea. How does a lady doctor appeal +to you, Sergeant?" + +"I should be shy," said the Sergeant, grinning. + +"Vulgar! Vulgar!" Beaumaroy murmured. + +"That Dr. Mary Arkroyd?" + +"I had thought of her." + +"She ought to be fair easy to kid. You 'ave notions sometimes, sir." + +Beaumaroy stretched out his legs--debonnair, well-rounded legs--to the +seducing blaze of oak logs. + +"I haven't really a care in the world," he said. + +The Sergeant's reply--or comment--had a disconcerting ring. "And you're +sure of 'eaven? That's what the bloke always says to the 'angman." + +"I've no intention of being a murderer, Sergeant." Beaumaroy's eyebrows +were raised in gentle protest. + +"Once you're in with a job, you never know," his retainer observed +darkly. + +Beaumaroy laughed. "Oh, go to the devil!--and mix me another whisky." +Yet a vague uneasiness showed itself on his face; he looked across the +room at the evil-shaped man handling the bottles in the cupboard. He +made one queer restless movement of his arms--as though to free himself. +Then, in a moment, he sprang from his chair, a glad kindly smile +illuminating his face; he bowed in a very courtly fashion, exclaiming, +"Ah, here you are, sir? And all well, I hope?" + +Mr. Saffron had entered from the door leading to the Tower, carefully +closing it after him. Hooper's hand went up to his forehead in the ghost +of a military salute, but a sneering smile persisted on his lips. The +only notice Mr. Saffron took of him was a jerk of the head towards the +passage, an abrupt and ungracious dismissal, which, however, the +Sergeant silently accepted and stumped out. The greeting reserved for +Beaumaroy was vastly different. Beaumaroy's own cordiality was more than +reciprocated. It seemed impossible to doubt that a genuine affection +existed between the elder and the younger man, though the latter had not +thought fit to mention the fact to Sergeant Hooper. + +"A tiring day, my dear Hector, very tiring. I've transacted a lot of +business. But never mind that, it will keep. What of your doings?" + +Having sat the old man in the big chair by the fire, Beaumaroy sauntered +across to the door of the Tower, locked it, and put the key in his +pocket. Then he returned to the fire, and, standing in front of it, gave +a lively and detailed account of his visit to Old Place. + +"They appear to be pleasant people, very pleasant. I should like to know +them, if it was not desirable for me to live an entirely secluded life." +Mr. Saffron's speech was very distinct and clean-cut, rather rapid, high +in tone, but not disagreeable. "You make pure fun of this Miss Wall, as +you do of so many things, Hector, but----" he smiled up at +Beaumaroy--"inquisitiveness is not our favourite sin just now!" + +"She's so indiscriminately inquisitive that it's a thousand to one +against her really finding out anything of importance, sir." Beaumaroy +sometimes addressed his employer as "Mr. Saffron," but much more +commonly he used the respectful "sir." "I think I'm equal to putting +Miss Delia Wall off." + +"Still she noticed our weekly journeys!" + +"Half Inkston goes to town every day, sir--and the rest three times, +twice, or once a week. I called her particular attention to the bag, and +told her it was for books from Mudie's!" + +"Positive statements like that are a mistake." Mr. Saffron spoke with a +sudden sharpness, in pointed rebuke. "If I form a right idea of that +woman, she's quite capable of going to Mudie's to ask about us." + +"By Jove, you're right, sir, and I was wrong. We'd better go and take +out a subscription to-morrow; she'll hardly go so far as to ask the date +we started it." + +"Yes, let that be done. And--remember--no unnecessary talk." His tone +grew milder, as though he were mollified by Beaumaroy's ready submission +to his reproof. "We have some places to call at to-morrow, have we?" + +"They said they'd have some useful addresses ready for us, sir. I'm +afraid, though, that we're exhausting the most obvious sources." + +"Still, I hope for a few more good consignments. I suppose you remain +confident that the Sergeant has no suspicions as regards that particular +aspect of the matter?" + +"I'm sure of it--up to the present. Of course there might be an +accident, but with him and Mrs. Wiles both off the premises at night, +it's hardly likely; and I never let the bag out of my sight while it's +in the room with them--hardly out of my hand." + +"I should like to trust him, but it's hardly fair to put such a strain +on his loyalty." + +"Much safer not, sir, as long as we're not driven to it. After all, +though I believe the fellow is out to redeem his character, his isn't an +unblemished record." + +"But the work--the physical labour--entailed on you, Hector!" + +"Make yourself easy about that, sir. I'm as strong as a horse. The +work's good for me. Remember I've had four years' service." + +Mr. Saffron smiled pensively. "It would have been funny if we'd +met--over there, you and I!" + +"It would, sir," laughed Beaumaroy. "But that could hardly have happened +without some very curious accident." + +The old man harked back. "Yes, a few more good consignments, and we can +think in earnest of your start." He was warming his hands--thin +yellowish hands--at the fire now, and his gaze was directed into it. +Looking down on him, Beaumaroy allowed a smile to appear on his lips--a +queer smile, which seemed to be compounded of affection, pity, and +amusement. + +"The difficulties there remain considerable for the present," he +remarked. + +"They must be overcome." Once again the old man's voice became sharp and +even dictatorial. + +"They shall be, sir--depend on it." Beaumaroy's air was suddenly +confident, almost braggart. Mr. Saffron nodded approvingly. "But, +anyhow, I can't very well start till favourable news comes from----" + +"Hush!" There was a knock on the door. + +"Mrs. Wiles--to lay the table, I suppose." + +"Yes! Come in!" He added hastily to Beaumaroy, in an undertone, "Yes, we +must wait for that." + +Mrs. Wiles entered as he spoke. She was a colourless, negative kind of a +woman, fair, fat, flabby, and forty or thereabouts. She had been the +ill-used slave of a local carpenter, now deceased by reason of +over-drinking; her nature was to be the slave of the nearest male +creature, not from affection (her affections were anæmic), but rather, +as it seemed, from an instinctive desire to shuffle off from herself +any responsibility. But at all events she was entirely free from Miss +Delia Wall's proclivity. + +Mr. Saffron rose. "I'll go and wash my hands. We'll dine just as we are, +Hector." Beaumaroy opened the door for him; he acknowledged the +attention with a little nod, and passed out to the staircase in the +narrow passage. Beaumaroy appeared to consider himself absolved from any +preparations, for he returned to the big chair and, sinking into it, lit +another cigarette. Meanwhile Mrs. Wiles laid the table, and presently +Sergeant Hooper appeared with a bottle of golden-tinted wine. + +"That, at least, is the real stuff," thought Beaumaroy, as he eyed it in +pleasurable anticipation. "Where the dear old man got it, I don't know; +but in itself it's almost worth all the racket." + +And really, in its present stages, so far as its present developments +went, the "racket" pleased him. It amused his active brain, besides (as +he had said to Mr. Saffron) exercising his active body, though certainly +in a rather grotesque and bizarre fashion. The attraction of it went +deeper than that. It appealed to some of those tendencies and impulses +of his character which had earned such heavy censure from Major-General +Punnit and had produced so grave an expression on Captain Alec's +handsome face--without, however, being, even in that officer's exacting +judgment, disgraceful. And, finally, there was the lure of unexplored +possibilities--not only material and external, but psychological; not +only touching what others might do or what might happen to them, but +raising also speculation as to what he might do, or what might happen to +him at his own hands; for example, how far he would flout authority, +defy the usual, and deny the accepted. The love of rebellion, of making +foolish the wisdom of the wise, of hampering the orderly and inexorable +treatment of people just as, according to the best modern lights, they +ought to be treated--this lawless love was strong in Beaumaroy. Not as a +principle; it was the stronger for being an instinct, a wayward instinct +that might carry him--he scarce knew where. + +Mr. Saffron came back, greeted again by Beaumaroy's courtly bow and +Hooper's vaguely reminiscent but slovenly military salute. The pair sat +down to a homely beefsteak; but the golden-tinted wine gurgled into +their glasses. But, before they fell to, there was a little incident. A +sudden, but fierce, anger seized old Mr. Saffron. In his harshest tones +he rapped out at the Sergeant, "My knife! You careless scoundrel, you +haven't given me my knife!" + +Beaumaroy sprang to his feet with a muttered exclamation: "It's all my +fault, sir. I forgot to give it to Hooper. I always lock it up when I +go out." He went to a little oak sideboard and unlocked a drawer, then +came back to Mr. Saffron's side. "Here it is, and I humbly apologize." + +"Very good! Very good!" said the old man testily, as he took the +implement. + +"Ain't anybody going to apologize to me?" asked Hooper, scowling. + +"Oh, get out, Sergeant!" said Beaumaroy good-naturedly. "We can't bother +about your finer feelings." He glanced anxiously at Mr. Saffron. "All +right now, aren't you, sir?" he inquired. + +Mr. Saffron drank his glass of wine. "I am perhaps too sensitive to any +kind of inattention; but it's not wholly unnatural in my position, +Hector." + +"We both desire to be attentive and respectful, sir. Don't we, Hooper?" + +"Oh my, yes!" grinned the Sergeant, showing his very ugly teeth. "It's +only owing that we 'aven't quite been brought up in royal pallises." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE + + +Dr. Irechester was a man of considerable attainments and an active, +though not very persevering, intellect. He was widely read both in +professional and general literature, but had shrunk from the arduous +path of specialism. And he shrank even more from the drudgery of his +calling. He had private means, inherited in middle life; his wife had a +respectable portion; there was, then, nothing in his circumstances to +thwart his tastes and tendencies. He had soon come to see in the late +Dr. Evans a means of relief rather than a threat of rivalry; even more +easily he slipped into the same way of regarding Mary Arkroyd, helped +thereto by a lingering feeling that, after all and in spite of all, when +it came to really serious cases, a woman could not, at best, play more +than second fiddle. So, as has been seen, he patronized and encouraged +Mary; he told himself that, when she had thoroughly proved her +capacity--within the limits which he ascribed to it--to take her into +partnership would not be a bad arrangement. True, he could pretty well +choose his patients now; but as senior partner he would be able to do it +completely. It was wellnigh inconceivable that, for example, the +Naylors--great friends--should ever leave him; but he would like to be +quite secure of the pick of new patients, some of whom might, through +ignorance or whim, call in Mary. There was old Saffron, for instance. He +was, in Irechester's private opinion--or, perhaps it should be said, in +his private suspicions--an interesting case; yet, just for that reason, +unreliable, and evidently ready to take offence. It was because of cases +of that kind that he contemplated offering partnership to Mary; he would +both be sure of keeping them and able to devote himself to them. + +But his wife laughed at Mary--or at that development of the feminist +movement which had produced her and so many other more startling +phenomena. The doctor was fond of his wife--a sprightly, would-be +fashionable, still very pretty woman. But her laughter, and the opinion +it represented, were to him the merest crackling of thorns under a pot. + +The fine afternoon had come--a few days before Christmas--and he sat, +side by side with Mr. Naylor, both warmly wrapped in coats and rugs, +watching the lawn tennis at Old Place. Doctor Mary and Beaumaroy were +playing together, the latter accustoming himself to a finger short in +gripping his racquet, against Cynthia and Captain Alec. The Captain +could not cover the court yet in his old fashion, but his height and +reach made him formidable at the net, and Cynthia was very active. Ten +days of Inkston air had made a vast difference to Cynthia. And something +else was helping. It required no common loyalty to lost causes and +ruined ideals--it is surely not harsh to indicate Captain Cranster by +these terms?--to resist Alec Naylor. In fact he had almost taken +Cynthia's breath away at their first meeting; she thought that she had +never seen anything quite so magnificent, or all round and from all +points of view--so romantic; his stature, handsomeness, limp, renown. +Who can be surprised at it? Moreover, he was modest and simple, and no +fool within the bounds of his experience. + +"She seems a nice little girl, that, and uncommonly pretty," Naylor +remarked. + +"Yes, but he's a queer fish, I fancy," the Doctor answered, also rather +absently. Their minds were not running on parallel lines. + +"My boy a queer fish?" Naylor expostulated humorously. + +Irechester smiled; his lips shut close and tight, his smile was quick +but narrow. "You're match-making. I was diagnosing," he said. + +Naylor apologized. "I've a desperate instinct to fit all these young +fellows up with mates as soon as possible. Isn't it only fair?" + +"And also extremely expedient. But it's the sort of thing you can leave +to them, can't you?" + +"As to Beaumaroy--I suppose you meant him, not Alec--I think you must +have been talking to old Tom Punnit--or, rather, hearing him talk." + +"Punnit's general view is sound enough, I think, as to the man's +characteristics; but he doesn't appreciate his cunning." + +"Cunning?" Naylor was openly astonished. "He doesn't strike me as a +cunning man, not in the least." + +"Possibly--possibly, I say--not in his ends, but in his means and +expedients. That's my view. I just put it on record, Naylor. I never +like talking too much about my cases." + +"Beaumaroy's not your patient, is he?" + +"His employer--I suppose he's his employer--Saffron is. Well, I thought +it advisable to see Saffron alone. I tried to. Saffron was reluctant, +this man here openly against it. Next time I shall insist. Because I +think--mind you, at present I no more than think--that there's more in +Saffron's case than meets the eye." + +Naylor glanced at him, smiling. "You fellows are always starting hares," +he said. + +"Game and set!" cried Captain Alec, and--to his partner--"Thank you very +much for carrying a cripple." + +But Irechester's attention remained fixed on Beaumaroy--and consequently +on Doctor Mary; for the partners did not separate at the end of their +game, but, after putting on their coats, began to walk up and down +together on the other side of the court, in animated conversation, +though Beaumaroy did most of the talking, Mary listening in her usual +grave and composed manner. Now and then a word or two reached +Irechester's ears--old Naylor seemed to have fallen into a reverie over +his cigar--and it must be confessed that he took no pains not to +overhear. Once at least he plainly heard "Saffron" from Beaumaroy; he +thought that the same lips spoke his own name, and he was sure that +Doctor Mary's did. Beaumaroy was speaking rather urgently, and making +gestures with his hands; it seemed as though he were appealing to his +companion in some difficulty or perplexity. Irechester's mouth was +severely compressed and his glance suspicious as he watched. + +The scene was ended by Gertie Naylor calling these laggards in to tea, +to which meal the rest of the company had already betaken itself. + +At the tea-table they found General Punnit discoursing on war, and +giving "idealists" what idealists usually get. The General believed in +war; he pressed the biological argument, did not flinch when Mr. Naylor +dubbed him the "British Bernhardi," and invoked the support of "these +medical gentlemen" (this with a smile at Doctor Mary's expense) for his +point of view. War tested, proved, braced, hardened; it was nature's +crucible; it was the antidote to softness and sentimentality; it was the +vindication of the strong, the elimination of the weak. + +"I suppose there's a lot in all that, sir," said Alec Naylor, "but I +don't think the effect on one's character is always what you say. I +think I've come out of this awful business a good deal softer than I +went in." He laughed in an apologetic way. "More--more sentimental, if +you like--with more feeling, don't you know, for human life, and +suffering, and so on. I've seen a great many men killed, but the sight +hasn't made me any more ready to kill men. In fact, quite the reverse." +He smiled again. "Really sometimes, for a row of pins, I'd have turned +conscientious objector." + +Mrs. Naylor looked apprehensively at the General: would he explode? No, +he took it quite quietly. "You're a man who can afford to say it, +Alec," he remarked, with a nod that was almost approving. + +Naylor looked affectionately at his son and turned to Beaumaroy. "And +what's the war done to you?" he asked. And this question did draw from +the General, if not an explosion, at least a rather contemptuous smile: +Beaumaroy had earned no right to express opinions! + +But express one he did, and with his habitual air of candour. "I believe +it's destroyed every scruple I ever had! + +"Mr. Beaumaroy!" exclaimed his hostess, scandalized; while the two +girls, Cynthia and Gertie, laughed. + +"I mean it. Can you see human life treated as dirt--absolutely as cheap +as dirt--for three years, and come out thinking it worth anything? Can +you fight for your own hand, right or wrong? Oh, yes, right or wrong, in +the end, and it's no good blinking it. Can you do that for three years +in war, and then hesitate to fight for your own hand, right or wrong, in +peace? Who really cares for right or wrong, anyhow?" + +A pause ensued--rather an uncomfortable pause. There was a raw sincerity +in Beaumaroy's utterance that made it a challenge. + +"I honestly think we did care about the rights and wrongs--we in +England," said Naylor. + +"That was certainly so at the beginning," Irechester agreed. + +Beaumaroy took him up smartly. "Aye, at the beginning. But what about +when our blood got up? What then? Would we, in our hearts, rather have +been right and got a licking, or wrong and given one?" + +"A searching question!" mused old Naylor. "What say you, Tom Punnit?" + +"It never occurred to me to put the question," the General answered +brusquely. + +"May I ask why not, sir?" said Beaumaroy respectfully. + +"Because I believed in God. I knew that we were right, and I knew that +we should win." + +"Are we in theology now, or still in biology?" asked Irechester, rather +acidly. + +"You're getting out of my depth anyhow," smiled Mrs. Naylor. "And I'm +sure the girls must be bewildered." + +"Mamma, I've done biology!" + +"And many people think they've done theology!" chuckled Naylor. "Done it +completely!" + +"I've raised a pretty argument!" said Beaumaroy, smiling. "I'm sorry! I +only meant to answer your question about the effect the whole thing has +had on myself." + +"Even your answer to that was pretty startling, Mr. Beaumaroy," said +Doctor Mary, smiling too. "You gave us to understand that it had +obliterated for you all distinctions of right and wrong, didn't you?" + +"Did I go as far as that?" he laughed. "Then I'm open to the remark that +they can't have been very strong at first." + +"Now don't destroy the general interest of your thesis," Naylor +implored. "It's quite likely that yours is a case as common as Alec's, +or even commoner. 'A brutal and licentious soldiery'--isn't that a +classic phrase in our histories? All the same, I fancy Mr. Beaumaroy +does himself less than justice." He laughed. "We shall be able to judge +of that when we know him better." + +"At all events, Miss Gertie, look out that I don't fake the score at +tennis!" said Beaumaroy. + +"A man might be capable of murder, but not capable of that," said Alec. + +"A truly British sentiment!" cried his father. "Tom, we have got back to +the national ideals." + +The discussion ended in laughter, and the talk turned to lighter +matters, but, as Mary Arkroyd drove Cynthia home across the heath, her +thoughts returned to it. The two men--the two soldiers--seemed to have +given an authentic account of what their experience had done to them. +Both, as she saw the case, had been moved to pity, horror, and +indignation that such things should be done, or should have to be done, +in the world. After that point came the divergence. The higher nature +had been raised, the lower debased; Alec Naylor's sympathies had been +sharpened and sensitized; Beaumaroy's blunted. Where the one had found +ideals and incentives, the other found despair--a despair that issued in +excuses and denied high standards. And the finer mind belonged to the +finer soldier; that she knew, for Gertie had told her General Punnit's +story, and, however much she might discount it as the tale of an elderly +martinet, yet it stood for something--for something that could never be +attributed to Alec Naylor. + +And yet--for her mind travelled back to her earlier talk by the +tennis-court--Beaumaroy had a conscience, had feelings. He was fond of +old Mr. Saffron; he felt a responsibility for him--felt it, indeed, +keenly. Or was he, under all that seeming openness, a consummate +hypocrite? Did he value Mr. Saffron only as a milch cow--the doting +giver of a large salary? Was his only desire to humour him, keep him in +good health and temper, and use him to his own profit? A puzzling +man--but, at all events, cutting a poor figure beside Alec Naylor, about +whom there could circle no clouds of doubt. Doctor Mary's learning and +gravity did not prevent her from drawing a very heroic and rather +romantic figure of Captain Alec--notwithstanding the fact that she +sometimes found him rather hard to talk to. + +She felt Cynthia's arm steal round her waist, and Cynthia said softly, +"I did enjoy my afternoon. Can we go again soon, Mary?" + +Mary glanced round at her. Cynthia laughed and blushed. "Isn't he +splendid?" Cynthia murmured. "But I don't like Mr. Beaumaroy at all, do +you?" + +"I say yes to the first question, but I'm not quite ready to answer the +second," said Mary with a laugh. + + * * * * * + +Three days later, on Christmas Eve, one whom Jeanne, who caught sight of +him in the hall, described as being all there was possible of ugliness, +delivered (with a request for an immediate answer) the following note +for Mary Arkroyd: + + "DEAR DR. ARKROYD, + + Mr. Saffron is unwell, and I have insisted with him that he must + see a doctor. So much he has yielded--after a fight! But nothing + will induce him to see Dr. Irechester again. On this point I tried + to reason with him, but in vain. He is obstinate and resolved. I am + afraid that I am putting you in a difficult and disagreeable + position, but it seems to me that I have no alternative but to ask + you to call on him professionally. I hope that Dr. Irechester will + not be hurt by a whim which is, no doubt, itself merely a symptom + of disordered nerves, for Dr. Irechester has been most attentive, + and very successful hitherto in dealing with the dear old + gentleman. But my first duty is to Mr. Saffron. If it will ease + matters at all, pray hold yourself at liberty to show this note to + Dr. Irechester. May I beg you to be kind enough to call at your + earliest convenience, though it is, alas, a rough evening to ask + you to come out? + + Yours very faithfully, + + HECTOR BEAUMAROY" + +"How very awkward!" exclaimed Mary. She had prided herself on a rigorous +abstention from "poaching"; she fancied that men were very ready to +accuse women of not "playing the game" and had been resolved to give no +colour to such an accusation. "Mr. Saffron has sent for +me--professionally. He's ill, it seems," she said to Cynthia. + +"Why shouldn't he?" + +"He's a patient of Dr. Irechester's." + +"But people often change their doctors, don't they? He thinks you're +cleverer, I suppose, and I expect you are, really." + +There was no use in expounding professional etiquette to Cynthia. Mary +had to decide the point for herself--and quickly; the old man might be +seriously ill. Beaumaroy had said, at the Naylors', that his attacks +were sometimes alarming. + +Suddenly she recollected that he had also seemed to hint that they were +more alarming than Irechester appeared to appreciate; she had not taken +much notice of that hint at the time, but now it recurred to her very +distinctly. There was no suggestion of the sort in Beaumaroy's letter. +Beaumaroy had written a letter that could be shown to Irechester! Was +that dishonesty, or only a pardonable diplomacy? + +"I suppose I must go--and explain to Dr. Irechester afterwards." She +rang the bell to recall the maid, and gave her answer. "Say I will be +round as soon as possible. Is the messenger walking?" + +"He's got a bicycle, Miss." + +"All right. I shall be there almost as soon as he is." + +She seemed to have no alternative, just as Beaumaroy had none. Yet while +she put on her mackintosh--it was very wet and misty--got out her car, +and lit her lamps, her face was still fretful and her mind disturbed. +For now--as she looked back on it--Beaumaroy's conversation with her at +Old Place seemed just a prelude to this summons, and meant to prepare +her for it. Perhaps that too was pardonable diplomacy, and no reference +to it could be expected in a letter which she was at liberty to show to +Dr. Irechester. She wondered, uncomfortably, how Irechester would take +it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT + + +As Mary brought her car to a stand at the gate of the little front +garden of Tower Cottage, she saw, through the mist, Beaumaroy's +corrugated face; he was standing in the doorway, and the light in the +passage revealed it. It seemed to her to wear a triumphant impish look, +but this vanished as he advanced to meet her, relieved her of the neat +black handbag which she always carried with her on her visits, and +suggested gravely that she should at once go upstairs and see her +patient. + +"He's quieter now," he said. "The mere news that you were coming had a +soothing effect. Let me show you the way." He led her upstairs and into +a small room on the first floor, nakedly furnished with necessities, but +with a cheery fire blazing in the grate. + +Old Mr. Saffron lay in bed, propped up by pillows. His silver hair +strayed from under a nightcap; he wore a light blue bedroom jacket; its +colour matched that of his restless eyes; his arms were under the +clothes from the elbows down. He was rather flushed, but did not look +seriously ill, and greeted Doctor Mary with dignified composure. + +"I'll see Dr. Arkroyd alone, Hector." Beaumaroy gave the slightest +little jerk of his head, and the old man added quickly, "I am sure of +myself, quite sure." + +The phrase sounded rather an odd one to Mary, but Beaumaroy accepted the +assurance with a nod. "All right, I'll wait downstairs, sir. I hope +you'll bring me a good account of him, Doctor." So he left Mary to make +her examination; going downstairs, he shook his head once, pursed up his +lips, and then smiled doubtfully, as a man may do when he has made up +his mind to take a chance. + +When Mary rejoined him, she asked for pen and paper, wrote a +prescription, and requested that Beaumaroy's man should take it to the +chemist's. He went out to give it to the Sergeant, and, when he came +back, found her seated in the big chair by the fire. + +"The present little attack is nothing, Mr. Beaumaroy," she said. +"Stomachic--with a little fever; if he takes what I've prescribed, he +ought to be all right in the morning. But I suppose you know that there +is valvular disease--quite definite? Didn't Dr. Irechester tell you?" + +"Yes; but he said there was no particular--no immediate danger." + +"If he's kept quiet and free from worry. Didn't he advise that?" + +"Yes," Beaumaroy admitted, "he did. That's the only thing you find wrong +with him, Doctor?" + +Beaumaroy was standing on the far side of the table, his finger-tips +resting lightly on it. He looked across at Mary with eyes candidly +inquiring. + +"I've found nothing else so far. I suppose he's got nothing to worry +him?" + +"Not really, I think. He fusses a bit about his affairs." He smiled. "We +go to London every week to fuss about his affairs; he's always changing +his investments, taking his money out of one thing and putting it in +another, you know. Old people get like that sometimes, don't they? I'm a +novice at that kind of thing, never having had any money to play with; +but I'm bound to say that he seems to know very well what he's about." + +"Do you know anything of his history or his people? Has he any +relations?" + +"I know very little. I don't think he has any--any real relations, so to +speak. There are, I believe, some cousins, distant cousins, whom he +hates. In fact, a lonely old bachelor, Dr. Arkroyd." + +Mary gave a little laugh and became less professional. "He's rather an +old dear! He uses funny stately phrases. He said I might speak quite +openly to you, as you were closely attached to his person!" + +"Sounds rather like a newspaper, doesn't it? He does talk like that +sometimes." Beaumaroy moved round the table, came close to the fire, and +stood there, smiling down at Mary. + +"He's very fond of you, I think," she went on. + +"He reposes entire confidence in me," said Beaumaroy, with a touch of +assumed pompousness. + +"Those were his very words!" cried Mary, laughing again. "And he said it +just in that way! How clever of you to guess!" + +"Not so very. He says it to me six times a week." + +Mary had risen, about to take her leave, but to her surprise Beaumaroy +went on quickly, with one of his confidential smiles, "And now I'm going +to show you that I have the utmost confidence in you. Please sit down +again, Dr. Arkroyd. The matter concerns your patient just as much as +myself, or I wouldn't trouble you with it--at any rate, I shouldn't +venture to, so early in our acquaintance. I want you to consider +yourself as Mr. Saffron's medical adviser, and--also--to try to imagine +yourself my friend." + +"I've every inclination to be your friend, but I hardly know you, Mr. +Beaumaroy." + +"And feel a few doubts about me? From what you've heard from myself--and +perhaps from others?" + +The wind swished outside; save for that, the little room seemed very +still. The professional character of the interview did not save it, for +Mary Arkroyd, from a sudden and rather unwelcome sense of intimacy--of +an intimacy thrust upon her, though not so much by her companion as by +circumstances. She answered rather stiffly, "Perhaps I have some +doubts." + +"You detect--very acutely--that I have a great influence over Mr. +Saffron. You ask--very properly--whether he has relations. I think you +threw out a feeler about his money affairs--whether he had anything to +worry about was your phrase, wasn't it? Am I misinterpreting what was in +your mind?" + +As he spoke, he offered her a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece. +She took one and lit it at the top of the lamp-chimney; then she sat +down again in the big chair; she had not accepted his earlier invitation +to resume her seat. + +"It was proper for me to put those questions, Mr. Beaumaroy. Mr. +Saffron is not a sound man, and he's old. In normal conditions his +relations should at least be warned of the position." + +"Exactly," Beaumaroy assented, with an appearance of eagerness. "But he +hates them. Any suggestion that they have any sort of claim on him +raises strong resentment in him. I've known old men--old monied +men--like that before, and no doubt you have. Well now, you'll begin to +see the difficulty of my position. I'll put the case to you quite +bluntly. Suppose Mr. Saffron, having this liking for me, this confidence +in me, living here with me alone--except for servants; being, as one +might say, exposed to my influence; suppose he took it into his head to +make a will in my favour, to leave me all his money. It's quite a +considerable sum, so far as our Wednesday doings enable me to judge. +Suppose that happened, how should I stand in your opinion, Dr. Arkroyd? +But wait a moment still. Suppose that my career has not been very--well, +resplendent; that my army record is only so-so; that I've devoted myself +to him with remarkable assiduity, as in fact I have; that I might be +called, quite plausibly, an adventurer. Well, propounding that will, how +should I stand before the world and, if necessary" (he shrugged his +shoulders), "the Court?" + +Mary sat silent for a moment or two. Beaumaroy knelt down by the fire, +rearranged the logs of wood which were smouldering there, and put on a +couple more. From that position, looking into the grate, he added, "And +the change of doctors? It was he, of course, who insisted on it, but I +can see a clever lawyer using that against me too. Can't you, Dr. +Arkroyd?" + +"I'm sure I wish you hadn't had to make the change!" exclaimed Mary. + +"So do I; though, mind you, I'm not pretending that Irechester is a +favourite of mine, any more than he is of my old friend's. Still--there +it is. I've no right, perhaps, to press my question, but your opinion +would be of real value to me." + +"I see no reason to think that he's not quite competent to make a will," +said Doctor Mary. "And no real reason why he shouldn't prefer you to +distant relations whom he dislikes." + +"Ah, no real reason; that's what you say! You mean that people would +impute----?" + +Mary Arkroyd had her limitations--of experience, of knowledge, of +intuition. But she did not lack courage. + +"I have given you my professional opinion. It is that, so far as I see, +Mr. Saffron is of perfectly sound understanding, and capable of making a +valid will. You did me the honour----" + +"No, no!" he interrupted in a low but rather strangely vehement +protest. "I begged the favour----" + +"As you like! The favour, then, of my opinion as your friend, as well as +my view as Mr. Saffron's doctor." + +Beaumaroy did not rise from his knees, but turned his face towards her; +the logs had blazed up, and his eyes looked curiously bright in the +glare--themselves, as it were, afire. + +"In my opinion a man of sensitive honour would prefer that that will +should not be made, Mr. Beaumaroy," said Mary steadily. + +Beaumaroy appeared to consider. "I'm a bit posed by that point of view, +Dr. Arkroyd," he said at last. "Either the old man's sane--_compos +mentis_, don't you call it?--or he isn't. If he is----" + +"I know. But I feel that way about it." + +"You'd have to give evidence for me!" He raised his brows and smiled at +her. + +"There can be undue influence without actual want of mental competence, +I think." + +"I don't know whether my influence is undue. I believe I'm the only +creature alive who cares twopence for the poor old gentleman." + +"I know! I know! Mr. Beaumaroy, your position is very difficult. I see +that. It really is. But--would you take the money for yourself? Aren't +you--well, rather in the position of a trustee?" + +"Who for? The hated cousins? What's the reason in that?" + +"They may be very good people really. Old men take fancies, as you said +yourself. And they may have built on----" + +"Stepping into a dead man's shoes? I dare say. Why mayn't I build on it +too? Why not my hand against the other fellow's?" + +"That's what you learnt from the war! You said so--at Old Place. Captain +Naylor said something different." + +"Suppose Alec Naylor and I--a hero and a damaged article----" he smiled +at Mary, and she smiled back with a sudden enjoyment of the humorous yet +bitter tang in his voice--"loved the same woman--and I had a chance of +her. Am I to give it up?" + +"Really we're getting a long way from medicine, Mr. Beaumaroy!" + +"Oh, you're a general practitioner! Wise on all subjects under heaven! +Conceive yourself hesitating between him and me----" + +Mary laughed frankly. "How absurd you are! If you must go on talking, +talk seriously." + +"But why am I absurd?" + +"Because, if I were a marrying woman--which I'm not--I shouldn't +hesitate between you and Captain Naylor, not for a minute." + +"You'd jump at me?" + +Laughing again--his eyes had now a schoolboy merriment in them--Mary +rose from the big chair. "At him, if I'm not being impolite, Mr. +Beaumaroy." + +They stood face to face. For the first time for several years--Mary's +girlhood had not been altogether empty of sentimental episodes--she +blushed under a man's glance--because it was a man's. At this event, of +which she was acutely conscious and at which she was intensely +irritated, she drew herself up, with an attempt to return to her +strictly professional manner. + +"I don't find you the least impolite, Dr. Arkroyd," said Beaumaroy. + +It was impudent, yet gay, dexterous, and elusive enough to avoid +reproof. With no more than a little shake of her head and a light, yet +embarrassed laugh, Mary moved towards the door, her way lying between +the table and an old oak sideboard, which stood against the wall. Some +plates, knives, and other articles of the table lay strewn, none too +tidily, about it. Beaumaroy followed her, smiling complacently, his +hands in his pockets. + +Suddenly Mary came to a stop and pointed with her finger at the +sideboard, turning her face towards her companion. At the same instant +Beaumaroy's right hand shot out from his pocket towards the sideboard, +as though to snatch up something from it. Then he drew the hand as +swiftly back again; but his eyes watched Mary's with an alert and +suspicious gaze. That was for a second only; then his face resumed its +amused and nonchalant expression. But the movement of the hand and the +look of the eyes had not escaped Mary's attention; her voice betrayed +some surprise as she said: + +"It's only that I just happened to notice that combination +knife-and-fork lying there, and I wondered who----" + +The article in question lay among some half-dozen ordinary knives and +forks. It was of a kind quite familiar to Doctor Mary from her hospital +experience--a fork on one side, a knife-blade on the other--an implement +made for people who could command the use of only one hand. + +"Surely you've noticed my hand?" He drew his right hand again from the +pocket to which he had so quickly returned it. "I used to use that in +hospital, when I was bandaged up. But that's a long while ago now, and I +can't think why Hooper's left it lying there." + +The account was plausible, and entirely the same might now be said of +his face and manner. But Mary had seen the dart of his hand and the +sudden alertness in his eyes. Her own rested on him for a moment with +inquiry--for the first time with a hint of distrust. "I see!" she +murmured vaguely, and, turning away from him, pursued her way to the +door. Beaumaroy followed her with a queer smile on his lips; he shrugged +his shoulders once, very slightly. + +A constraint had fallen on Mary. She allowed herself to be escorted to +the car and helped into it in silence. Beaumaroy made no effort to force +the talk, possibly by reason of the presence of Sergeant Hooper, who had +arrived back from the chemist's with the medicine for Mr. Saffron just +as Mary and Beaumaroy came out of the hall door. He stood by his +bicycle, drawing just a little aside to let them pass, but not far +enough to prevent the light from the passage showing up his ill-favoured +countenance. + +"Well, good-bye, Dr. Arkroyd. I'll see how he is to-morrow, and ask you +to be kind enough to call again, if it seems advisable. And a thousand +thanks." + +"Good night, Mr. Beaumaroy." + +She started the car. Beaumaroy walked back to the hall door. Mary +glanced behind her once, and saw him standing by it, again framed by the +light behind him, as she had seen him on her arrival. But, this time, +within the four corners of the same frame was included the forbidding +visage of Sergeant Hooper. + +Beaumaroy returned to the fire in the parlour; Hooper, leaving his +bicycle in the passage, followed him into the room and put the medicine +bottle on the table. Smiling at him, Beaumaroy pointed at the +combination knife-and-fork. + +"Is it your fault or mine that that damned thing's lying there?" he +asked. + +"Yours," answered the Sergeant, without hesitation and with his habitual +surliness. "I cleaned it and put it out for you to lock away, as usual. +Suppose you went and forgot it, sir!" + +Beaumaroy shook his head in self-condemnation and a humorous dismay. +"That's it! I went and forgot it, Sergeant. And I think--I rather +think--that Doctor Mary smells a rat--though she is, at present, far +from guessing the colour of the animal!" + +The words sounded scornful; they were spoken for the Sergeant as well as +for himself. He was looking amused and kindly, even rather tenderly +amused; as though liking and pity were the emotions which most actively +survived his first private conversation with Doctor Mary--in spite of +that mishap of the combination knife-and-fork. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ODD STORY OF CAPTAIN DUGGLE! + + +Christmas Day, 1918, was a merry feast, and nowhere merrier than at Old +Place. There was a house-party and, for dinner on the day itself, a +local contingent as well: Miss Wall, the Irechesters, Mr. Penrose, and +Doctor Mary. Mr. Beaumaroy also had been invited by Mrs. Naylor; she +considered him an interesting man and felt pity for the obvious tedium +of his situation; but he had not felt able to leave his old friend. +Doctor Mary's Paying Guest was of the house-party, not merely a dinner +guest. She was asked over to spend three days and went, accompanied by +Jeanne, who by this time was crying much less; crying was no longer the +cue; her mistress, and not merely stern Doctor Mary, had plainly shown +her that. Gertie Naylor had invited Cynthia to help her in entertaining +the subalterns, though Gertie was really quite equal to that task +herself; there were only three of them, and if a pretty girl is not +equal to three subalterns--well, what are we coming to in England? And, +as it turned out, Miss Gertie had to deal with them all--sometimes +collectively, sometimes one by one--practically unassisted. Cynthia was +otherwise engaged. Gertie complained neither of the cause nor of its +consequence. + +The drink--or drugs--hypothesis was exploded, and Miss Wall's +speculations set at rest, with a quite comforting solatium of romantic +and unhappy interest--"a nice titbit for the old cat," as Mr. Naylor +unkindly put it. Cynthia had told her story; she wanted a richer +sympathy than Doctor Mary's common sense afforded; out of this need the +revelation came to Gertie in innocent confidence, and, with the +narrator's tacit approval, ran through the family and its intimate +friends. If Cynthia had been as calculating as she was guileless, she +could not have done better for herself. Mrs. Naylor's motherliness, old +Naylor's courtliness, Gertie's breathless concern and avid appetite for +the fullest detail, everybody's desire to console and cheer--all these +were at her service, all enlisted in the effort to make her forget, and +live and laugh again. Her heart responded; she found herself becoming +happy at a rate which made her positively ashamed. No wonder tactful +Jeanne discovered that the cue was changed! + +Fastidious old Naylor regarded his wife with the affection of habit and +with a little disdain for the ordinariness of her virtues--not to say +of the mind which they adorned. His daughter was to him a precious toy, +on which he tried jokes, played tricks, and lavished gifts, for the joy +of seeing the prettiness of her reactions to his treatment. It never +occurred to him to think that his toy might be broken; fond as he was, +his feeling for her lacked the apprehensiveness of the deepest love. But +he idolized his son, and in this case neither without fear nor without +understanding. For four years now he had feared for him bitterly: for +his body, for his life. At every waking hour his inner cry had been even +as David's, "Would God I had died for thee, my son, my son!" For at +every moment of those four years it might be that his son was even then +dead. That terror, endured under a cool and almost off-hand demeanour, +was past; but he feared for his son still. Of all who went to the war as +Crusaders, none had the temperament more ardently than Alec. As he went, +so--obviously--he had come back, not disillusioned, nay, with all his +illusions, or delusions, about this wicked world and its possibilities, +about the people who dwell in it and their lamentable limitations, +stronger in his mind than ever. How could he get through life without +being too sore hurt and wounded, without being cut to the very quick by +his inevitable discoveries? Old Naylor did not see how it was to be +done, or even hoped for; but the right kind of wife was unquestionably +the best chance. + +He had cast a speculative eye on Cynthia Walford--Irechester had caught +him at it--but, as he observed her more, she did not altogether satisfy +him. Alec needed someone more stable, stronger, someone in a sense +protective; somebody more like Mary Arkroyd; that idea passed through +his thoughts; if only Mary would take the trouble to dress herself, +remember that she was--or might be made--an attractive young woman; +and--yes, throw her mortar and pestle out of the window--without, +however, discarding with them the sturdy, sane, balanced qualities of +mind which enabled her to handle them with such admirable competence. +But he soon had to put this idea from him. His son's own impulse was to +give, not to seek, protection and support. + +Of Cynthia's woeful experience Alec had spoken to his father once only. +"It makes me mad to think the fellow who did that wore a British +uniform!" + +How unreasonable! Since by all the laws of average, when millions of men +are wearing a uniform, there must be some rogues in it. But it was +Alec's way to hold himself responsible for the whole of His Majesty's +Forces. Their honour was his; for their misdeeds he must in his own +person make reparation. "That fellow Beaumaroy may have lost his +conscience, but my boy seems to have acquired five million," the old man +grumbled to himself--a grumble full of pride. + +The father might analyse; with Alec it was all impulse--the impulse to +soothe, to obliterate, to atone. The girl had been sore hurt; with the +acuteness of sympathy he divined that she felt herself in a way soiled +and stained by contact with unworthiness and by a too easy acceptance of +it. All that must be swept out of her heart, out of her very memory, if +it could be. + +Doctor Mary saw what was happening, and with a little pang to which she +would not have liked to own. She had set love affairs, and all the +notions connected therewith, behind her; but she had idealized Alec +Naylor a little; and she thought Cynthia, in homely phrase, "hardly good +enough." Was it not rather perverse that the very fact of having been a +little goose should help her to win so rare a swan? + +"You're taking my patient out of my hands, Captain Alec!" she said to +him jokingly. "And you're devoting great attention to the case." + +He flushed. "She seems to like to talk to me," he answered simply. "She +seems to me to have rather a remarkable mind, Doctor Mary." (She was +"Doctor Mary" to all the Old Place party now--in affection, with a touch +of chaff.) + +_O sancta simplicitas!_ Mary longed to say that Cynthia was a very +ordinary child. Like to talk to him, indeed! Of course she did; and to +use her girl's weapons on him; and to wonder, in an almost awestruck +delight, at their effect on this dazzling hero. Well, the guilelessness +of heroes! + +So mused Mary, on the unprofessional side of her mind, as she watched, +that Christmas-tide, Captain Alec's delicate, sensitively indirect and +delayed approach towards the ripe fruit that hung so ready to his hand. +"Part of his chivalry to assume she can't think of him yet!" Mary was +half impatient, half reluctantly admiring; not an uncommon mixture of +feeling for the extreme forms of virtue to produce. In the net result, +however, her mental image of Alec lost something of its heroic +proportions. + +But professionally (the distinction must not be pushed too far, she was +not built in water-tight compartments) Tower Cottage remained +obstinately in the centre of her thoughts; and, connected with it, there +arose a puzzle over Dr. Irechester's demeanour. She had taken advantage +of Beaumaroy's permission--though rather doubtful whether she was doing +right, for she was still inexperienced in niceties of etiquette--and +sent on the letter, with a frank note explaining her own feelings and +the reason which had caused her to pay her visit to Mr. Saffron. But +though Irechester was quite friendly when they met at Old Place before +dinner, and talked freely to her during a rather prolonged period of +waiting (Captain Alec and Cynthia, Gertie and two subalterns were very +late, having apparently forgotten dinner in more refined delights), he +made no reference to the letters, nor to Tower Cottage or its inmates. +Mary herself was too shy to break the ice, but wondered at his silence, +and the more because the matter evidently had not gone out of his mind. +For, after dinner, when the port had gone round once and the proper +healths been honoured, he said across the table to Mr. Penrose: + +"We were talking the other day of the Tower--on the heath, you know, by +old Saffron's cottage--and none of us knew its history. You know all +about Inkston from time out o' mind. Have you got any story about it?" + +Mr. Penrose practised as a solicitor in London, but lived in a little +old house near the Irechesters' in the village street, and devoted his +leisure to the antiquities and topography of the neighbourhood; his lore +was plentiful and curious, if not important. He was a small, neat old +fellow, with white whiskers of the antique cut, a thin voice, and a dry +cackling laugh. + +"There was a story about it, and one quite fit for Christmas evening, +if you're in the mood to hear it." + +The thin voice was penetrating. At the promise of a story silence fell +on the company, and Mr. Penrose told his tale, vouching as his authority +an erstwhile "oldest inhabitant," now gathered to his fathers; for the +tale dated back some eighty years, to the date of the ancient's early +manhood. + +A seafaring man had suddenly appeared, out of space, as it were, at +Inkston, and taken the cottage. He carried with him a strong smell of +rum and tobacco, and gave it to be understood that his name was Captain +Duggle. He was no beauty, and his behaviour was worse than his looks. To +that quiet village, in those quiet strait-laced times, he was a horror +and a portent. He not only drank prodigiously--that, being in character +and also a source of local profit, might have passed with mild +censure--but he swore and blasphemed horribly, spurning the parson, +mocking at Revelation, even at the Deity Himself. The Devil was his +friend, he said. A most terrible fellow, this Captain Duggle. Inkston's +hair stood on end, and no wonder! + +"No doubt they shivered with delight over it all," commented Mr. Naylor. + +Captain Duggle lived all by himself--well, what God-fearing Christian, +male or female, would be found to live with him?--came and went +mysteriously and capriciously, always full of money, and at least +equally full of drink. What he did with himself nobody knew, but evil +legends gathered about him. Terrified wayfarers, passing the cottage by +night, took oath that they had heard more than one voice! + +"This is proper Christmas!" a subaltern interjected into Gertie's ear. + +Mr. Penrose, with an air of gratification, continued his narrative. + +"The story goes on to tell," he said, "of a final interview with the +village clergyman, in which that reverend man, as in duty bound, +solemnly told Captain Duggle that, however much he might curse, and +blaspheme, and drink, and--er--do all the other things that the Captain +did" (Obviously here Mr. Penrose felt hampered by the presence of +ladies), "yet Death, Judgment, and Churchyard waited for him at last. +Whereupon the Captain, emitting an inconceivably terrific imprecation, +which no one ever dared to repeat and which consequently is lost to +tradition, declared that the first he'd never feared, the second was +parson's gabble, and as to the third, never should his dead toes be +nearer any church than for the last forty years his living feet had +been! If so be as he wasn't drowned at sea, he'd make a grave for +himself!" + +Mr. Penrose paused, sipped port wine, and resumed. + +"And so, no doubt, he did, building the Tower for that purpose. By +bribes and threats he got two men to work for him. One was the uncle of +my informant. But though he built that Tower, and inside it dug his +grave, he never lay there, being, as things turned out, carried off by +the Devil. Oh, yes, there was no doubt! He went home one night--a +Saturday--very drunk, as usual. On the Sunday night a belated +wayfarer--possibly also drunk--heard wild shrieks and saw a strange red +glow through the window of the Tower--now, by the way, boarded up. And +no doubt he'd have smelt brimstone if the wind hadn't set the wrong way! +Anyhow Captain Duggle was never seen again by mortal eyes--at Inkston, +at all events. After a time the landlord of the cottage screwed up his +courage to resume possession--the Captain had only a lease of it, though +he built the Tower at his own charges, and, I believe, without any +permission, the landlord being much too frightened to interfere with +him. He found everything in a sad mess there, while in the Tower itself +every blessed stick had been burnt up. So the story looks pretty +plausible." + +"And the grave?" This question came eagerly from at least three of the +company. + +"In front of the fireplace there was a big oblong hole--six feet by +three feet by four--planks at the bottom, the sides roughly lined with +brick. Captain Duggle's grave; but he wasn't in it!" + +"But what really became of him, Mr. Penrose?" cried Cynthia. + +"The Rising Generation is very sceptical," said old Naylor. "You, of +course, Penrose, believe the story?" + +"I do," said Mr. Penrose composedly. "I believe that a devil carried him +off--and that its name was _delirium tremens_. We can guess--can't we, +Irechester?--why he smashed or burnt everything, and fled in mad terror +into the darkness. Where to? Was he drowned at sea, or did he take his +life, or did he rot to death in some filthy hole? Nobody knows. But the +grave he dug is there in the Tower--unless it's been filled up since old +Saffron has lived there." + +"Why in the world wasn't it filled up before?" asked Alec Naylor, with a +laugh. "People lived in the cottage, didn't they?" + +"I've visited the cottage often," Irechester interposed, "when various +people had it, but I never saw any signs of the Tower being used." + +"It never was, I'm sure; and as for the grave--well, Alec, in country +parts, to this day, you'd be thought a bold man if you filled up a +grave that your neighbour had dug for himself--and such a neighbour as +Captain Duggle! He might take it into his head some night to visit it, +and if he found it filled up there'd be trouble--nasty trouble!" His +laugh cackled out rather uncomfortably. Gertie shivered, and one of the +subalterns gulped down his port. + +"Old Saffron's a man of education, I believe. No doubt he pays no heed +to such nonsense, and has had the thing covered up," said Naylor. + +"As to that I don't know. Perhaps you do, Irechester? He's your patient, +isn't he?" + +Dr. Irechester sat four places from Mary. Before he replied to the +question he cast a glance at her, smiling rather mockingly. "I've +attended him on one or two occasions, but I've never seen the inside of +the Tower. So I don't know either." + +"Oh, but I'm curious! I shall ask Mr. Beaumaroy," cried Cynthia. + +The ironical character of Irechester's smile grew more pronounced, and +his voice was at its driest: "Certainly you can ask Beaumaroy, Miss +Walford. As far as asking goes, there's no difficulty." + +A pause followed this pointed remark, on which nobody seemed disposed to +comment. Mrs. Naylor ended the session by rising from her chair. + +But Mary Arkroyd was disquieted, worried as to how she stood with +Irechester, vaguely but insistently worried over the whole Tower +Cottage business. Well, the first point she could soon settle--or try to +settle, anyhow. + +With the directness which marked her action when once her mind was made +up, she waylaid Irechester as he came into the drawing-room; her +resolute approach sufficed to detach Naylor from him; he found himself +isolated for the moment from everybody except Mary. + +"You got my letter, Dr. Irechester? I--I rather expected an answer." + +"Your conduct was so obviously and punctiliously correct," he replied +suavely, "that I thought my answer could wait till I met you here +to-day, as I knew that I was to have the pleasure of doing." He looked +her full in the eyes. "You were placed--placed, my dear colleague--in a +position in which you had no alternative." + +"I thought so, Dr. Irechester, but----" + +"Oh yes, clearly! I'm far from making any complaint." He gave her a +courteous little bow, but it was one which plainly closed the subject. +Indeed he passed by her and joined a group that had gathered on the +hearthrug, leaving her alone. + +So she stood for a moment, oppressed by a growing uneasiness. Irechester +said nothing, but surely meant something of import? He mocked her, but +not idly or out of wantonness. He seemed almost to warn her. What could +there be to warn her about? He had laid an odd emphasis on the word +"placed"; he had repeated it. Who had "placed" her there? Mr. Saffron? +Or Mr.----? + +Alec Naylor broke in on her uneasy meditation. "It's a clinking night, +Doctor Mary," he observed. "Do you mind if I walk Miss Walford +home--instead of her going with you in your car, you know? It's only a +couple of miles and----" + +"Do you think your leg can stand it?" + +He laughed. "I'll cut the thing off, if it dares to make any +objection!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A GENTLEMANLY STRANGER + + +On this same Christmas Day Sergeant Hooper was feeling morose and +discontented; not because he was alone in the world (a situation +comprising many advantages); nor on the score of his wages, which were +extremely liberal; nor on account of the "old blighter's"--that is, Mr. +Saffron's--occasional outbursts of temper, these being in the nature of +the case and within the terms of the contract; nor, finally, by reason +of Beaumaroy's airy insolence, since from his youth up the Sergeant was +hardened to unfavourable comments on his personal appearance, trifling +vulgarities which a man of sense could afford to ignore. + +No; the winter of his discontent--a bitter winter--was due to the +conviction, which had been growing in his mind for some time, that he +was only in half the secret, and that not the more profitable half. He +knew that the old blighter had to be humoured in certain small ways--as, +for example, in regard to the combination knife-and-fork--and the +reason for it. But, first, he did not know what happened inside the +Tower; he had never seen the inside of it; the door was always locked; +he was never invited to accompany his masters when they repaired thither +by day, and he was not on the premises by night. And, secondly, he did +not understand the Wednesday journeys to London, and he had never seen +the inside of Beaumaroy's brown bag--that, like the Tower door, was +always locked. He had handled it once, just before the pair set out for +London one Wednesday. Beaumaroy, a careless man sometimes, in spite of +the cunning which Dr. Irechester attributed to him, had left it on the +parlour table while he helped Mr. Saffron on with his coat in the +passage, and the Sergeant had swiftly and surreptitiously lifted it up. +It was very light--obviously empty, or, at all events, holding only +feather-weight contents. He had never got near it when it came back from +town; then it always went straight into the Tower and had the key turned +on it forthwith. + +But the Sergeant, although slow-witted as well as ugly, had had his +experiences; he had carried weights both in the army and in other +institutions which are officially described as His Majesty's, and had +seen other men carry them too. From the set of Beaumaroy's figure as he +arrived home on at least two occasions with the brown bag, and from the +way in which he handled it, the Sergeant confidently drew the conclusion +that it was of a considerable, almost a grievous, weight. What was the +heavy thing in it? What became of that thing after it was taken into the +Tower? To whose use or profit did it, or was it to, ensure? Because it +was plain, even to the meanest capacity, that the contents of the bag +had a value in the eyes of the two men who went to London for them, and +who shepherded them from London to the custody of the Tower. + +These thoughts filled and racked his brain as he sat drinking rum and +water in the bar of the Green Man on Christmas evening; a solitary man, +mixing little with the people of the village, he sat apart at a small +table in the corner, musing within himself, yet idly watching the +company--villagers, a few friends from London and elsewhere, some +soldiers and their ladies. Besides these, a tall slim man stood leaning +against the bar, at the far end of it, talking to Bill Smithers, the +landlord, and sipping a whisky-and-soda between pulls at his cigar. He +wore a neat dark overcoat, brown shoes, and a bowler hat rather on one +side; his appearance was, in fact, genteel, though his air was a trifle +raffish. In age he seemed about forty. The Sergeant had never seen him +before, and therefore favoured him with a glance of special attention. + +Oddly enough, the gentlemanly stranger seemed to reciprocate the +Sergeant's interest; he gave him quite a long glance. Then he finished +his whisky-and-soda, spoke a word to Bill Smithers, and lounged across +the room to where the Sergeant sat. + +"It's poor work drinking alone on Christmas night," he observed. "May I +join you? I've ordered a little something; and--well, we needn't bother +about offering a gentleman a glass to-night." + +The Sergeant eyed him with apparent disfavour--as, indeed, he did +everybody who approached him--but a nod of his head accorded the desired +permission. Smithers came across with a bottle of brandy and glasses. +"Good stuff!" said the stranger, as he sat down, filled the glasses, and +drank his off. "The best thing to top up with, believe me!" + +The Sergeant, in turn, drained his glass, maintaining, however, his +aloofness of demeanour. "What's up?" he growled. + +"What's in the brown bag?" asked the stranger lightly and urbanely. + +The Sergeant did not start; he was too old a hand for that; but his +small gimlet eyes searched his new acquaintance's face very keenly. "You +know a lot!" + +"More than you do in some directions, less in others perhaps. Shall I +begin? Because we've got to confide in one another, Sergeant. A little +story of what two gentlemen do in London on Wednesdays, and of what they +carry home in a brown leather bag? Would that interest you? Oh, that +stuff in the brown leather bag! Hard to come by now, isn't it? But they +know where there's still some--and so do I, to remark it incidentally. +There were actually some people, Sergeant Hooper, who distrusted the +righteousness of the British Cause--which is to say" (the stranger +smiled cynically) "the certainty of our licking the Germans--and they +hoarded it, the villains!" + +Sergeant Hooper stretched out his hand towards the bottle. "Allow me!" +said the stranger politely. "I observe that your hand trembles a +little." + +It did. The Sergeant was excited. The stranger seemed to be touching on +a subject which always excited the Sergeant--to the point of hands +trembling, twitching, and itching. + +"Have to pay for it too! Thirty bob in curl-twisters for every ruddy +disc; that's the figure now, or thereabouts. What do they want to do it +for? What's your governors' game? Who, in short, is going to get off +with it?" + +"What is it they does--the old blighter and Boomery" (Thus he +pronounced the name Beaumaroy)--"in London?" + +"First to the stockbroker's--then to a bank or two--I've known it three +even; then a taxi down East, and a call at certain addresses. The bag's +with 'em, Sergeant, and at each call it gets heavier. I've seen it +swell, so to speak." + +"Who in hell are you?" the Sergeant grunted huskily. + +"Names later--after the usual guarantees of good faith." + +The whole conversation, carried on in low tones, had passed under cover +of noisy mirth, snatches of song, banter, and giggling; nobody paid heed +to the two men talking in a corner. Yet the stranger lowered his voice +to a whisper, as he added: + +"From me to you fifty quid on account; from you to me just a sight of +the place where they put it." + +Sergeant Hooper drank, smoked, and pondered. The stranger showed the +edge of a roll of notes, protruding it from his breast-pocket. The +Sergeant nodded--he understood that part. But there was much that he did +not understand. "It fair beats me what the blazes they're doing it +_for_," he broke out. + +"Whose money would it be?" + +"The old blighter's, o' course. Boomery's stony, except for his screw." +He looked hard at the gentlemanly stranger, and a slow smile came on his +lips. "That's your idea, is it, mister?" + +"Gentleman's old--looks frail--might go off suddenly. What then? Friends +turn up--always do when you're dead, you know. Well, what of it? Less +money in the funds than was reckoned; dear old gentleman doesn't cut up +as well as they hoped! And meanwhile our friend B----! Does it dawn on +you at all--from our friend B----'s point of view, Sergeant? I may be +wrong, but that's my provisional conjecture. The question remains how +he's got the old gent into the game, doesn't it?" + +Precisely the point to which the Sergeant's mind also had turned! The +knowledge which he possessed--that half of the secret--and which his +companion did not, might be very material to a solution of the problem; +the Sergeant did not mean to share it prematurely, or without necessity, +or for nothing. But surely it had a bearing on the case? Dull-witted as +he was, the Sergeant seemed to catch a glimmer of light, and mentally +groped towards it. + +"Well, we can't sit here all night," said the stranger in good-humoured +impatience. "I've a train to catch." + +"There's no train up from here to-night." + +"There is from Sprotsfield. I shall walk over." + +The Sergeant smiled. "Oh, if you're walking to Sprotsfield, I'll put you +on your way. If anybody was to see us--Boomery, for instance--he +couldn't complain of my seeing an old pal on his way on Christmas night. +No 'arm in that; no look of prowling, or spying, or such-like! And you +are an old pal, ain't you?" + +"Certainly; your old pal--let me see--your old pal Percy Bennett." + +"As it might be, or as it might not. What about the----?" He pointed to +Percy Bennett's breast-pocket. + +"I'll give it you outside. You don't want me to be seen handing it over +in here, do you?" + +The Sergeant had one more question to ask. "About 'ow much d'ye reckon +there might be by now?" + +"How often have they been to London? Because they don't come to see my +friends every time, I fancy." + +"Must 'ave been six or seven times by now. The game began soon after +Boomery and I came 'ere." + +"Then, quite roughly--quite a shot--from what I know of the deals we--my +friends, I mean--did with them, and reasoning from that, there might be +a matter of seven or eight thousand pounds." + +The Sergeant whistled softly, rose, and led the way to the door. The +gentlemanly stranger paused at the bar to pay for the brandy, and after +bidding the landlord a civil good evening, with the compliments of the +season, followed the Sergeant into the village street. + +Fifteen minutes' brisk walk brought them to Hinton Avenue. At the end of +it they passed Doctor Mary's house; the drawing-room curtains were not +drawn; on the blind they saw reflected the shadows of a man and a girl, +standing side by side. "Mistletoe, eh?" remarked the stranger. The +Sergeant spat on the road; they resumed their way, pursuing the road +across the heath. + +It was fine, but overclouded and decidedly dark. Every now and then +Bennett--to call the stranger by what was almost confessedly a _nom de +guerre_--flashed a powerful electric torch on the roadway. "Don't want +to walk into a gorse bush," he explained with a laugh. + +"Put it away, you darned fool! We're nearly there." + +The stranger obeyed. In another seven or eight minutes there loomed up, +on the left hand, the dim outline of Mr. Saffron's abode--the square +cottage with the odd round tower annexed. + +"There you are!" The Sergeant's voice instinctively kept to a whisper. +"That's what you want to see." + +"But I can't see it--not so as to get any clear idea." + +No lights showed from the cottage, nor, of course, from the Tower; its +only window had been, as Mr. Penrose said, boarded up. The wind--there +was generally a wind on the heath--stirred the fir trees and the bushes +into a soft movement and a faint murmur of sound. A very acute and alert +ear might perhaps have caught another sound--footfalls on the road, a +good long way behind them. The two spies, or scouts, did not hear them; +their attention was elsewhere. + +"Probably they're both in bed; it's quite safe to make our examination," +said the stranger. + +"Yes, I s'pose it is. But look to be ready to douse your glim. Boomery's +a nailer at turning up unexpected." The Sergeant seemed rather nervous. + +Mr. Bennett was not. He took out his torch, and guided by its light +(which, however, he took care not to throw towards the cottage windows) +he advanced to the garden gate, the Sergeant following, and took a +survey of the premises. It was remarkable that, as the light of the +torch beamed out, the faint sound of footfalls on the road behind died +away. + +"Keep an eye on the windows, and touch my elbow if any light shows. +Don't speak." The stranger was at business--his business--now, and his +voice became correspondingly business-like. "We won't risk going inside +the gate. I can see from here." Indeed he very well could; Tower Cottage +stood back no more than twelve or fifteen feet from the road, and the +torch was powerful. + +For four or five minutes the stranger made his examination. Then he +turned off his torch. "Looks easy," he remarked, "but of course there's +the garrison." Once more he turned on his light, to look at his watch. +"Can't stop now, or I shall miss the train, and I don't want to have to +get a bed at Sprotsfield. A strayed reveller on Christmas night might be +too well remembered. Got an address?" + +"Care of Mrs. Willnough, Laundress, Inkston." + +"Right. Good night." With a quick turn he was off along the road to +Sprotsfield. The Sergeant saw the gleam of his torch once or twice, +receding at quite a surprising pace into the distance. Feeling the wad +of notes in his pocket--perhaps to make sure that the whole episode had +not been a dream--the Sergeant turned back towards Inkston. + +After a couple of minutes, a tall figure emerged from the shelter of a +high and thick gorse bush just opposite Tower Cottage, on the other +side of the road. Captain Alec Naylor had seen the light of the +stranger's torch, and, after four years in France, he was well skilled +in the art of noiseless approach. But he felt that, for the moment at +least, his brain was less agile than his feet. He had been suddenly +wrenched out of one set of thoughts into another profoundly different. +It was his shadow, together with Cynthia Walford's, that the Sergeant +and the stranger had seen on Doctor Mary's blind. After "walking her +home," he had--well, just not proposed to Cynthia, restrained more by +those scruples of his than by any ungraciousness on the part of the +lady. Even his modesty could not blind him to this fact. He was full of +pity, of love, of a man's joyous sense of triumph, half wishing that he +had made his proposal, half glad that he had not, just because it, and +its radiant promise, could still be dangled in the bright vision of the +future. He was in the seventh heaven of romance, and his heaven was +higher than that which most men reach; it was built on loftier +foundations. + +Then came the flash of the torch; the high spirits born of one +experience sought an outlet in another. "By Jove, I'll track 'em--like +old times!" he murmured, with a low light laugh. And, just for fun, he +did it, taking to the heath beside the road, twisting his long body in +and out amongst gorse, heather, and bracken, very noiselessly, with +wonderful dexterity. The light of the lamp was continuous now; the +stranger was making his examination. By it Captain Alec guided his +steps; and he arrived behind the tall gorse bush opposite Tower Cottage +just in time to hear the Sergeant say, "Mrs. Willnough, Laundress, +Inkston," and to witness the parting of the two companions. + +There was very little to go upon there. Why should not one friend give +another an address? But the examination? Beaumaroy should surely know of +that? It might be nothing; but, on the other hand, it might have a +meaning. But the men had gone, had obviously parted for the night. +Beaumaroy could be told to-morrow; now he himself could go back to his +visions--and so homeward, in happiness, to his bed. + +Having reached this sensible conclusion, he was about to turn away from +the garden gate which he now stood facing, when he heard the house door +softly open and as softly shut. The practice of his profession had given +him keen eyes in the dark; he discovered Beaumaroy's tall figure +stealing very cautiously down the narrow, flagged path. The next instant +the light of another torch flashed out, and this time not in the +distance, but full in his own face. + +"By God, you, Naylor!" Beaumaroy exclaimed in a voice which was low but +full of surprise. "I--I--well, it's rather late----" + +Alec Naylor was suddenly struck with the element of humour in the +situation. He had been playing detective; apparently he was now the +suspected! + +"Give me time and I'll explain all," he said, smiling under the dazzling +rays of the torch. + +Beaumaroy glanced round at the house for a second, pursed up his lips +into one of the odd little contortions which he sometimes allowed +himself, and said, "Well, then, old chap, come in and have a drink, and +do it. For I'm hanged if I see why you should stand staring into this +garden in the middle of the night! With your opportunities I should be +better employed on Christmas evening." + +"You really want me to come in?" It was now Captain Alec's voice which +expressed surprise. + + +"Why the devil not?" asked Beaumaroy in a tone of frank but friendly +impatience. + +He turned and led the way into Tower Cottage. Somehow this invitation to +enter was the last thing that Captain Alec had expected. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CAPTAIN ALEC RAISES HIS VOICE + + +Beaumaroy led the way into the parlour, Captain Alec following. "Well, I +thought your old friend didn't care to see strangers," he said, +continuing the conversation. + +"He was tired and fretful to-night, so I got him to bed, and gave him a +soothing draught--one that our friend Dr. Arkroyd sent him. He went off +like a lamb, poor old boy. If we don't talk too loud we shan't disturb +him." + +"I can tell you what I have to tell in a few minutes." + +"Don't hurry." Beaumaroy was bringing the refreshment he had offered +from the sideboard. "I'm feeling lonely to-night, so I"--he +smiled--"yielded to the impulse to ask you to come in, Naylor. However, +let's have the story by all means." + +The surprise--it might almost have been taken for alarm--which he had +shown at the first sight of Alec, seemed to have given place to a gentle +and amiable weariness, which persisted through the recital of the +Captain's experiences--how his errand of courtesy, or gallantry, had led +to his being on the road across the heath so late at night, and of what +he had seen there. + +"You copped them properly!" Beaumaroy remarked at the end, with a lazy +smile. "One does learn a trick or two in France. You couldn't see their +faces, I suppose?" + +"No; too dark. I didn't dare show a light, though I had one. Besides, +their backs were towards me. One looked tall and thin, the other short +and stumpy. But I should never be able to swear to either." + +"And they went off in different directions, you say?" + +"Yes, the tall one towards Sprotsfield, the short one back towards +Inkston." + +"Oh, the short stumpy one it was who turned back to Inkston?" Beaumaroy +had seated himself on a low three-legged stool, opposite to the big +chair where Alec sat, and was smoking his pipe, his hands clasped round +his knees. "It doesn't seem to me to come to much, though I'm much +obliged to you all the same. The short one's probably a local, the other +a stranger, and the local was probably seeing his friend part of the way +home, and incidentally showing him one of the sights of the +neighbourhood. There are stories about this old den, you know--ancient +traditions. It's said to be haunted, and what not." + +"Funnily enough, we had the story to-night at dinner, at our house." + +"Had you now?" Beaumaroy looked up quickly. "What, all about----?" + +"Captain Duggle, and the Devil, and the grave, and all that." + +"Who told you the story?" + +"Old Mr. Penrose. Do you know him? Lives in High Street, near the +Irechesters." + +"I think I know him by sight. So he entertained you with that old yarn, +did he? And that same old yarn probably accounts for the nocturnal +examination which you saw going on. It was a little excitement for you, +to reward you for your politeness to Miss Walford!" + +Alec flushed, but answered frankly: "I needed no reward for that." His +feelings got the better of him; he was very full of feelings that night, +and wanted to be sympathized with. "Beaumaroy, do you know that girl's +story?" Beaumaroy shook his head--and listened to it. Captain Alec ended +on his old note: "To think of the scoundrel using the King's uniform +like that!" + +"Rotten! But--er--don't raise your voice." He pointed to the ceiling, +smiling, and went on--without further comment on Cynthia's +ill-usage--"I suppose you intend to stick to the army, Naylor?" + +"Yes, certainly I do." + +"I'm discharged. After I came out of hospital they gave me sick +leave--and constantly renewed it; and when the armistice came they gave +me my discharge. They put it down to my wound, of course, but--well, I +gathered the impression that I was considered no great loss." He had +finished his pipe, and was now smiling reflectively. + +Captain Alec did not smile. Indeed he looked rather pained; he was +remembering General Punnit's story: military inefficiency--even military +imperfection--was for him no smiling matter. Beaumaroy did not appear to +notice his disapproving gravity. + +"So I was at a loose end. I had sold up my business in Spain--I was +there six or seven years, just as Captain--Captain----? Oh, Cranster, +yes!--was in Bogota--when I joined up, and had no particular reason for +going back there--and, incidentally, no money to go back with. So I took +on this job, which came to me quite accidentally. I went into a +Piccadilly bar one evening, and found my old man there, rather excited +and declaiming a good deal of rot; seemed to have the war a bit on his +brain. They started in to guy him, and I think one or two meant to +hustle him, and perhaps take his money off him. I took his part, and +there was a bit of a shindy. In the end I saw him home to his +lodgings--he had a room in London for the night--and--to cut a long +story short--we palled up, and he asked me to come and live with him. So +here I am, and with me my Sancho Panza, the worthy ex-Sergeant Hooper. +Perhaps I may be forgiven for impliedly comparing myself to Don Quixote, +since that gentleman, besides his other characteristics, is generally +agreed to have been mad." + +"Your Sancho Panza's no beauty," remarked the Captain drily. + +"And no saint either. Kicked out of the Service, and done time. That +between ourselves." + +"Then why the devil do you have the fellow about?" + +"Beggars mustn't be choosers. Besides, I've a _penchant_ for failures." + +That was what General Punnit had said! Alec Naylor grew impatient. +"That's the very spirit we have to fight against!" he exclaimed, rather +hotly. + +"Forgive me, but--please--don't raise your voice." + +Alec lowered his voice--for a moment anyhow--but the central article of +his creed was assailed, and he grew vehement. "It's fatal; it's at the +root of all our troubles. Allow for failures in individuals, and you +produce failure all round. It's tenderness to defaulters that wrecks +discipline. I would have strict justice, but no mercy--not a shadow of +it!" + +"But you said that day, at your place, that the war had made you +tender-hearted." + +"Yes, I did--and it's true. Is it hard-hearted to refuse to let a +slacker cost good men their lives? Much better take his, if it's got to +be one or the other." + +"A cogent argument. But, my dear Naylor, I wish you wouldn't raise your +voice." + +"Damn my voice!" said Alec, most vexatiously interrupted just as he had +got into his stride. "You say things that I can't and won't let pass, +and----" + +"I really wouldn't have asked you in, if I'd thought you'd raise your +voice." + +Alec recollected himself. "My dear fellow, a thousand pardons! I forgot! +The old gentleman----?" + +"Exactly. But I'm afraid the mischief's done. Listen!" Again he pointed +to the ceiling, but his eyes set on Captain Alec with a queer, rueful, +humorous expression. "I was an ass to ask you in. But I'm no good at +it--that's the fact. I'm always giving the show away!" he grumbled, half +to himself, but not inaudibly. + +Alec stared at him for a moment in puzzle, but the next instant his +attention was diverted. Another voice besides his was raised; the sound +of it came through the ceiling from the room above; the words were not +audible; the volubility of the utterance in itself went far to prevent +them from being distinguishable; but the high, vibrant, metallic tones +rang through the house. It was a rush of noise--sharp grating +noise--without a meaning. The effect was weird, very uncomfortable. Alec +Naylor knit his brows, and once gave a little shiver, as he listened. +Beaumaroy sat quite still, the expression in his eyes unaltered--or, if +it altered at all, it grew softer, as though with pity or affection. + +"Good God, Beaumaroy, are you keeping a lunatic in this house?" He might +raise his voice as loud as he pleased now, it was drowned by that other. + +"I'm not keeping him, he's keeping me. And, anyhow, his medical adviser +tells me there is no reason to suppose that my old friend is not _compos +mentis_." + +"Irechester says that?" + +"Mr. Saffron's medical attendant is Dr. Arkroyd." + +As he spoke, the noise from above suddenly ceased. Since neither of the +men in the parlour spoke, there ensued a minute of what seemed intense +silence; it was such a change. + +Then came a still small sound--a creaking of wood--from overhead. + +"I think you'd better go, Naylor, if you don't mind. After a--a +performance of that kind he generally comes and tells me about it. And +he may be--I don't know at all for certain--annoyed to find you here." + +Alec Naylor got up from the big chair, but it was not to take his +departure. + +"I want to see him, Beaumaroy," he said brusquely and rather +authoritatively. + +Beaumaroy raised his brows. "I won't take you to his room, or let you go +there, if I can help it. But if he comes down--well, you can stay and +see him. It may get me into a scrape, but that doesn't matter much." + +"My point of view is----" + +"My dear fellow, I know your point of view perfectly. It is that you are +personally responsible for the universe--apparently just because you +wear a uniform." + +No other sound had come from above or from the stairs, but the door now +opened suddenly, and Mr. Saffron stood on the threshold. He wore +slippers, a pair of checked trousers, and his bedroom jacket of pale +blue; in addition, the grey shawl, which he wore on his walks, was again +swathed closely round him. Only his right arm was free from it; in his +hand was a silver bedroom candlestick. From his pale face and under his +snowy hair his blue eyes gleamed brightly. As Alec first caught sight of +him, he was smiling happily, and he called out triumphantly: "That was a +good one! That went well, Hector!" + +Then he saw Alec's tall figure by the fire. He grew grave, closed the +door carefully, and advanced to the table, on which he set down the +candlestick. After a momentary look at Alec, he turned his gaze +inquiringly towards Beaumaroy. + +"I'm afraid we're keeping it up rather late, sir," said the latter in a +tone of respectful yet easy apology, "but I took an airing on the road +after you went to bed, and there I found my friend here on his way home; +and since it was Christmas----" + +Mr. Saffron bowed his head in acquiescence; he showed no sign of anger. +"Present your friend to me, Hector," he requested--or ordered--gravely. + +"Captain Naylor, sir. Distinguished Service Order; Duffshire Fusiliers." + +The Captain was in uniform and, during his talk with Beaumaroy, had not +thought of taking off his cap. Thus he came to the salute instinctively. +The old man bowed with reserved dignity; in spite of his queer get-up he +bore himself well; the tall handsome Captain did not seem to efface or +outclass him. + +"Captain Naylor has distinguished himself highly in the war, sir," +Beaumaroy continued. + +"I am very glad to make the acquaintance of any officer who has +distinguished himself in the service of his country." Then his tone +became easier and more familiar. "Don't let me disturb you, gentlemen. +My business with you, Hector, will wait. I have finished my work, and +can rest with a clear conscience." + +"Couldn't we persuade you to stay a few minutes with us, and join us in +a whisky-and-soda?" + +"Yes, by all means, Hector. But no whisky. Give me a glass of my own +wine; I see a bottle on the sideboard." + +He came round the table and sat down in the big chair. "Pray seat +yourself, Captain," he said, waving his hand towards the stool which +Beaumaroy had lately occupied. + +The Captain obeyed the gesture, but his huge frame looked awkward on the +low seat; he felt aware of it, then aware of the cap on his head; he +snatched it off hastily and twiddled it between his fingers. Mr. +Saffron, high up in the great chair, sitting erect, seemed now actually +to dominate the scene--Beaumaroy standing by, with an arm on the back of +the chair, holding a tall glass, full of the golden wine, ready to Mr. +Saffron's command; the old man reached up his thin right hand, took it, +and sipped with evident pleasure. + +Alec Naylor was embarrassed; he sat in silence. But Beaumaroy seemed +quite at his ease. He began with a statement which was, in its literal +form, no falsehood; but that was about all that could be said for it on +the score of veracity. "Before you came in, sir, we were just speaking +of uniforms. Do you remember seeing our blue Air Force uniform when we +were in town last week? I remember that you expressed approval of it." + +In any case the topic was very successful. Mr. Saffron embraced it with +eagerness; with much animation he discussed the merits, whether +practical or decorative, of various uniforms--field-grey, khaki, +horizon-blue, Air Force blue, and a dozen others worn by various armies, +corps, and services. Alec was something of an enthusiast in this line +too; he soon forgot his embarrassment, and joined in the conversation +freely, though with a due respect to the obvious thoroughness of Mr. +Saffron's information. Watching the pair with an amused smile, Beaumaroy +contented himself with putting in, here and there, what may be called a +conjunctive observation--just enough to give the topic a new start. + +After a quarter of an hour of this pleasant conversation, for such all +three seemed to find it, Mr. Saffron finished his wine, handed the glass +to Beaumaroy, and took a cordial leave of Alec Naylor. "It's time for me +to be in bed, but don't hurry away, Captain. You won't disturb me, I'm a +good sleeper. Good-bye. I shan't want you any more to-night, Hector." + +Beaumaroy handed him his candle again, and held the door open for him as +he went out. + +Alec Naylor clapped his cap back on his head. "I'm off too," he said +abruptly. + +"Well, you insisted on seeing him, and you've seen him. What about it +now?" asked Beaumaroy. + +Alec eyed him with a puzzled, baffled suspicion. "You switched him on to +that subject on purpose, and by means of something uncommon like a lie." + +"A little artifice! I knew it would interest you, and it's quite one of +his hobbies. I don't know much about his past life, but I think he must +have had something to do with military tailoring. A designer at the War +Office, perhaps." Beaumaroy gave a low laugh, rather mocking and +malicious. "Still, that doesn't prove a man mad, does it? Perhaps it +ought to, but in general opinion it doesn't, any more than reciting +poems in bed does." + +"Do you mean to tell me that he was reciting poetry when----?" + +"Well, it couldn't have sounded worse if he had been, could it?" + +Now he was openly laughing at the Captain's angry bewilderment. He knew +that Alec Naylor did not believe a word of what he was saying, or +suggesting; but yet Alec could not pass his guard, nor wing a shaft +between the joints of his harness. If he got into difficulties through +heedlessness, at least he made a good shot at getting out of them again +by his dexterity. Only, of course, suspicion remains suspicion, even +though it be, for the moment, baffled. And it could not be denied that +suspicions were piling up--Captain Alec; Irechester; even, on one little +point, Doctor Mary! And possibly those two fellows outside--one of them +short and stumpy--had their suspicions too, though these might be +directed to another point. He gave one of his little shrugs as he +followed the silent Captain to the garden gate. + +"Good night. Thanks again. And I hope we shall meet soon," he said +cheerily. + +Alec gave him a brief "Good night" and a particularly formal military +salute. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DOCTOR MARY'S ULTIMATUM + + +Even Captain Alec was not superior to the foibles which beset humanity. +If it had been his conception of duty which impelled him to take a high +line with Beaumaroy, there was now in his feelings, although he did not +realize the fact, an alloy of less precious metal. He had demanded an +ordeal, a test--that he should see Mr. Saffron and judge for himself. +The test had been accepted; he had been worsted in it. His suspicions +were not laid to rest--far from it; but they were left unjustified and +unconfirmed. He had nothing to go upon, nothing to show. He had been +baffled, and, moreover, bantered and almost openly ridiculed. Beaumaroy +had been too many for him, in fact, the subtle rogue! + +This conception of the case coloured his looks and pointed his words +when Tower Cottage and its occupants were referred to, and most markedly +when he spoke of them to Cynthia Walford; for in talking to her he +naturally allowed himself greater freedom than he did with others; +talking to her had become like talking to himself, so completely did she +give him back what he bestowed on her, and re-echo to his mind its own +voice. Such perfect sympathy induces a free outpouring of inner +thoughts, and reinforces the opinions of which it so unreservedly +approves. + +Cynthia did more than elicit and reinforce Captain Alec's opinion; she +also disseminated it--at Old Place, at the Irechesters', at Doctor +Mary's; through all the little circle in which she was now a constant +and a favourite figure. In the light of her experience of men, so +limited and so sharply contrasted, she made a simple classification of +them; they were Cransters or Alecs; and each class acted after its kind. +Plainly Beaumaroy was not an Alec; therefore he was a Cranster; and +Cranster-like actions were to be expected from him, of such special +description as his circumstances and temptations might dictate. + +She poured this simple philosophy into Doctor Mary's ears, vouching +Alec's authority for its application to Beaumaroy. The theory was too +simple for Mary, whose profession had shown her at all events something +of the complexity of human nature; and she was no infallibilist; she +would bow unquestioningly to no man's authority, not even to Alec's, +much as she liked and admired him. There was even a streak of +contrariness in her; what she might have said to herself she was prone +to criticize or contradict, if it were too confidently or urgently +pressed on her by another; perhaps, too, Cynthia's claim to be the +Captain's mouthpiece stirred up in her a latent resentment; it was not +to be called a jealousy, it was rather an amused irritation at both the +divinity and his worshipper. His worshippers can sometimes make a +divinity look foolish. + +Her own interview with Beaumaroy at the Cottage had left her puzzled, +distrustful--and attracted. She suspected him vaguely of wanting to use +her for some purpose of his own; in spite of the swift plausibility of +his explanation, she was nearly certain that he had lied to her about +the combination knife-and-fork. Yet his account of his own position in +regard to Mr. Saffron had sounded remarkably candid, and the more so +because he made no pretensions to an exalted attitude. It had been left +to her to define the standard of sensitive honour; his had been rather +that of safety--or, at the best, that of what the world would think, or +even of what the hated cousins might attempt to prove. But there again +she was distrustful, both of him and of her own judgment. He might +be--it seemed likely--one of those men who conceal the good as well as +the bad in themselves, one of the morally shy men. Or again, perhaps, +one of the morally diffident, who shrink from arrogating to themselves +high standards because they fear for their own virtue if it be put to +the test, and cling to the power of saying, later on, "Well, I told you +not to expect too much from me!" Such various types of men exist, and +they do not fall readily into either of Cynthia's two classes; they are +neither Cransters nor Alecs; certainly not in thought, probably not in +conduct. He had said at Old Place, the first time that she met him, that +the war had destroyed all his scruples. That might be true; but it was +hardly the remark of a man naturally unscrupulous. + +She met him one day at Old Place about a week after Christmas. The +Captain was not there; he was at her own house, with Cynthia. With the +rest of the family Beaumaroy was at his best; gaily respectful to Mrs. +Naylor, merry with Gertie, exchanging cut and thrust with old Mr. +Naylor, easy and cordial towards herself. Certainly an attractive human +being and a charming companion, pre-eminently natural. "One talks of +taking people as one finds them," old Naylor said to her, when they +found themselves alone for a few minutes together by the fire, while the +others chatted by the window. "That fellow takes himself as he finds +himself! Not as a pattern, a failure, or a problem, but just as a +fact--a psychological fact." + +"That rather shuts out effort, doesn't it? Well, I mean----" + +"Strivings?" Mr. Naylor smiled. "Yes, it does. On the other hand, it +gives such free play. That's what makes him interesting, makes you think +about him." He laughed. "Oh, I daresay the surroundings help too--we're +all rather children!--old Saffron, and the Devil, and Captain Duggle, +and the rest of it! The brain isn't over-worked down here; we like to +find an outlet." + +"That means you think there's nothing in it really?" + +"In what?" retorted old Naylor briskly. + +But Mary was equal to him. "My lips are sealed professionally," she +smiled. "But hasn't your son said anything?" + +"Admirable woman! Yes, Alec has said a few things; and the young lady +gives it us too. For my part, I think Beaumaroy's just drifting. He'll +take the gifts of fortune if they come, but I don't think there's much +deliberate design about it. Ah, now you're smiling in a superior way, +Doctor Mary! I charge you with secret knowledge. Or are you puffed up by +having superseded Irechester?" + +"I was never so distressed and--well, embarrassed--at anything in my +life." + +"Well, that, if you ask me, does look a bit queer. Sort of fits in with +Alec's theory." + +Mary's discretion gave way a little. "Or with Mr. Beaumaroy's? Which is +that I'm a fool, I think." + +"And that Irechester isn't?" His eyes twinkled in good-humoured malice. +"Talking of what this and that person thinks--of himself and of +others--Irechester thinks himself something of an alienist." + +Her eyes grew suddenly alert. "He's never talked to me on that subject." + +"Perhaps he doesn't think it's one of yours. Perhaps your studies +haven't lain that way? After all, no medical man can study everything!" + +"Don't be naughty, Mr. Naylor!" said Doctor Mary. + +"He tells me that, in cases where the condition--the condition I think +he called it--is in doubt, he fixes his attention on the eyes and the +voice. He couldn't give me any very clear description of what he found +in the eyes. I couldn't quite make out, anyhow, what he meant, unless it +was a sort of meaninglessness--a want of what you might call +intellectual focus. Do you follow me?" + +"Yes, I think I know what you mean." + +"But with regard to the voice, I distinctly remember that he used the +word 'metallic.'" + +"Why, that's the word Cynthia used----!" + +"I daresay it is. It's the word Alec used in describing the voice in +which old Mr. Saffron recited his poem--or whatever it was--in bed." + +"But I've talked to Mr. Saffron; his voice isn't like that; it's a +little high, but full and rather melodious." + +"Oh, well then----!" He spread out his hands, as though acknowledging a +check. "Still, the voice described as metallic seems to have been Mr. +Saffron's--at a certain moment at least. As a merely medical question of +some interest, I wonder if such a symptom or sign of--er--irritability +could be intermittent, coming and going with the--er--fits! Irechester +didn't say anything on that point. Have you any opinion?" + +"None. I don't know. I should like to ask Dr. Irechester." Then, with a +sudden smile, she amended, "No, I shouldn't!" + +"And why not, pray? Professional etiquette?" + +"No--pride. Dr. Irechester laughed at me. I think I see why now; and +perhaps why Mr. Beaumaroy----" She broke off abruptly, the slightest +gesture of her hand warning Naylor also to be silent. + +Having said good-bye to his friends by the window, Beaumaroy was +sauntering across the room to pay the like courtesy to herself and +Naylor. Mary rose to her feet; there was an air of decision about her, +and she addressed Beaumaroy almost before he was within speaking +distance as it is generally reckoned in society. + +"If you're going home, Mr. Beaumaroy, shall we walk together? It's time +I was off too." + +Beaumaroy looked a little surprised, but undoubtedly pleased. "Well, +now, what a delightful way of prolonging a delightful visit! I'm truly +grateful, Dr. Arkroyd." + +"Oh, you needn't be!" said Mary, with a little toss of her head. + +Naylor watched them with amusement. "He'll catch it on that walk!" he +was thinking. "She's going to let him have it! I wish I could be there +to hear." He spoke to them openly: "I'm sorry you must both go; but, +since you must, go together. Your walk will be much pleasanter." + +Mary understood him well enough, and gave him a flash from her eyes. But +Beaumaroy's face betrayed nothing, as he murmured politely: "To me, at +all events, Mr. Naylor." + +Naylor was not wrong as to Mary's mood and purpose. But she did not find +it easy to begin. Pretty quick at a retort herself, she could often +foresee the retorts open to her interlocutor. Beaumaroy had provided +himself with plenty: the old man's whim; the access to the old man so +willingly allowed, not only to her but to Captain Alec; his own candour +carried to the verge of self-betrayal. Oh, he would be full of retorts, +supple and dexterous ones! As this hostile accusation passed through her +mind, she awoke to the fact that she was, at the same moment, regarding +his profile (he too was silent, no doubt lying in wait to trip up her +opening!) with interest, even with some approval. He seemed to feel her +glance, for he turned towards her quickly--so quickly that she had no +time to turn her eyes away. + +"Doctor Mary"--the familiar mode of address habitually used at the house +which they had just left seemed to slip out without his consciousness of +it--"you've got something against me; I know you have! I'm sensitive +that way, though not, perhaps, in another. Now, out with it!" + +"You'd silence me with a clever answer. I think that you sometimes make +the mistake of supposing that to be silenced is the same thing as being +convinced. You silenced Captain Naylor--Oh, I don't mean you've +prevented him from talking!--I mean you confuted him, you put him in the +wrong; but you certainly didn't convince him." + +"Of what?" he asked in a tone of surprise. + +"You know that. Let us suppose his idea was all nonsense; yet your +immediate object was to put it out of his head." She suddenly added, "I +think your last question was a diplomatic blunder, Mr. Beaumaroy. You +must have known what I meant. What was the good of pretending not to?" + +Beaumaroy stopped still in the road for a moment, looking at her with a +rueful amusement. "You're not so easily silenced, after all!" he said, +starting to walk on again. + +"You encourage me." To tell the truth, Mary was not only encouraged, she +was pleased by the hit she had scored, and flattered by his +acknowledgment of it. "Well, then, I'll put another point. You needn't +answer if you don't like." + +"I shall answer if I can, depend on it!" He laughed, and Mary, for a +brief instant, joined in his laugh. His sudden lapses into candour +seemed somehow to put the serious hostile questioner ridiculously in the +wrong. Could a man like that really have anything to conceal? + +But she held to her purpose. "You're a friendly sort of man, you offer +and accept attentions and kindnesses, you're not stand-offish, or +haughty, or sulky; you make friends easily, especially perhaps with +women; they like you, and like to be pleasant and kind to you. There are +men--patients, I mean--very hard to deal with--men who resent being ill, +resent having to have things done to them and for them, who especially +resent the services of women, even of nurses--I mean in quite +indifferent things, not merely in things where a man may naturally +shrink from their help. Well, you don't seem that sort of man in the +least." She looked at him, as she ended this appreciation of him, as +though she expected an answer or a comment. Beaumaroy made neither; he +walked on, not even looking at her. + +"And you can't have been troubled long with that wound. It evidently +healed up quickly and sweetly." + +Beaumaroy looked for an instant at his maimed hand with a critical air; +but he was still silent. + +"So that I wonder you didn't do as most patients do--let the nurse, or, +if you were still disabled after you came out, a friend or somebody, cut +up your food for you without providing yourself with that implement." He +turned his head quickly towards her. "And if you ask me what implement I +mean, I shall answer--the one you tried to snatch from the sideboard at +Tower Cottage before I could see it." + +It was a direct challenge; she charged him with a lie. Beaumaroy's face +assumed a really troubled expression, a thing rare for it to do. Yet it +was not an ashamed or abashed expression; it just seemed to recognize +that a troublesome difficulty had arisen. He set a slower pace and +prodded the road with his stick. Mary pushed her advantage. "Your--your +improvisation didn't satisfy me at the time, and the more I've thought +over it, the less have I found it convincing." + +He stopped again, turning round to her. He slapped his left hand against +the side of his leg. "Well, there it is, Doctor Mary! You must make what +you can of it." + +It was complete surrender as to the combination knife-and-fork. He was +beaten--on that point at least--and owned it. His lie was found out. +"It's dashed difficult always to remember that you're a doctor," he +broke out the next minute. + +Mary could not help laughing; but her eyes were still keen and +challenging as she said, "Perhaps you'd better change your doctor again, +Mr. Beaumaroy. You haven't found one stupid enough!" + +Again Beaumaroy had no defence; his nonplussed air confessed that +manoeuvre too. Mary dropped her rallying tone and went on gravely, +"Unless I'm treated with confidence and sincerity, I can't continue to +attend Mr. Saffron." + +"That's your ultimatum, is it, Doctor Mary?" + +She nodded sharply and decisively. Beaumaroy meditated for a few +seconds. Then he shook his head regretfully. "It's no use. I daren't +trust you," he said. + +Mary laughed again--this time in amazed resentment of his impudence. +"You can't trust me! I think it's the other way round. It seems to me +that the boot's on the other leg." + +"Not as I see it." Then he smiled slowly, as it were tentatively. "Or +would you--I wonder if you could--possibly--well, stand in with me?" + +"Are you offering me a--a partnership?" she asked indignantly. + +He raised his hand in a seeming protest, and spoke now hastily and in +some confusion. "Not as you understand it. I mean--as you probably +understand it--from what I said to you that night at the Cottage. There +are features in the--well, there are things that I admit have--have +passed through my mind, without being what you'd call settled. Oh, yes, +without being in the least settled. Well, for the sake of your help +and--er--co-operation, those--those features could be dropped. And then +perhaps--if only your--your rules and etiquette----" + +Mary scornfully cut short his embarrassed pleadings. "There's a good +deal more than rules and etiquette involved. It seems to me that it's a +matter of common honesty rather than of rules and etiquette----" + +"Yes, but you don't understand----" + +She cut him short again. "Mr. Beaumaroy, after this--after your +suggestion and all the rest of it--there must be an end of all +relations between us--professionally and, so far as possible, socially +too, please. I don't want to be self-righteous, but I feel bound to say +that you have misunderstood my character." + +Her voice quivered at the end, and almost broke. She was full of a +grieved indignation. + +They had come opposite the cottage now. Beaumaroy stopped, and stood +facing her. Though dusk had fallen, it was a clear evening; she could +see his face plainly; obviously he was in deep distress. "I wouldn't +have offended you for the world. I--I like you far too much, Doctor +Mary." + +"You imputed your own standards to me. That's all there is about it, I +suppose," she said in a scornful sadness. He looked very miserable. +Compassion, and the old odd attraction which he had for her, stirred in +her mind. Her voice grew soft, and she held out her hand. "I'm sorry +too, very sorry, that it should have to be good-bye between us." + +Beaumaroy did not take her proffered hand, or even seem to notice it. He +stood quite still. + +"I'm damned if I know what I'm to do now!" + +Close on the heels of his despairing confession of helplessness--for +such it undoubtedly seemed to be--came the noise of an opening door, a +light from the inside of the cottage, a patter of quick-moving feet on +the flagged path that led to the garden gate. The next moment Mary saw +the figure of Mr. Saffron, in his old grey shawl, standing at the gate. +He was waving his right arm in an excited way, and his hand held a large +sheet of paper. + +"Hector! Hector, my dear, dear boy! The news has come at last! You can +be off to-morrow!" + +Beaumaroy started violently, glanced at his old friend's strange figure, +glanced once too at Mary; the expression of utter despair which his face +had worn seemed modified into one of humorous bewilderment. + +"Yes, yes, you can start to-morrow for Morocco, my dear boy!" cried old +Mr. Saffron. + +Beaumaroy lifted his hat to her, cried, "I'm coming, sir," turned on his +heel, and strode quickly up to Mr. Saffron. She watched him open the +gate and take the old gentleman by the arm; she heard the murmur of his +voice, speaking in soft accents as the pair walked up the path together. +They passed into the house, and the door was shut. + +Mary stood where she was for a moment, then moved slowly, hesitatingly, +yet as though under a lure which she could not resist. Just outside the +gate lay something that gleamed white through the darkness. It was the +sheet of paper. Mr. Saffron had dropped it in his excitement, and +Beaumaroy had not noticed. + +Mary stole forward and picked it up stealthily; she was incapable of +resisting her curiosity or even of stopping to think about her action. +She held it up to what light there was, and strained her eyes to examine +it. So far as she could see, it was covered with dots, dashes, lines, +queerly drawn geometrical figures--a mass of meaningless hieroglyphics. +She dropped it again where she had found it, and made off home with +guilty swiftness. + +Yes, there had been, this time, a distinctly metallic ring in old Mr. +Saffron's voice. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THAT MAGICAL WORD MOROCCO! + + +When Mary arrived home, she found Cynthia and Captain Alec still in +possession of the drawing-room; their manner accused her legitimate +entry into the room of being an outrageous intrusion. She took no heed +of that, and indeed little heed of them. To tell the truth--she was +ashamed to confess, but it was the truth--she felt rather tired of them +that evening. Their affair deserved every laudatory epithet--except that +of interesting; so she declared peevishly within herself, as she tried +to join in conversation with them. It was no use. They talked on, and in +justice to them it may be urged that they were fully as bored with Mary +just then as she was with them; so naturally their talents did not shine +their brightest. But they had plenty to say to one another, and +dutifully threw in a question or a reference to Mary every now and then. +Sitting apart at the other end of the long low room--it ran through the +whole depth of her old-fashioned dwelling--she barely heeded and barely +answered. They smiled at one another and were glad. + +She was very tired; her feelings were wounded, her nerves on edge; she +could not even attempt any cool train of reasoning. The outcome of her +talk with Beaumaroy filled her mind, rather than the matter of it; and, +more even than that, the figure of the man seemed to be with her, almost +to stand before her, with his queer alternations of despair and mirth, +of defiance and pleading, of derision and alarm. One moment she was +intensely irritated with him, in the next she half forgave the plaintive +image which the fancy of her mind conjured up before her eyes. + +Her eyes closed--she was so very tired, the fight had taken it out of +her! To have to do things like that was an odious necessity, which had +never befallen her before. That man had done--well, Captain Alec was +quite right about him. Yet still the shadowy image, though thus +reproached, did not depart; it was smiling at her now with its old +mockery--the kindly mockery which his face wore before they quarrelled, +and before its light was quenched in that forlorn bewilderment. And it +seemed as though the image began to say some words to her, disconnected +words, not making a sentence, but yet having for the image a pregnant +meaning, and seeming to her--though vaguely and very dimly--to be the +key to what she had to understand. She was stupid not to understand +words so full of meaning--just as stupid as Beaumaroy had thought. + +Then Doctor Mary fell asleep, sound asleep; she had been very near it +for the last ten minutes. + +Captain Alec and Cynthia were in two chairs, close side by side, in +front of the fire. Once Cynthia glanced over her shoulder; the Captain +had glanced over his in the same direction already. One of his hands +held one of Cynthia's. It was well to be sure that Mary was asleep, +really asleep. + +She had gone to sleep on the name of Beaumaroy; on it she awoke. It came +from Captain Alec's lips. He was standing on the hearthrug with his arm +round Cynthia's waist, and his other hand raising one of hers to his +lips. He looked admirably handsome--strong, protecting, devoted. And +Cynthia, in her fragile appealing prettiness, was a delicious foil, a +perfect complement to the picture. But now, under stress of +emotion--small blame to a man who was making a vow of eternal +fidelity!--under stress of emotion, as, on a previous occasion, under +that of indignation, the Captain had raised his voice! + +"Yes, against all the scoundrels in the world, whether they're called +Cranster or Beaumaroy!" he said. + +Mary's eyes opened. She sat up. "Cranster and Beaumaroy?" They were the +words which her ears had caught. "What in the world has Mr. Beaumaroy to +do with----?" But she broke off, as she saw the couple by the fire. "But +what are you two doing?" + +Cynthia broke away from her lover, and ran to her friend with joyous +avowals. + +"I must have been sound asleep," cried Mary, kissing her. Alec had +followed across the room and now stood close by her. She looked up at +him. "Oh, I see! She's to be safe now from such people?" On this +particular occasion Mary's look at the Captain was not admiring; it was +a little scornful. + +"That's the idea," agreed the happy Alec. "Another idea is that I trot +you both over in the car to Old Place--to break the news and have +dinner." + +"Splendid!" cried Cynthia. "Do come, Mary!" + +Mary shook her head. "No; you go--you two," she said. "I'm tired--and I +want to think." She passed her hand across her eyes. She seemed to wipe +away the mists of sleep. Her face suddenly grew animated and exultant. +"No, I don't want to think! I know!" she exclaimed emphatically. + +"Mary dear, are you still asleep? Are you talking in your sleep?" + +"The keyword! It came to me, somehow, in my sleep. The +keyword--Morocco!" + +"What the deuce has Morocco----?" Captain Alec began, with justifiable +impatience. + +"Ah, you never heard that, and, dear Captain Alec, you wouldn't have +understood it if you had. You thought he was reciting poems. What he was +really doing----" + +"Look here, Doctor Mary, I've just been accepted by Cynthia, and I'm +going to take her to my mother and father. Can you get your mind on to +that?" He looked at her curiously, not at all understanding her +excitement, perhaps resenting the obvious fact that his Cynthia's +happiness was not foremost in her friend's mind. + +With a great effort Mary brought herself down to the earth--to the earth +of romantic love from the heaven of professional triumph. True, the +latter was hers, the former somebody else's. "I do beg your pardon, I do +indeed. And do let me kiss you again, Cynthia darling--and you, dear +Captain Alec, just once! And then you shall go off to dinner." She +laughed excitedly. "Yes, I'm going to push you out." + +"Let's go, Alec," said Cynthia, not unkindly, yet just a little +pettishly. The great moment of her life--surely as great a moment as +there had ever been in anybody's life?--had hardly earned adequate +recognition from Mary. As usual, her feelings and Alec's were as one. +Before they passed to other and more important matters, when they drove +off in the car, she said to Alec, "It seems to me that Mary's strangely +interested in that Mr. Beaumaroy. Had she been dreaming of him, Alec?" + +"Looks like it! And why the devil Morocco?" His intellect baffled, +Captain Alec took refuge in his affections. + +Left alone--and so thankful for it!--Doctor Mary did not attempt to sit +still. She walked up and down, she roved here and there, smoking any +quantity of cigarettes; she would certainly have forbidden such excess +to a patient. The keyword--its significance had seemed to come to her in +her sleep. Something in that subconsciousness theory? The word +explained, linked up, gave significance--that magical word Morocco! + +Yes, they fell into place now, the things that had been so puzzling, and +that looked now so obviously suggestive. Even one thing which she had +thought nothing about, which had not struck her as having any +significance, now took on its meaning--the grey shawl which the old +gentleman so constantly wore swathed round his body, enveloping the +whole of it except his right arm. Did he wear the shawl while he took +his meals? Doctor Mary could not tell as to that. Perhaps he did not; +at his meals only Beaumaroy, and perhaps their servant, would be +present. But he seemed to wear it whenever he went abroad, whenever he +was exposed to the scrutiny of strangers. That indicated +secretiveness--perhaps fear--the apprehension of something. The caution +bred by that might give way under the influence of great cerebral +excitement. Unquestionably Mr. Saffron had been very excited when he +waved the sheet of hieroglyphics and shouted to Beaumaroy about Morocco. +But whether he wore the shawl or not in the safe privacy of Tower +Cottage, whatever might be the truth about that--perhaps he varied his +practice according to his condition--on one thing Doctor Mary would +stake her life--he used the combination knife-and-fork! + +For it was over that implement that Beaumaroy had tripped up. It ought +to have been hidden before she was admitted to the cottage. Somebody had +been careless, somebody had blundered--whether Beaumaroy himself or his +servant was immaterial. Beaumaroy had lied, readily and ingeniously, but +not quite readily enough. The dart of his hand had betrayed him; that, +and a look in his eyes, a tell-tale mirth which had seemed to mock both +her and himself, and had made his ingenious lie even at the moment +unconvincing. Yes, whether Mr. Saffron wore the shawl or not, he +certainly used the combination table implement! + +And the "poems"? The poems which Mr. Saffron recited to himself in bed, +and which he had said, in Captain Alec's hearing, were good and "went +well." It was Beaumaroy, of course, who had called them poems; the +Captain had merely repeated the description. But with her newly found +insight Doctor Mary knew better. What Mr. Saffron declaimed, in that +vibrating metallic voice, were not poems, but--speeches! + +And "Morocco" itself! To anybody who remembered history for a few years +back, even with the general memory of the man in the street, to anybody +who had read the controversies about the war, Morocco brought not +puzzle, but enlightenment. For had not Morocco been really the +starting-point of the years of crisis--those years intermittent in +excitement but constant in anxiety? Beaumaroy was to start to-morrow for +Morocco--on the strength of the hieroglyphics! Perhaps he was to go on +from Morocco to Libya; perhaps he was to raise the Senussi (Mary had +followed the history of the war), to make his appearance at Cairo, +Jerusalem, Baghdad! He was to be a forerunner, was Mr. Beaumaroy. Mr. +Saffron, his august master, would follow in due course! With a sardonic +smile she wondered how the ingenious man would get out of starting for +Morocco; perhaps he would not succeed in obtaining a passport, or, that +excuse failing, in eluding the vigilance of the British authorities. Or +some more hieroglyphics might come, carrying another message, postponing +his start, saying that the propitious moment had not yet arrived after +all. There were several devices open to ingenuity; many ways in which +Beaumaroy might protract a situation not so bad for him even as it +stood, and quite rich in possibilities. Her acid smile was turned +against herself when she remembered that she had been fool enough to +talk to Beaumaroy about sensitive honour! + +Well, never mind Mr. Beaumaroy! The case as to Mr. Saffron stood pretty +plain. It was queer and pitiful, but by no means unprecedented. She +might be not much of an alienist, as Dr. Irechester had been kind enough +to suggest to Mr. Naylor, but she had seen such cases herself--even +stranger ones, where even higher Powers suffered impersonation, with +effects still more tragically absurd to onlookers. And she remembered +reading somewhere--was it in Maudslay?--that in the days of Napoleon, +when princes and kings were as ninepins to be set up and knocked down at +the tyrant's pleasure, the asylums of France were full of such great +folk. Potentates there galore! If she had Mr. Saffron's "record" before +her, she would expect to read of a vain ostentatious man, ambitious in +his own small way; the little plant of these qualities would, given a +morbid physical condition, develop into the fantastic growth of delusion +which she had now diagnosed in the case of Mr. Saffron--diagnosed with +the assistance of some lucky accidents! + +But what was her duty now--the duty of Dr. Mary Arkroyd, a duly +qualified, accredited, responsible medical practitioner? With a slight +shock to her self-esteem she was obliged to confess that she had only +the haziest idea. Had not people who kept a lunatic to be licensed or +something? Or did that apply only to lunatics in the plural? And did +Beaumaroy keep Mr. Saffron within the meaning of whatever the law might +be? But at any rate she must do something; the state of things at Tower +Cottage could not go on as it was. The law of the land--whatever it +was--must be observed, Beaumaroy must be foiled, and poor old Mr. +Saffron taken proper care of. The course of her meditations was hardly +interrupted by the episode of her light evening meal; she was back in +her drawing-room by half-past eight, her mind engrossed with the matter +still. + +It was a little after nine when there was a ring at the hall door. Not +the lovers back so early? She heard a man's voice in the hall. The next +moment Beaumaroy was shown in, and the door shut behind him. He stood +still by it, making no motion to advance towards her. He was breathing +quickly, and she noticed beads of perspiration on his forehead. She had +sprung to her feet at the sight of him, and faced him with indignation. + +"You have no right to come here, Mr. Beaumaroy, after what passed +between us this afternoon." + +"Besides being, as you saw yourself, very excited, my poor old friend +isn't at all well to-night." + +"I'm very sorry; but I'm no longer Mr. Saffron's medical attendant. If I +declined to be this afternoon, I decline ten times more to-night." + +"For all I know, he's very ill indeed, Dr. Arkroyd." Beaumaroy's manner +was very quiet, restrained, and formal. + +"I have come to a clear conclusion about Mr. Saffron's case since I left +you." + +"I thought you might. I suppose 'Morocco' put you on the scent? And I +suppose, too, that you looked at that wretched bit of paper?" + +"I--I thought it----" Here Mary was slightly embarrassed. + +"You'd have been more than human if you hadn't. I was out again after it +in five minutes--as soon as I missed it; you'd gone, but I concluded +you'd seen it. He scribbles dozens like that." + +"You seem to admit my conclusion about his mental condition," she +observed stiffly. + +"I always admit when I cease to be able to deny. But don't let's stand +here talking. Really, for all I know, he may be dying. His heart seems +to me very bad." + +"Go and ask Dr. Irechester." + +"He dreads Irechester. I believe the sight of Irechester might finish +him. You must come." + +"I can't--for the reasons I've told you." + +"Why? My misdeeds? Or your rules and regulations? My God, how I hate +rules and regulations! Which of them is it that is perhaps to cost the +old man his life?" + +Mary could not resist the appeal; that could hardly be her duty, and +certainly was not her inclination. Her grievance was not against poor +old Mr. Saffron, with his pitiful delusion of greatness, of a greatness +too which now had suffered an eclipse almost as tragical as that which +had befallen his own reason. What an irony in his mad aping of it now! + +"I will come, Mr. Beaumaroy, on condition that you give me candidly and +truthfully all the information which, as Mr. Saffron's medical +attendant, I am entitled to ask." + +"I'll tell you all I know about him--and about myself too." + +"Your affairs and--er--position matter to me only so far as they bear on +Mr. Saffron." + +"So be it. Only come quickly; and bring some of your things that may +help a man with a bad heart." + +Mary left him, went to her surgery, and was quickly back with her bag. +"I'll get out the car." + +"It'll take a little longer, I know, but do you mind if we walk? Cars +always alarm him. He thinks that they come to take him away. Every car +that passes vexes him; he looks to see if it will stop. And when yours +does----" He ended with a shrug. + +For the first time Mary's feelings took on a keen edge of pity. Poor old +gentleman! Fancy his living like that! And cars--military cars too--had +been so common on the road across the heath. + +"I understand. Let us go at once. You walked yourself, I suppose?" + +"Ran," said Beaumaroy, and, with the first sign of a smile, wiped the +sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. + +"I'm ready, Mr. Beaumaroy," said Doctor Mary. + +They walked along together in silence for full half the way. Then +Beaumaroy spoke. "He was extremely excited--at his worst--when he and I +went into the cottage. I had to humour him in every way; it was the only +thing to do. That was followed by great fatigue--a sort of collapse. I +persuaded him to go to bed. I hope we shall find him there, but I don't +know. He would let me go only on condition that I left the door of the +Tower unlocked, so that he could go in there if he wanted to. If he has, +I'm afraid that you may see something--well, something rather bizarre, +Dr. Arkroyd." + +"That's all in the course of my profession." + +Silence fell on them again, till the outline of cottage and tower came +into view through the darkness. Beaumaroy spoke only once again before +they reached the garden gate. + +"If he should happen to be calmer now, I hope you will not consider it +necessary to tell him that you suspect anything unusual." + +"He is secretive?" + +"He lives in terror." + +"Of what?" + +"Of being shut up. May I lead the way in, Dr. Arkroyd?" + +They entered the cottage, and Beaumaroy shut the door. A lamp was +burning dimly in the passage. He turned it up. "Would you kindly wait +here one minute?" Receiving her nod of acquiescence, he stepped softly +up the stairs, and she heard him open a door above; she knew it was that +of Mr. Saffron's bedroom, where she had visited the old man. She +waited--now with a sudden sense of suspense. It was very quiet in the +cottage. + +Beaumaroy was down again in a minute. + +"It is as I feared," he said quietly. "He has got up again, and gone +into the Tower. Shall I try and get him out, or will you----?" + +"I will go in with you, of course, Mr. Beaumaroy." + +His old mirthful, yet rueful, smile came on his lips--just for a moment. +Then he was grave and formal again. "This way, then, if you please, Dr. +Arkroyd," he said deferentially. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE CAR BEHIND THE TREES + + +Mr. Percy Bennett, that gentlemanly stranger, was an enemy to delay; +both constitutionally and owing to experience, averse from dallying with +fortune; to him a bird in his hand was worth a whole aviary on his +neighbour's unrifled premises. He thought that Beaumaroy might levant +with the treasure; at any moment that unwelcome, though not unfamiliar, +tap on the shoulder, with the words (gratifying under quite other +circumstances and from quite different lips) "I want you," might +incapacitate him from prosecuting his enterprise (he expressed this idea +in more homely idiom--less Latinized was his language, metaphorical +indeed, yet terse); finally he had that healthy distrust of his +accomplices which is essential to success in a career of crime; he +thought that Sergeant Hooper might not deliver the goods! + +Sergeant Hooper demurred; he deprecated inconsiderate haste; let the +opportunity be chosen. He had served under Mr. Beaumaroy in France, and +(whatever faults Major-General Punnit might find with that officer) +preferred that he should be off the premises at the moment when Mr. +Bennett and he himself made unauthorized entry thereon. "He's a hot 'un +in a scrap," said the Sergeant, sitting in a public-house at Sprotsfield +on Boxing Day evening, Mr. Bennett and sundry other excursionists from +London being present. + +"My chauffeur will settle him," said Mr. Bennett. It may seem odd that +Mr. Bennett should have a chauffeur; but he had--or proposed to +have--_pro hac vice_--or _ad hoc_; for this particular job in fact. +Without a car that stuff at Tower Cottage--somewhere at Tower +Cottage--would be difficult to shift. + +The Sergeant demurred still, by no means for the sake of saving +Beaumaroy's skin, but still purely for the reason already given; yet he +admitted that he could not name any date on which he could guarantee +Beaumaroy's absence from Tower Cottage. "He never leaves the old +blighter alone later than eleven o'clock or so, and rarely as late as +that." + +"Then any night's about the same," said gentleman Bennett; "and now for +the scheme dear N.C.O.!" + +Sergeant Hooper despaired of the doors. The house-door might possibly +be negotiated, though at the probable cost of arousing the notice of +Beaumaroy--and the old blighter himself. But the door from the parlour +into the Tower offered insuperable difficulties. It was always locked; +the lock was intricate; he had never so much as seen the key at close +quarters and, even had opportunity offered, was quite unpractised in the +art of taking impressions of locks--a thing not done with accuracy quite +so easily as seems sometimes to be assumed. + +"For my own part," said Mr. Bennett with a nod, "I've always inclined to +the window. We can negotiate that without any noise to speak of, and it +oughtn't to take us more than a few minutes. Just deal boards, I expect! +Perhaps the old gentleman and your pal Beaumaroy" (the Sergeant spat) +"will sleep right through it!" + +"If they ain't in the Tower itself," suggested the Sergeant gloomily. + +"Wherever they may be," said gentleman Bennett, with a touch of +irritability--he was himself a sanguine man and disliked a mind fertile +in objections--"I suppose the stuff's in the Tower, isn't it?" + +"It goes in there, and I've never seen it come out, Mr. Bennett." Here +at least a tone of confidence rang in the Sergeant's voice. + +"But where in the Tower, Sergeant?" + +"'Ow should I know? I've never been in the blooming place." + +"It's really rather a queer business," observed Mr. Bennett, allowing +himself, for a moment, an outside and critical consideration of the +matter. + +"Damned," said the Sergeant briefly. + +"But, once inside, we're bound to find it! Then--with the car--it's in +London in forty minutes, and in ten more it's--where it's going to be; +where that is needn't worry you, my dear Sergeant." + +"What if we're seen from the road?" urged the pessimistic Sergeant. + +"There's never a job about which you can't put those questions. What if +Ludendorff had known just what Foch was going to do, Sergeant? At any +rate anybody who sees us is two miles either way from a police +station--and may be a lot farther if he tries to interfere with us! It's +a hundred to one against anybody being on the road at that time of +night; we'll pray for a dark night and dirty weather--which, so far as +I've observed, you generally get in this beastly neighbourhood." He +leant forward and tapped the Sergeant on the shoulder. "Barring +accidents, let's say this day week; meanwhile, Neddy"--he smiled as he +interjected "Neddy is our chauffeur"--"Neddy and I will make our little +plan of attack." + +"Don't be too generous! Don't leave all the V.C. chances to me," the +Sergeant implored. + +"Neddy's a fair glutton for 'em! Difficulty is to keep him from murder! +And he stands six foot four and weighs seventeen stone." + +"I'll back him up--from be'ind--company in support," grinned the +Sergeant, considerably comforted by this description of his coadjutor. + +"You'll occupy the station assigned to you, my man," said Mr. Bennett, +with an admirable burlesque of the military manner. "The front is +wherever a soldier is ordered to be--a fine saying of Lord Kitchener's! +Remember it, Sergeant!" + +"Yes, sir," said the Sergeant, grinning still. + +He found Mr. Bennett on the whole amusing company, though occasionally +rather alarming; for instance, there seemed to him to be no particular +reason for dragging in Neddy's predilection for murder; though, of +course, a man of his inches and weight might commit murder through some +trifling and pardonable miscalculation of force. "Same as if that +Captain Naylor hit you!" the Sergeant reflected, as he finished the +ample portion of rum with which the conversation had been lightened. He +felt pleasantly muzzy, and saw Mr. Bennett's clean-cut features rather +blurred in outline. However the sandy wig and red moustache which that +gentleman wore--in his character as a Boxing Day excursionist--were +still salient features even to his eyes. Anybody in the room would have +been able to swear to them. + +Thus the date of the attack was settled and, if only it had been adhered +to, things might have fallen out differently between Doctor Mary and Mr. +Beaumaroy. Events would probably have relieved Mary from the necessity +of presenting her ultimatum, and she might never have heard that +illuminating word "Morocco." But big Neddy the Shover--as his intimate +friends were wont to call him--was a man of pleasure as well as of +business; he was not a bloke in an office; he liked an ample Christmas +vacation and was now taking one with a party of friends at Brighton--all +tip-toppers, who did the thing in style and spent their money (which was +not their money) lavishly. From the attractions of this company--not +composed of gentlemen only--Neddy refused to be separated. Mr. Bennett, +who was on thorns at the delay, could take it or leave it at that; in +any case the job was, in Neddy's opinion (which he expressed with that +massive but good-humoured scorn which is an appanage of very large men), +a leap in the dark, a pig in a poke, blind hookey; for who really knew +how much of the stuff the old blighter and his pal had contrived to +shift down to the cottage in the old brown bag? Sometimes it looked +light, sometimes it looked heavy; sometimes perhaps it was full of +bricks! + +In this mood Neddy had to be humoured, even though gentlemanly Mr. +Bennett sat on thorns. The Sergeant repined less at the delay; he liked +the pickings which the job brought him much better than the job itself, +standing in wholesome dread of Beaumaroy. It was rather with resignation +than with joy that he received from Mr. Bennett the news that Neddy had +at last named the day that would suit his High Mightiness--Tuesday the +7th of January it was, and, as it chanced, the very day before Beaumaroy +was to start for Morocco! More accurately, the attack would be delivered +on the actual day of his departure--if he went. For it was timed for one +o'clock in the morning, an hour at which the road across the heath might +reasonably be expected to be clear of traffic. This was an especially +important point, in view of the fact that the window of the Tower faced +towards the road and was but four or five yards distant from it. + +After a jovial dinner--rather too jovial in Mr. Bennett's opinion, but +that was Neddy's only fault, he would mix pleasure with business--the +two set out in an Overland car. Mr. Bennett--whom, by the way, his big +friend Neddy called "Mike," and not "Percy," as might have been +expected--assumed his sandy wig and red moustache as soon as they were +well started; Neddy scorned disguise for the moment, but he had a mask +in his pocket. He also had a very nasty little club in the same pocket, +whereas Mr. Bennett carried no weapon of offence--merely the tools of +his trade, at which he was singularly expert. The friends had worked +together before; though Neddy reviled Mike for a coward, and Mike +averred, with curses, that Neddy would bring them both to the gallows +some day, yet they worked well together and had a respect for one +another, each allowing for the other's idiosyncrasies. The true spirit +of partnership! On it alone can lasting and honourable success be built. + +"Just match-boarding, the Sergeant says it is, does he?" asked Neddy, +breaking a long silence, which indeed had lasted until they were across +Putney Bridge and climbing the hill. + +"Yes, and rotten at that. It oughtn't to take two minutes; then there'll +be only the window. Of course we must have a look round first. Then, if +the coast's clear, I'll nip in and shove something up against the door +of the place while you're following. The Sergeant's to stay on guard at +the door of the house, so that we can't be taken in the rear. See?" + +"Righto!" + +"Then--well, we've got to find the stuff, and when we've found it, +you've got to carry it, Neddy. Don't mind if it's a bit heavy, do you?" + +"I don't want to overstrain myself," said Neddy jocularly, "but I'll do +my best with it--only hope it's there!" + +"It must be there. Hasn't got wings, has it? At any rate, not till you +put it in your pocket, and go out for an evening with the ladies!" + +Neddy paid this pleasantry the tribute of a laugh, but he had one more +business question to ask: + +"Where are we to stow the car? How far off?" + +"The Sergeant has picked out a big clump of trees, a hundred yards from +the cottage on the Sprotsfield side, and about thirty yards from the +road. Pretty clear going to it, bar the bracken--she'll do it easily. +There she'll lie, snug as you like. As we go by Sprotsfield, the car +won't have to pass the cottage at all--that's an advantage--and yet it's +not over far to carry the stuff." + +"Sounds all right," said Neddy placidly, and with a yawn. "Have a drop?" + +"No, I won't--and I wish you wouldn't, Neddy. It makes you bad-tempered, +and a man doesn't want to be bad-tempered on these jobs." + +"Take the wheel a second while I have a drop," said Neddy, just for all +the world as if his friend had not spoken. He unscrewed the top of a +large flask and took a very considerable "drop." It was only after he +had done this with great deliberation that he observed good-naturedly, +"And you go to hell, Mike! It's dark, ain't it? That's a bit of all +right." + +He did not speak again till they were near Sprotsfield. "This +Beaumaroy--queer name, ain't it?--he's a big chap, ain't he, Mike?" + +"Pretty fair; but, Lord love you, a baby beside yourself." + +"Well, now, you told me something the Sergeant said about a man as was" +(Neddy, unlike his friend, occasionally tripped in his English) "really +big." + +"Oh, that's Naylor--Captain Naylor. But he's not at the cottage; we're +not likely to meet him, praise be!" + +"Rather wish we were! I want a little bit of exercise," said Neddy. + +"Well, I don't know but what Beaumaroy might give you that. The +Sergeant's got tales about him at the war." + +"Oh, blast these soldiers--they ain't no good." In what he himself +regarded as his spare hours, that is to say, the daytime hours wherein +the ordinary man labours, Neddy was a highly skilled craftsman, whose +only failing was a tendency to be late in the morning and to fall ill +about the festive seasons of the year. He made lenses, and, in spite of +the failing, his work had been deemed to be of National Importance, as +indeed it was. But that did not excuse his prejudice against soldiers. + +They passed through the outskirts of Sprotsfield; Mike--to use his more +familiar name--had made a thorough exploration of the place, and his +directions enabled his chauffeur to avoid the central and populous parts +of the town. Then they came out on to the open heath, passed Old Place, +and presently--about half a mile from Tower Cottage--found Sergeant +Hooper waiting for them by the roadside. It was then hard on midnight--a +dark cloudy night, very apt for their purpose. With a nod, but without a +word, the Sergeant got into the car, and in cautious whispers directed +its course to the shelter of the clump of trees; they reached it after a +few hundred yards of smooth road and some thirty of bumping over the +heath. It afforded a perfect screen from the road, and on the other side +there was only untrodden heath, no path or track being visible near it. + +Neddy got out of the car, but he did not forget his faithful flask. He +offered it to the Sergeant in token of approval. "Good place, Sergeant," +he said; "does credit to you, as a beginner. Here, mate, hold on, +though. It's evident you ain't accustomed to liqueur glasses!" + +"When I sits up so late, I gets a kind of a sinking," the Sergeant +explained apologetically. + +Mike flashed a torch on him for a minute; there was a very uncomfortable +look in his little squinty eyes. "Sergeant," he said suavely but +gravely, "my friend here relies on you. He's not a safe man to +disappoint." He shifted the light suddenly on to Neddy, whose +proportions seemed to loom out prodigious from the surrounding darkness. +"Are you, Neddy?" + +"No, I'm a sensitive chap, I am," said Neddy, smiling. "Don't you go and +hurt my pride in you by any sign of weakness, Sergeant." + +The Sergeant shivered a little. "I'm game--I'll stick it," he protested +valorously. + +"You'd better!" Neddy advised. + +"All quiet at the cottage as you came by?" asked Mike. + +"Quiet as the grave, for what I see," the Sergeant answered. + +"All right. Mike, where are them sandwiches? I feel like a bite. One for +the Sergeant too! But no more flask--no, you don't, Sergeant! When'll we +start, Mike?" + +"In about half an hour." + +"Just nice time for a snack--oysters and stout for you, my darling?" +said jovial Neddy. Then--with a change of voice--"Just as well that +didn't pass us!" + +For the sound of a car came from the road they had just left. It was +going in the direction of the cottage and of Inkston. Captain Alec was +taking his betrothed home after a joyful evening of congratulation and +welcome. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SECRET OF THE TOWER + + +The scene presented by the interior of the Tower, when Beaumaroy softly +opened the door and signed to Doctor Mary to step forward and look, was +indeed a strange one, a ridiculous yet pathetic mockery of grandeur. + +The building was a circular one, rising to a height of some thirty-five +feet and having a diameter of about ten. Up to about twelve feet from +the floor its walls were draped with red and purple stuffs of coarse +material; above them the bare bricks and the rafters of the roof showed +naked. In the middle of the floor--with their backs to the door at which +Mary and her companion stood--were set two small arm-chairs of plain and +cheap make. Facing them, on a rough dais about three feet high and with +two steps leading up to it, stood a large and deep carved oaken +arm-chair. It too was upholstered in purple, and above and around it +were a canopy and curtains of the same colour. This strange erection was +set with its back to the one window--that which Mr. Saffron had caused +to be boarded up, soon after he entered into occupation. The place was +lighted by candles--two tall standards of an ecclesiastical pattern, one +on either side of the great chair or throne, and each holding six large +candles, all of which were now alight and about half consumed. On the +throne, his spare wasted figure set far back in the recesses of its deep +cushioned seat and his feet resting on a high hassock, sat old Mr. +Saffron; in his right hand he grasped a sceptre, obviously a theatrical +"property," but a handsome one, of black wood with gilt ornamentation; +his left arm he held close against his side. His eyes were turned up +towards the roof; his lips were moving as though he were talking, but no +sound came. + +Such was Doctor Mary's first impression of the scene; but the next +moment she took in another feature of it, not less remarkable. To the +left of the throne, to her right as she stood in the doorway facing it, +there was a fireplace; an empty grate, though the night was cold. +Immediately in front of it was--unmistakably--the excavation in the +floor which Mr. Penrose had described at the Christmas dinner-party at +Old Place--six feet in length by three in breadth, and about four feet +deep. Against the wall, close by, stood a sheet of cast iron, which +evidently served to cover and conceal the aperture; by it was thrown +down, in careless disorder, a strip of the same dull red baize as +covered the rest of the floor of the Tower. By the side of the sheet and +the piece of carpet there was an old brown leather bag. + +Tradition--and Mr. Penrose--had told the truth. Here without doubt was +Captain Duggle's grave, the grave he had caused to be dug for himself, +but which--be the reason what it might--his body had never occupied. Yet +the tomb was not entirely empty. The floor of it was strewn with +gold--to what depth Mary could not tell, but it was covered with golden +sovereigns; there must be thousands of them. They gleamed under the +light of the candles. + +Mary turned startled, inquiring, apprehensive eyes on Beaumaroy. He +pressed her arm gently, and whispered: + +"I'll tell you presently. Come in. He'll notice us, I expect, in a +minute. Mind you curtsey when he sees you!" He led her in, pulling the +door to after him, and placed her and himself in front of the two small +arm-chairs opposite Mr. Saffron's throne. + +Beaumaroy removed his hand from her arm but she caught his wrist in one +of hers and stood there, holding on to him, breathing quickly, her eyes +now set on the figure on the throne. + +The old man's lips had ceased to move; his eyes had closed; he lay back +in the deep seat, inert, looking half dead, very pale and waxen in the +face. For what seemed a long time he sat thus, motionless and almost +without signs of life, while the two stood side by side before him. Mary +glanced once at Beaumaroy; his lips were apart in that half-humorous, +half-compassionate smile; there was no hint of impatience in his +bearing. + +At last Mr. Saffron opened his eyes and saw them; there was intelligence +in his look, though his body did not move. Mary was conscious of a low +bow from Beaumaroy; she remembered the caution he had given her, and +herself made a deep curtsey; the old man made a slight inclination of +his handsome white head. Then, after another long pause, a movement +passed over his body--excepting his left arm. She saw that he was trying +to rise from his seat, but that he had barely the strength to achieve +his purpose. But he persisted in his effort, and in the end rose slowly +and tremulously to his feet. + +Then, utterly without warning, in a sudden and shocking burst of that +high, voluble, metallic speech which Captain Alec had heard through the +ceiling of the parlour, he began to address them--if indeed it were they +whom he addressed, and not some phantom audience of princes, marshal's +admirals, or trembling sheep-like recruits. It was difficult to hear +the words, hopeless to make out the sense. It was a farrago of nonsense, +part of his own inventing, part (as it seemed) wild and confused +reminiscences of the published speeches of the man he aped, all strung +together on some invisible thread of insane reasoning, delivered with a +mad vehemence and intensity that shook and seemed to rend his feeble +frame. + +"We must stop him, we must stop him," Mary suddenly whispered. "He'll +kill himself if he goes on like this!" + +"I've never been able to stop him," Beaumaroy whispered back. "Hush! If +he hears us speaking, he'll be furious and carry on worse." + +The old man's blue eyes fixed themselves on Beaumaroy--of Mary he took +no heed. He pointed at Beaumaroy with his sceptre, and from him to the +gleaming gold in Captain Duggle's grave. A streak of coherency, a strand +of mad logic, now ran through his hurtling words; the money was there, +Beaumaroy was to take it--to-day, to-day!--to take it to Morocco, to +raise the tribes, to set Africa aflame. He was to scatter it--broadcast, +broadcast! There was no end to it--don't spare it! "There's millions, +millions of it!" he shouted, and achieved a weird wild majesty in a +final cry, "God with us!" + +Then he fell--tumbled back in utter collapse into the recesses of the +great chair. His sceptre fell from his nerveless hand and rolled down +the steps of the dais; the impetus it gathered carried it, rolling +still, across the floor to the edge of the open pit; for an instant it +lay poised on the edge, and then fell with a jangle of sound on the +carpet of golden coins that lined Captain Duggle's grave. + +"Quick! Get my bag--I left it in the passage," whispered Mary, as she +started forward, up the dais, to the old man's side. "And brandy, if +you've got it," she called after Beaumaroy, as he turned to the door to +do her bidding. + +Beaumaroy was gone no more than a minute. When he came back, with the +bag hitched under his arm, a decanter of brandy in one hand and a glass +in the other, Mary was leaning over the throne, with her arm round the +old man. His eyes were open, but he was inert and motionless. Beaumaroy +poured out some brandy, and gave it into Mary's free hand. But when Mr. +Saffron saw Beaumaroy by his side, he gave a sudden twist of his body, +wrenched himself away from Mary's arm, and flung himself on his trusted +friend. "Hector, I'm in danger! They're after me! They'll shut me up!" + +Beaumaroy put his strong arms about the frail old body. "Oh no, sir, oh +no!" he said in low, comforting, half-bantering tones. "That's the old +foolishness, sir, if I may say so. You're perfectly safe with me. You +ought to trust me by now, sir, really you ought." + +"You'll swear--you'll swear it's all right, Hector?" + +"Right as rain, sir," Beaumaroy assured him cheerfully. + +Very feebly the old man moved his right hand towards the open grave. +"Plenty--plenty! All yours, Hector! For--for the Cause--God's with us!" +His head fell forward on Beaumaroy's breast; for an instant again he +raised it, and looked in the face of his friend. A smile came on his +lips. "I know I can trust you. I'm safe with you, Hector." His head fell +forward again; his whole body was relaxed; he gave a sigh of peace. +Beaumaroy lifted him in his arms and very gently set him back in his +great chair, placing his feet again on the high footstool. + +"I think it's all over," he said, and Mary saw tears in his eyes. + +Then Mary herself collapsed; she sank down on the dais and broke into +weeping. It had all been so pitiful--and somehow so terrible. Her quick +tumultuous sobbing sounded through the place which the vibrations of the +old man's voice had lately filled. + +She felt Beaumaroy's hand on her shoulder. "You must make sure," he +said, in a low voice. "You must make your examination." + +With trembling hands she did it--she forced herself to it, Beaumaroy +aiding her. There was no doubt. Life had left the body which reason had +left long before. His weakened heart had not endured the last strain of +mad excitement. The old man was dead. + +Her face showed Beaumaroy the result of her examination, if he had ever +doubted of it. She looked at him, then made a motion of her hand towards +the body. "We must--we must----" she stammered, the tears still rolling +down her cheeks. + +"Presently," he said. "There's plenty of time. You're not fit to do that +now--and no more am I, to tell the truth. We'll rest for half an hour, +and then get him upstairs, and--and do the rest. Come with me!" He put +his hand lightly within her arm. "He will rest quietly on his throne for +a little while. He's not afraid any more. He's at rest." + +Still with his arm in Mary's, he bent forward and kissed the old man on +the forehead. "I shall miss you, old friend," he said. Then, with gentle +insistence, he led Mary away. They left the old man, propped up by the +high stool on which his feet rested, seated far back in the great chair, +hard by Captain Duggle's grave, where the sceptre lay on a carpet of +gold. The tall candles burnt on either side of his throne, imparting a +far-off semblance of ceremonial state. + +Thus died, unmarried, in the seventy-first year of his age, Aloysius +William Saffron, formerly of Exeter, Surveyor and Auctioneer. He had +run, on the whole, a creditable course; starting from small beginnings, +and belonging to a family more remarkable for eccentricity than for any +solid merit, he had built up a good practice; he had made money and put +it by; he enjoyed a good name for financial probity. But he was held to +be a vain, fussy, self-important, peacocky fellow; very self-centred +also and (as Beaumaroy had indicated) impatient of the family and social +obligations which most men recognize, even though often unwillingly. As +the years gathered upon his head, these characteristics were +intensified. On the occasion of some trifling set-back in business--a +rival cut him out in a certain negotiation--he threw up everything and +disappeared from his native town. Thenceforward nothing was heard of him +there, save that he wrote occasionally to his cousin, Sophia Radbolt, +and her husband, both of whom he most cordially hated, whose claims to +his notice, regard, or assistance he had, of late years at least, hotly +resented. Yet he wrote to them--wrote them vaunting and magniloquent +letters, hinting darkly of great doings and great riches. In spite of +their opinion of him, the Radbolts came to believe perhaps half of what +he said; he was old and without other ties; their thirst for his money +was greedy. Undoubtedly the Radbolts would dearly have loved to get hold +of him and--somehow--hold him fast. + +When he came to Tower Cottage--it was in the first year of the war--he +was precariously sane; it was only gradually that his fundamental and +constitutional vices and foibles turned to a morbid growth. First came +intensified hatred and suspicion of the Radbolts--they were after him +and his money! Then, through hidden processes of mental distortion, +there grew the conviction that he was of high importance, a great man, +the object of great conspiracies, in which the odious Radbolts were but +instruments. It was, no doubt, the course of public events, culminating +in the Great War, which gave to his mania its special turn, to his +delusion its monstrous (but, as Doctor Mary was aware, by no means +unprecedented) character. By the time of his meeting with Beaumaroy the +delusion was complete; through all the second half of 1918 he +followed--so far as his mind could now follow anything rationally--in +his own person and fortunes the fate of the man whom he believed himself +to be, appropriating the hopes, the fears, the imagined ambitions, the +physical infirmity, of that self-created other self. + +But he wrapped it all in deep secrecy, for, as the conviction of his +true identity grew complete, his fears were multiplied. Radbolts indeed! +The whole of Christendom--Principalities and Powers--were on his track. +They would shut him up--kill him perhaps! Cunningly he hid his +secret--save what could not be entirely hidden, the physical deformity. +But he hid it with his shawl; he never ate out of his own house; the +combination knife-and-fork was kept sedulously hidden. Only to Beaumaroy +did he reveal the hidden thing; and later, on Beaumaroy's persuasion, he +let into the portentous secret one faithful servant--Beaumaroy's +unsavoury retainer, Sergeant Hooper. + +He never accepted Hooper as more than a distasteful necessity--somebody +must wait on him and do him menial service--not feared indeed, for +surely such a dog would not dare to be false, but cordially disliked. +Beaumaroy won him from the beginning. Whom he conceived him to be +Beaumaroy himself never knew, but he opened his heart to him +unreservedly. Of him he had no suspicion; to him he looked for safety +and for the realization of his cherished dreams. Beaumaroy soothed his +terrors and humoured him in all things--what was the good of doing +anything else? asked Beaumaroy's philosophy. He loved Beaumaroy far more +than he had loved anybody except himself in all his life. At the end, +through the wild tangle of mad imaginings, there ran this golden thread +of human affection; it gave the old man hours of peace, sometimes almost +of sanity. + +So he came to his death, directly indeed of a long-standing organic +disease, yet veritably self-destroyed. And so he sat now dead, amidst +his shabby parody of splendour. He had done with thrones; he had even +done with Tower Cottage--unless indeed his pale shade were to hold +nocturnal converse with the robust and flamboyant ghost of Captain +Duggle; the one vaunting his unreal vanished greatness, mouthing +orations and mimicking pomp; the other telling, in language garnished +with strange and horrible oaths, of those dark and lurid terrors which +once had driven him from this very place, leaving it ablaze behind. A +strange couple they would make, and strange would be their conversation! + +Yet the tenement which had housed the old man's deranged spirit, empty +as now it was--aye, emptier than Duggle's tomb--was still to be witness +of one more earthly scene and unwittingly bear part in it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RIGHT OF CONQUEST + + +What has been related of Mr. Saffron's life before he ascended the +throne on which he still sat in the Tower represented all that Beaumaroy +knew of his old friend before they met--indeed he knew scarcely as much. +He told the brief story to Doctor Mary in the parlour. She heard him +listlessly; all that was not much to the point on which her thoughts +were set, and did not answer the riddle which the scene in the Tower put +to her. She was calm now--and ashamed that she had ever lost her +calmness. + +"Well, there was the situation as I understood it when I took on the +job--or quite soon afterwards. He thought that he was being pursued; in +a sense he was. If these Radbolts found out the truth, they certainly +would pursue him, try to shut him up, and prevent him from making away +with his money or leaving it to anybody else. I didn't at all know at +first what a tidy lot he had. He hated the Radbolts; even after he +ceased to know them as cousins, he remained very conscious of them +always; they were enemies, spies, secret service people on his +track--poor old boy! Well, why should they have him and his money? I +didn't see it. I don't see it to this day." + +Mary was in Mr. Saffron's arm-chair. Beaumaroy stood before the fire. +She looked up at him. + +"They seem to have more right than anybody else. And you know--you +knew--that he was mad." + +"His being mad gives them no right! Oh, well, it's no use arguing. In +the end I suppose they had rights--of a kind--a right by law, I +suppose--though I never knew the law and don't want to--to shut the old +man up, and make him damned miserable, and get the money for themselves. +That sounds just the sort of right the law does give people over other +people--because Aunt Betsy married Uncle John fifty years ago, and was +probably infernally sorry for it!" + +Mary smiled. "A matter of principle with you, was it, Mr. Beaumaroy? + +"No--instinct, I think. It's my instinct to be against the proper thing, +the regular thing, the thing that deals hardly with an individual in the +name of some highly nebulous general principle." + +"Like discipline?" she put in, with a reminiscence of Major-General +Punnit. + +He nodded. "Yes, that's one case of it. And, then, the situation amused +me. I think that had more to do with it than anything else at first. It +amused me to play up to his delusions. I suggested the shawl as useful +on our walks--and thereby got him to take wholesome exercise; that ought +to appeal to you, Doctor! I got him the combination knife-and-fork; that +made him enjoy his meals--also good for him, Doctor! But I didn't do +these things because they were good for him, but because they amused me. +They never amused Hooper, he's a dull, surly, and--I'm inclined to +believe--treacherous dog." + +"Who is he?" + +"Sacked from the army--sent to quod. Just a gaol-bird whom I've kept +loose. But the things did amuse me, and it was that at first. But +then----" he paused. + +Looking at him again, Mary saw a whimsical tenderness expressed in his +eyes and smile. "The poor old chap was so overwhelmingly grateful. He +thought me the one indubitably faithful adherent that he had. And so I +was too--though not in the way he thought. And he trusted me absolutely. +Well, was I to give him up--to the law, and the Radbolts, and the +gaolers of an asylum--a man who trusted me like that?" + +"But he was mad," objected Doctor Mary obstinately. + +"A man has his feelings--or may have--even when he's mad. He trusted me +and he loved me, Doctor Mary. Won't you allow that I've my case--so +far?" She made no sign of assent. "Well then, I loved him--does that go +any better with you? If it doesn't, I'm in a bad way; because what I'm +giving you now is the strong part of my case." + +"I don't see why you should put what you call your case to me at all, +Mr. Beaumaroy." + +He looked at her in a reproachful astonishment. "But you seemed touched +by--by what we saw in the Tower. I thought the old man's death--and +fate--had appealed to you. It seems to me that people can't go through a +thing like that together without feeling--well, some sort of +comradeship. But if you've no sort of feeling of that kind--well, I +don't want to put my case." + +"Go on with your case," said Doctor Mary, after a moment's silence. + +"Though it isn't really that I want to put a case for myself at all. But +I don't mind owning that I'd like you to understand about it--before I +clear out." + +She looked at him questioningly, but put no spoken question. Beaumaroy +sat down on the stool opposite to her, and poked the fire. + +"I can't get away from it, can I? There was something else you saw in +the Tower, wasn't there, and I dare say that you connect it with a +conversation that we had together a little while ago? Well, I'll tell +you about that. Oh, well, of course I must, mustn't I?" + +"I should like to hear." Her bitterness was gone; he had come now to the +riddle. + +"He was a king to himself," Beaumaroy resumed thoughtfully, "but in fact +I was king over him. I could do anything I liked with him. I had him. I +possessed him--by right of conquest. The right of conquest seemed a big +thing to me; it was about the only sort of right that I'd seen anything +of for three years and more. Yes, it was--and is--a big thing, a real +thing--the one right in the whole world that there's no doubt about. +Other rights are theories, views, preachments! Right of conquest is a +fact. I had it. I could make him do what I liked, sign what I liked. Do +you begin to see where I found myself? I say found myself, because +really it was a surprise to me. At first I thought he was in a pretty +small way--he only gave me a hundred a year besides my keep. True, he +always talked of his money, but I set that down mainly to his delusion. +But it was true that he had a lot--really a lot. A good bit besides what +you saw in there; he must have speculated cleverly, I think, he can't +have made it all in his business. Doctor Mary, how much gold do you +think there is in the grave in there? + +"I haven't the least idea. Thousands? Where did you get it?" + +"Oh yes, thousands--and thousands. We got it mostly from the aliens in +the East End; they'd hoarded it, you know; but they were willing to sell +at a premium. The premium rose up to last month; then it dropped a +little--not much, though, because we'd exhausted some of the most +obvious sources. I carried every sovereign of that money in the grave +down from London in my brown bag." He smiled reflectively. "Do you know +how much a thousand sovereigns weigh, Doctor Mary?" + +"I haven't the least idea," said Mary again. She was leaning forward +now, listening intently, and watching Beaumaroy's face with absorbed +interest. + +"Seventeen and three-quarter pounds avoirdupois--that's the correct +weight. The first time or two we didn't get much--they were still shy of +us. But after that we made some heavy hauls. Twice we brought down close +on two thousand. Once there was three thousand, almost to a sovereign. +Even men trained to the work--bullion porters, as they call them at the +Bank of England--reckon five bags of a thousand--canvas bags not much +short of a foot long and six inches across, you know--they reckon five +of them a full load--and wouldn't care to go far with them either. The +equivalent of three of them was quite enough for me to carry from +Inkston station up to the cottage--trying to look as if I were carrying +nothing of any account! One hasn't got to pretend to be carrying nothing +in full marching kit--nor to carry it all in one hand. And he'd never +trust himself in a cab--might be kidnapped, you see! I don't know +exactly, but from what he said I reckon we've brought down, on our +Wednesday trips, about two-thirds of all he had. Now you've probably +gathered what his idea was. He knew he was disguised as Saffron--and +very proud of the way he lived up to the character. As Saffron, he +realized the money by driblets--turned his securities into notes, his +notes into gold. But he'd lost all knowledge that the money was his +own--made by himself--himself Saffron. He thought it was saved out of +the wreck of his Imperial fortune. It was to be dedicated to restoring +the Imperial cause. He himself could not attempt, at present, to get out +of England, least of all carrying pots of gold coin. But he believed +that I could. I was to go to Morocco and so on, and raise the country +for him, taking as much as I could--and coming back for more! He had no +doubt at all of my coming back! In fact it wouldn't have been much +easier for me to get out of the country with the money than it would +have been for the authentic Kaiser himself. But, Doctor Mary, what would +have been possible was for me to go somewhere else--or even back to the +places we knew of--for no questions were asked there--put that money +back into notes, or securities in my own name, and tell him I had +carried out the Morocco programme. He had no sense of time, he would +have suspected nothing." + +"That would have been mere and sheer robbery," said Mary. + +"Oh yes, it would," Beaumaroy agreed. "And, if I'd done it, and deserted +him, I should have deserved to be hanged. That was hardly my question. +As long as he lived, I meant to stick by him; but he was turned seventy, +frail, with heart disease, and, as I understand, quite likely to sink +into general paralysis. Well, if I was to exercise my right of conquest +and get the fruits of conquest, two ways seemed open. There could be a +will; you'll remember my consulting you on that point and your reply?" + +"Did he make a will?" asked Mary quickly. + +"No. A will was open to serious objections. Even supposing your +evidence--which, of course, I wanted in case of need--had been +satisfactory, a fight with the Radbolts would have been unpleasant. +Worse than that--as long as I lived I should have been blackmailed by +Sergeant Hooper, who knew Mr. Saffron's condition, though he didn't know +about the money here. Even before you found out about my poor old +friend, I had decided against a will--though, perhaps, I might have +squared the Radbolts by just taking this little place--and its +contents--and letting them take the rest. That too became impossible +after your discovery. There remained, then, the money in the Tower. I +could make quite sure of that, wait for his death, and then enjoy it. +And, upon my word, why shouldn't I? He'd have been much gratified by my +going to Morocco; and he'd certainly much sooner that I had the +money--if it couldn't go to Morocco--than that the Radbolts should get +it. That was the way the question presented itself to me; and I'm a poor +man, with no obvious career before me. The right of conquest appealed to +me strongly, Doctor Mary." + +"I can see that you may have been greatly tempted," said Mary in a grave +and troubled voice. "And the circumstances did enable you to make +excuses for what you thought of doing." + +"Excuses? You won't even go so far as to call it a doubtful case? One +that a casuist could argue either way?" Beaumaroy was smiling again now. + +"Even if I did, men of----" + +"Yes, Doctor Mary--of sensitive honour!" + +"Decide doubtful cases against themselves in money matters." + +"Oh, I say, is that doctrine current in business circles? I've been in +business myself, and I doubt it." + +"They do--men of real honour," Mary persisted. + +"So that's how great fortunes are made? That's how individuals--to say +nothing of nations--rise to wealth and power! And I never knew it," +Beaumaroy reflected in a gentle voice. His eye caught Mary's, and she +gave a little laugh. "By deciding doubtful cases against themselves! +Dear me, yes!" + +"I didn't say they rose to greatness and power." + +"Then the people who do rise to greatness and power--and the +nations--don't they go by right of conquest, Doctor Mary? Don't they +decide cases in their own favour?" + +"Did you really mean to--to take the money?" + +"I'll tell you as near as I can. I meant to do my best for my old man. I +meant him to live as long as he could--and to live free, unpersecuted, +as happy as he could be made. I meant that, because I loved him--and he +loved me. Well, I've lost him; I'm alone in the world." The last words +were no appeal to Mary; for the moment he seemed to have forgotten her; +he was speaking out of his own heart to himself. Yet the words thereby +touched her to a livelier pity; you are very lonely when there is nobody +to whom you have affection's right to complain of loneliness. + +"But after that--if I saw him to his end in peace--if I brought that +off, well, then I rather think that I should have stuck to the money. +Yes, I rather think so." + +"You've managed to mix things up so!" Mary complained. "Your devotion to +Mr. Saffron--for that I could forgive you keeping his secret, and +fooling me, and all of us. But then you mix that up with the money!" + +"It was mixed up with it. I didn't do the mixing." + +"What are you going to do now?" she asked with a sudden curiosity. + +"Oh, now? Now the thing's all different. You've seen, you know--and even +I can't offer you a partnership in the cash, can I? If I weren't an +infernally poor conspirator, I should have covered up the Captain's +grave, and made everything neat and tidy before I came to fetch +you--because I knew he might go back to the Tower. On his bad nights he +always made me open the grave, and spread out the money--make a show of +it, you know. Then it had to be put back in bags--the money-bags lived +in the brown leather bag--and the grave had to be fastened down. +Altogether it was a good bit of work. I'd just got it open, and the +money spread out, when he turned bad--a sort of collapse like the one +you saw--and I was so busy getting him to bed that I forgot the cursed +grave and the money--just as I forgot to put away the knife-and-fork +before you called the first time--and you saw through me!" + +"If you're not a good conspirator, it's another reason for not +conspiring, Mr. Beaumaroy. I know you conspired for him first of all, +but----" + +"Well, he's safe, he's at peace. It can all come out now--and it must. +You know--and you must tell the truth. I don't know whether they can put +me in prison; I should hardly think they'd bother, if they get the money +all right. In any case I don't care much. Lord, what a lot of people'll +say, 'I told you so--bad egg, that Beaumaroy!' No, I don't care. My old +man's safe; I've won my big game after all, Doctor Mary!" + +"I don't believe you cared about the money really!" she cried. "That +really was a game to you, I think--a trick you liked to play on us +respectables!" + +He smiled at her confidentially. "I do like beating the respectables," +he admitted. Then he looked at his watch. "I must do what has to be done +for the old man. But it's late--hard on one o'clock. You must be +tired--and it's a sad job." + +"No, I'll help you. I--I've been in hospitals, you know. Only do go +first, and cover up that horrible place, and hide that wretched money +before I go in the Tower. Will you?" She gave a shiver, as her +imagination renewed the scene which the Tower held. + +"You needn't come into the Tower at all. He's as light as a feather. +I've lifted him into bed often. I can lift him now. If you really wish +to help, will you go up to his room and--and get things ready?" As he +spoke, he crossed to the sideboard, took up a bedroom candlestick, and +lit it from one that stood on the table. "And you'll see about the body +being taken to the mortuary, won't you? I shall communicate with the +Radbolts--fully; they'll take charge of the funeral, I suppose. Well, he +won't know anything about that now, thank God!" There was the slightest +tremor in his voice as he spoke. + +Mary did not take the candle. "I've said some hard things to you, Mr. +Beaumaroy. I dare say I've sounded very self-righteous." He raised his +hand in protest, but she went on: "So I should like to say one different +thing to you--since we're to part after to-night. You've shown yourself +a good friend--good and true as a man could have." + +"I loved my old man," said Beaumaroy. + +It was his only plea. To Mary it seemed a good one. He had loved his +poor old madman; and he had served him faithfully. "Yes, the old man +found a good friend in you; I hope you will find good friends too. Oh, I +do hope it! Because that's what you want." + +"I should be very glad if I could think that, in spite of everything, I +had found one here in this place--even although she can be a friend only +in memory." + +Mary paused for a moment, then gave him her hand. "I know you much +better after to-night. My memory of you will be a kind one. Now to our +work!" + +"Yes--and thank you. I thank you more deeply than you imagine." + +He gave her the candle and followed her to the passage. + +"You know where the room is. I shall put the--the place--straight, and +then bring him up. I shan't be many minutes--ten, perhaps. The cover's +rather hard to fit." + +Mary nodded from the top of the stairs. Strained by the events of the +night, and by the talk to Beaumaroy, she was again near tears; her eyes +were bright in the light of the candle, and told of nervous excitement. +Beaumaroy went back into the parlour, on his way to the Tower. Suddenly +he stopped and stood dead still, listening intently. + +Mary busied herself upstairs, making her preparations with practised +skill and readiness. Her agitation did not interfere with her +work--there her training told--but of her inner mind it had full +possession. She was afraid to be alone--there in that cottage. She +longed for another clasp of that friendly hand. Well, he would come +soon; but he must bring his burden with him. When she had finished what +she had to do, she sat down and waited. + +Beaumaroy waited too, outside the door leading to the Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE SCEPTRE IN THE GRAVE + + +Sergeant Hooper took up his appointed position on the flagged path that +led up to the cottage door. His primary task was to give warning if +anybody should come out of the door; a secondary one was to give the +alarm in case of interruption by passers-by on the road--an unlikely +peril this latter, in view of the hour, the darkness of the night, and +the practised noiselessness with which Mike might be relied upon to do +his work. Here then the Sergeant was left, after being accorded another +nip from the flask--which, however, Neddy kept in his own hands this +time--and a whispered but vigorously worded exhortation to keep up his +courage. + +Neddy the Shover and gentlemanly Mike tiptoed off to the window, on the +right-hand side of the door as one approached the house from the road. +The bottom of the window was about seven feet from the ground. Neddy +bent down and offered his broad back as a platform to his companion. +Mike mounted thereon and began his work. That, in itself, was child's +play to him; the match-boarding was but lightly nailed on; the +fastenings came away in a moment under the skilful application of his +instrument; the window sash behind was not even bolted, for the bolt had +perished with time and had not been replaced. So far, very good! But at +this early point Mike received his first surprise. He could not see much +of the interior; a tall curtain stretched across the entire breadth of +the window, distant about two feet from it; but he could see that the +room was lighted up. + +Very cautiously he completed his work on the match-boarding, handing +down each plank to Neddy when he had detached it. Then he cut out a pane +of glass--it was all A B C to him--put his hand in and raised the sash a +little; then it was simple to push it up from below. But the sash had +not been raised for years; it stuck; when it yielded to his efforts, it +gave a loud creak. He flung one leg over the window-sill and sat poised +there, listening. The room was lighted up; but if there were anyone in +it, he must be asleep or very hard of hearing, or that creak would have +aroused his attention. + +Released from his office as a support, Neddy rose, and hauled himself up +by his arms till he could see in the window. "Lights!" he whispered. +Mike nodded and got in--on the dais, behind the curtain. Neddy scrambled +up after him, finding some help from a stunted but sturdy old apple tree +that grew against the wall. Now they were both inside, behind the tall +curtain. + +"Come on," Mike whispered. "We must see if there's anybody here, and, if +there isn't, put out the light." For on either side of the curtain there +was room for a streak of light which might by chance be seen from the +road. + +Mike advanced round the left-side edge of the curtain; he had perceived +by now that it formed the back of some structure, though he could not +yet see of what nature the structure was; nor was he now examining it. +For as he stepped out on the dais at the side of the canopy, his eyes +were engrossed by another feature of this strange apartment. He +stretched back his hand and caught hold of Neddy's brawny arm, pulling +him forward. "See that--that hole, Neddy?" + +For the moment they forgot the lights; they forgot the possibility of an +occupant of the room--which indeed was, save for their own whispers, +absolutely still; they stood looking at the strange hole, and then into +one another's faces, for a few seconds. Then they stole softly nearer to +it. "That's a blasted funny 'ole!" breathed Neddy. "Looks like a +bloke's----!" + +Mike's fingers squeezed his arm tighter, evidently again claiming his +attention. "My hat, we needn't look far for the stuff!" he whispered. An +uneasy whisper it was; the whole place looked queer, and that hole was +uncanny--it and its contents. + +Yet they approached nearer; they came to the edge and stood looking in. +As though he could not believe the mere sight of his eyes, big Neddy +crouched down, reached out his hand, and took up Mr. Saffron's sceptre. +With a look of half-scared amazement he held it up for his companion's +inspection. Mike eyed it uneasily, but his thoughts were getting back to +business. He stole softly off to the door, with intent to see whether it +was locked; he stooped down to examine it and perceived that it was not. +It would be well, then, to barricade it, and he turned round to look for +some heavy bit of furniture suitable for his purpose, something that +would delay the entrance of an intruder and give them notice of the +interruption. + +As he turned, his body suddenly stiffened; only his trained instinct +prevented him from crying out. There was an occupant of the room--there, +in the great chair between the tall candlesticks on the dais. An old man +sat--half lay--there; asleep, it seemed; his eyes were shut. The colour +of his face struck gentleman Mike as being peculiar. But everything in +that place was peculiar; like a great tomb--a blooming mausoleum--the +whole place was. Though he had the reputation of being an _esprit fort_, +Mike felt uncomfortable. Cold and clammy too, the beastly place was! + +Still--business is business. Letting the matter of the unlocked door +wait for the moment, he began to steal catlike across the floor towards +the dais. He had to investigate; also he really ought to put out those +candles; it was utterly unprofessional to leave them alight. But he +could not conquer a feeling that the place would seem still more +peculiar when they were put out. + +Big Neddy's eyes had not followed his comrade to the door; they had been +held by the queer hole and its queer contents--by the gleaming gold that +strewed its floor, by the mock symbol of majesty which he had lifted +from it and still held in his hand, by the oddly suggestive shape and +dimensions of the hole itself. But now he raised his eyes from these +things and looked across at Mike, mutely asking what he thought of +matters. He saw Mike stealing across the floor, looking very, very hard +at--something. + +Mute as Neddy's inquiry was, Mike seemed somehow aware of it. He raised +his hand, as though to enjoin silence, and then pointed it in front of +him, raised to the level of his head. Neddy turned round to look in the +direction indicated. He saw the throne and its silent occupant--the +waxen-faced old man who sat there, seeming to preside over the scene, +whose head was turned towards him, whose closed eyes would open directly +on his face if their lids were lifted. + +Neddy feared no living man; so he was accustomed to boast, and with good +warrant. But was that man living? How came he up there? And what had he +to do with the queer-shaped hole that had all that gold in it? And the +thing he held in his own hand? Did that belong to the old man up there? +Had he flung it into the hole? Or (odd fancies began to assail big +Neddy) had he left it behind him when he got out? And would he, by +chance, come down to look for it? + +Mike's hand, stretched out from his body towards his friend, now again +enjoined silence. He was at the foot of the dais; he was going up its +steps. He was no good in a scrap, but he had a nerve in some things! He +was up the steps now, and leaning forward; he was looking hard in the +old man's face; his own was close to it. He laid hold of one of the old +man's arms--it happened to be that left arm of Mr. Saffron's--lifted it, +and let it fall again; it fell back just in the position from which he +had lifted it. Then he straightened himself up, looking a trifle green +perhaps, but reassured, and called out to Mike, in a penetrating +whisper, "He's a stiff 'un all right!" + +Yes! But then--what of the grave? Because it was a grave and nothing +else; there was no getting away from it. What of the grave, and--what +about the sceptre? + +And what was Mike going to do now? He was tiptoeing to the edge of the +dais. He was moving towards one of the high candlesticks, the top of +which was a little below the level of his head, as he stood raised on +the dais beside the throne. He leant forward towards the candles; his +intent was obvious. + +But big Neddy was not minded that he should carry it out--could not +suffer him to do it. With the light of the candles--well, at all events +you could see what was happening; you could see where you were, and +where anybody else was. But in the dark--left to torches which +illuminated only bits of the place, and which perhaps you mightn't +switch on in time or turn in the right direction--if you were left like +that, anybody might be anywhere--and on to you before you knew it! + +"Let them lights alone, Mike!" he whispered hoarsely. "I'll smash your +'ead in if you put them lights out!" + +Mike had conquered his own fit of nerves, not without some exercise of +will, and had not given any notice to his companion's, which was +considerably more acute; perhaps the constant use of that roomy flask +had contributed to that, though lack of a liberal education (such as +Mike had enjoyed and misused) must also bear its share of +responsibility. He was amazed at this violent and threatening +interruption. He gave a funny little skip backwards on the dais; his +heel came thereby in contact with the high hassock on which Mr. +Saffron's feet rested. The hassock was shifted; one foot fell from it on +to the dais, and Mr. Saffron's body fell a little forward from out of +the deep recess of his great chair. To big Neddy's perturbed imagination +it looked as if Mr. Saffron had set one foot upon the floor of the dais +and was going to rise from his seat, perhaps to come down from the dais, +to come nearer to his grave--to ask for his sceptre. + +It was too much for Neddy. He shuddered--he could not help it; and the +sceptre dropped from his hand. It fell from his hand back into the grave +again; under its impact the gold coins in the grave again jangled. + +Beaumaroy had, by this time, been standing close outside the door for +about two minutes; he had lighted a cigarette from the candle on the +parlour table. The sounds that he thought he heard were not conclusive; +creaks and cracks did sometimes come from the boarded-up window and the +rafters of the roof. But the sound of the jangling gold was conclusive; +it must be due in some way to human agency; and in the circumstances +human agency must mean a thief. + +Beaumaroy's mind leapt to the Sergeant. Ten to one it was the Sergeant! +He had long been after the secret; he had at last sniffed it out, and +was helping himself! It seemed to Beaumaroy a disgusting thing to do, +with the dead man sitting there. But that was sentiment. Sentiment was +not to be expected of the Sergeant, and disgusting things were. + +Then he suddenly recalled Alec Naylor's story of the two men, one tall +and slight, one short and stumpy, who had reconnoitred Tower Cottage. +The Sergeant had an accomplice, no doubt. He listened again. He heard +the scrape of metal on metal, as when a man gathers up coins in his hand +out of a heap. Yet he stood where he was, smoking still. Thoughts were +passing rapidly through his brain, and they brought a smile to his lips. + +Let them take it! Why not? It was no care to him now! Doctor Mary had to +tell the truth about it, and so, consequently, had he himself. It +belonged to the Radbolts. Oh, damn the Radbolts! He would have risked +his life for it if the old man had lived, but he wasn't going to risk +his life for the Radbolts. Let the rascals get off with the stuff, or as +much as they could carry! He was all right. Doctor Mary could testify +that he hadn't taken it. Let them carry off the infernal stuff! +Incidentally he would be well rid of the Sergeant, and free from any of +his importunities--from whines and threats alike; it was not an +unimportant, if a minor, consideration. + +Yet it was a disgusting thing to do--it certainly was; and the Sergeant +would think that he had scored a triumph. Over his benefactor too, his +protector, Beaumaroy reflected with a satiric smile. The Sergeant +certainly deserved a fright--and, if possible, a licking. These +administered, he could be kicked out--perhaps--oh, yes, poor +brute!--with a handful of the Radbolts' money. They would never miss it, +as they did not know how much there was, and such a diversion of their +legal property in no way troubled Beaumaroy's conscience. + +And the accomplice? He shrugged his shoulders. The Sergeant was, as he +well knew from his military experience of that worthy man, an arrant +coward. He would show no fight. If the accomplice did, Beaumaroy was +quite in the mood to oblige him. But while he tackled one fellow, the +other might get off with the money--with as much as he could carry. For +all that it was merely Radbolt money now, in the end Beaumaroy could not +stomach the idea of that--the idea that either of the dirty rogues in +there should get off with the money. And it was foolish to attack them +on the front on which they expected to be attacked. Quickly his mind +formed another plan. He turned, stole softly out of the parlour, and +along the passage towards the front door of the cottage. + +After Neddy had dropped Mr. Saffron's sceptre into Captain Duggle's +grave (Had he known that it was Captain Duggle's, and not been a prey to +the ridiculous but haunting fancy that it had been destined for, or +even--oh, these errant fancies!--already occupied by, Mr. Saffron +himself, Neddy would have been less agitated) Mike dealt with him +roundly. In bitter hissing whispers, and in language suited thereto, he +pointed out the folly of vain superstitions, of childish fears and sick +imaginings which interfered with business and threatened its success. +His eloquent reasoning, combined with a lively desire to get out of the +place as soon as possible, so far wrought on Neddy that he produced the +sack which he had brought with him, and held its mouth open, though with +trembling hands, while Mike scraped up handful after handful of gold +coins and poured them into it. They were busily engaged on their joint +task as Beaumaroy stole along the passage and, reaching the front door, +again stood listening. + +The Sergeant was still keeping his vigil before the door. He had no +doubt that it was locked; did not Beaumaroy see Mrs. Wiles and himself +out of it every evening--the back door to the little house led only on +to the heath behind and gave no direct access to the road--and lock it +after them with a squeaking key? He would have warning enough if anyone +turned the key now. He was looking towards the road--a surprise was more +possible from that quarter; his back was towards the door and only a +very little way from it. + +But when Beaumaroy had entered with Doctor Mary, he had not relocked the +door; he opened it now very gently and cautiously, and saw the +Sergeant's back--there was no mistaking it. Without letting his +surprise--for he had confidently supposed the Sergeant to be in the +Tower--interfere with the instant action called for by the +circumstances, he flung out his long right arm, caught the Sergeant +round the neck with a throttling grip, and dragged him backwards into +the house. The man was incapable of crying out; no sound escaped from +him which could reach the Tower. Beaumaroy set him softly on the floor +of the passage. "If you stir or speak, I'll strangle you!" he whispered. +There was enough light from the passage lamp to enable the Sergeant to +judge, by the expression of his face, that he spoke sincerely. The +Sergeant did not dare even to rub his throat, though it was feeling very +sore and uncomfortable. + +There was a row of pegs on the passage wall, just inside the door. On +them, among hats, caps, and coats--and also Mr. Saffron's grey +shawl--hung two long neck-scarves, comforters that the keen heath winds +made very acceptable on a walk. Beaumaroy took them, and tied his +prisoner hand and foot. He had just completed this operation, in the +workman-like fashion which he had learnt on service, when he heard a +footstep on the stairs. Looking up, he saw Doctor Mary standing there. + +Her waiting in the room above had seemed long to her. Her ears had been +expecting the sound of Beaumaroy's tread as he mounted the stairs, laden +with his burden. That sound had not come; instead, there had been the +soft, just audible, plop of the Sergeant's body as it dropped on the +floor of the passage. It occurred to her that Beaumaroy had perhaps had +some mishap with his burden, or found difficulty with it. She was coming +downstairs to offer her help. Seeing what she saw now, she stood still +in surprise. + +Beaumaroy looked up at her and smiled. "No cause for alarm," he said, +"but I've got to go out for a minute. Keep an eye on this rascal, will +you? Oh, and, Doctor Mary, if he tries to move or untie himself, just +take the parlour poker and hit him over the head! Thanks. You don't +mind, do you? And you, Sergeant, remember what I said!" + +With these words Beaumaroy slipped out of the door, and softly closed it +behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A NORMAL CASE + + +When Captain Alec brought his fiancée home after the dinner of welcome +and congratulation at Old Place, it was nearly twelve o'clock. Jeanne, +however--in these days a radiant Jeanne, very different from the +mournful creature who had accompanied Captain Cranster's victim to +Inkston a few weeks before--was sitting up for her mistress, and since +she had to perform this duty--which was sweetened by the hope of +receiving exciting confidences; for surely that affair was +"marching"?--it had been agreed between her and the other maids that she +should sit up for the doctor also. She told the lovers that Doctor Mary +had been called for by Mr. Beaumaroy, and had gone out with him +presumably to visit his friend Mr. Saffron. It did not occur to either +of them to ask when Mary had set out; they contented themselves with +exchanging a glance of disapproval. What a pity that Mary should have +anything more to do with this Mr. Saffron and his Beaumaroy! + +However there was a bright side to it this time. It would be kind of +Cynthia to sit up for Mary and minister to her a cup of tea, which +Jeanne should prepare; and it would be pleasant--and quite +permissible--for Captain Alec to bear her company. Mary could not be +long, surely; it grew late. + +So for a while they thought no more of Mary--as was natural enough. They +had so much to talk about, the whole of a new and very wonderful life to +speculate about and to plan, the whole of their past acquaintance to +review; old doubts had to be confessed and laughed at; the inevitability +of the whole thing from the first beginnings had to be recognized, +proved, and exhibited. In this sweet discourse the minutes flew by +unmarked, and would have gone on flying, had not Jeanne reappeared of +her own accord, to remark that it really was very late now; did +mademoiselle think that possibly anything could have happened to Doctor +Arkroyd? + +"By Jove, it is late!" cried the Captain, looking at his watch. "It's +past one!" + +Cynthia was amazed to hear that. + +"He must be very ill, that old gentleman," Jeanne opined. "And poor +Doctor Arkroyd will be very tired. She will find the walk across the +heath very fatiguing." + +"Walk, Jeanne? Didn't she take the car?" cried Cynthia, surprised. + +No, the doctor had not taken the car; she had started to walk with Mr. +Beaumaroy; the parlourmaid had certainly told Jeanne that. + +"I tell you what," said the Captain. "I'll just tool along to Tower +Cottage. I'll look out for Doctor Mary on the road, and give her a lift +back if I meet her. If I don't, I can stop at the cottage and get +Beaumaroy to tell her that I'm there, and can wait to bring her home as +soon as she's ready. You'd better go to bed, Cynthia." + +Jeanne tactfully disappeared, and the lovers said good-night. After +Alec's departure, Jeanne received the anticipated confidence. + +That departure almost synchronized with two events at Tower Cottage. The +first was Beaumaroy's exit from the front door, leaving Mary in charge +of his prisoner who, consequently, was unable to keep any watch on the +road or to warn his principals of approaching danger. The second was big +Neddy's declaration that, in his opinion, the sack now held about as +much as he could carry. He raised it from the floor in his two hands. +"Must weigh a 'undred pound or more!" he reckoned. That meant a lot of +money, a fat lot of money. His terrors had begun to wear off, since +nothing of a supernatural or even creepy order had actually happened. He +had, at last, even agreed to the candles being put out. Still he would +be glad to be off. "Enough's as good as a feast, as the sayin' goes, +Mike," he chuckled. + +Mike had fitted a new battery into his torch. It shone brightly on Neddy +and on the sack, whose mouth Neddy was now tying up. "I might fill my +pockets too," he suggested, eyeing the very respectable amount of +sovereigns which still remained in Captain Duggle's tomb. + +"Don't do it, old lad," Neddy advised. "If we 'ave to get out, or +anything of that kind, you don't want to jingle as if you was a glass +chandelier, do you?" + +Mike admitted the cogency of the objection, and they agreed to be off. +Mike started for the window. "I'll just pick up the Sergeant," he said, +"and signal you 'All clear.' Then you follow out." + +"No, Mike," said Neddy slowly, but very decisively. "If you don't mind, +it's going to be me as gets out of that window first. I ain't a man of +your eddication, and--well, blast me if I'm going to be left in this +place alone with--that there!" He motioned with his head, back over his +shoulder, towards where silent Mr. Saffron sat. + +"You're a blooming ass, Neddy, but have it your own way. Only let me see +the coast's clear first." + +He stole to the window and looked around. He assumed that the Sergeant +was at his post, but all the same he wanted to have a look at the road +himself. So he had, and the result was satisfactory. It was hardly to be +expected that he should scrutinize the ground immediately under the +window; at any rate he did not think of that. It was, as Beaumaroy had +conjectured, from another direction--from the parlour--that he +anticipated a possible attack. There all was quiet. He came back and +reported to Neddy that the moment was favourable. "I'll switch off the +torch, though--just in case. You can feel your way; keep to the edge of +the steps; don't knock up against----" + +"I'll take damned good care not to!" muttered Neddy, with a little +shiver. + +He made his way to the window, through the darkness, having slung his +sack over his shoulder and holding it with his right hand, while with +the left he guided himself up the dais and along its outside edge, +giving as wide a berth as possible to the great chair and its encircling +canopy. With a sigh of relief he found the window, moved the sack from +his shoulder, and set it on the ledge for a moment. But it was awkward +to get down from the window, holding that heavy sack. He lowered it +towards the ground, so that it might land gently, and, just as he let it +go, he turned his head back and whispered to Mike, "All serene. Get a +move on!" + +"Half a minute!" answered Mike, as he in his turn set out to grope his +way to the window. + +But he was not so cautious as his friend had been. In his progress he +kicked the tall footstool sharply with one of his feet. Neddy leant back +from the window, asking quickly, and again very nervously, "What the +devil's that?" + +Beaumaroy could not resist the opportunity thus offered to him. He was +crouching on the ground, not exactly under the window, but just to the +right of it. Neddy's face was turned away; he threw himself on to the +bag, rose to his feet, raised it cautiously, and holding it in front of +him with both his hands--its weight was fully as much as he could +manage--was round the curve of the Tower, and out of sight with it in an +instant. + +At the back of the house there was a space of ground where Mrs. Wiles +grew a few vegetables for the household's use; it was a clearing made +from the heath, but it was not enclosed. Beaumaroy was able to reach the +back entrance, by which this patch of ground could be entered from the +kitchen. Just by the kitchen door stood that useful thing, a butt for +rainwater. It stood some three, or three and a half, feet high; and it +was full to the brim almost. With a fresh effort Beaumaroy raised the +sack to the level of his breast. Then he lowered it into the water, not +dropping it, for fear of a splash, but immersing both his arms above the +elbow. Only when he felt the weight off them, as the sack touched +bottom, did he release his hold. Then with cautious steps he continued +his progress round the house and, coming to the other side, crouched +close by the wall again and waited. Where he was now, he could see the +fence that separated the front garden from the road, and he was not more +than ten or twelve feet from the front door on his left. As he huddled +down here, he could not repress a smile of amusement, even of +self-congratulation. However he turned to the practical job of squeezing +the water out of his sleeves. + +In thus congratulating himself, he was premature. His action had been +based on a miscalculation. He had heard only Neddy's last exclamation, +not the cautious whispers previously exchanged between him and Mike; he +thought that the man astride the window-sill himself had kicked +something and instinctively exclaimed "What the devil's that?" He +thought that the sack was lowered from the window in order to be +committed to the temporary guardianship of the Sergeant, who was +doubtless looking out for it and, if he had his ears open, would hear +its gentle thud. Perhaps the man in the Tower was collecting a second +instalment of booty; heavy as the sack was, it did not contain all that +he knew to be in Captain Duggle's grave. Be that as it might, the man +would climb out of the window soon; and he would fail to find his sack. + +What would he do then? He would signal or call to the Sergeant; or, if +they had a preconcerted rendezvous, he would betake himself there, +expecting to find his accomplice. He would neither get an answer from +him nor find him, of course. Equally of course he would look for him. +But the last place where he would expect to find him--the last place he +would search--would be where the Sergeant in fact was, the house itself. +If in his search for Hooper, he found Beaumaroy, it would be man to man, +and, now again, Beaumaroy had no objection. + +But, in fact, there were two men in the Tower--one of them big Neddy; +and the function, which Beaumaroy supposed to have been entrusted to the +Sergeant, had never been assigned to him at all; to guard the door and +the road had been his only tasks. When they found the bag gone, and the +Sergeant too, they might well think that the Sergeant had betrayed them; +that he had gone off on his own account, or that he had, at the last +moment, under an impulse of fear or a calculation of interest, changed +sides and joined the garrison in the house. If he had gone off with the +sack, he could not have gone fast or far with it. Failing to overtake +him, they would turn back to the cottage; for they knew themselves to be +in superior force. Beaumaroy was in greater danger than he knew--and so +was Doctor Mary in the house. + +Big Neddy let himself down from the window, and put down his hand to +lift up the sack; he groped about for it for some seconds, during which +time Mike also climbed over the window-sill and dropped on to the ground +below. Neddy emitted a low but strenuous oath. + +"The sack's gone, Mike!" he added in a whisper. + +"Gone? Rot! Can't be! What do you mean, Neddy?" + +"I dropped it straight 'ere. It's gone," Neddy persisted. "The Sergeant +must 'ave took it." + +"No business of his! Where is the fool?" Mike's voice was already +uneasy; thieves themselves seldom believe in there being honour among +them. "You stay here. I'll go to the door and see if he's there." + +He was just about to put this purpose into execution--in which event it +was quite likely that Beaumaroy, hearing his approach or his call to the +Sergeant, would have sprung out upon him, only to find himself assailed +the next instant by another and far more formidable antagonist in the +person of big Neddy, and thus in sore peril of his life--when the hum of +Captain Alec's engine became audible in the distance. The next moment, +the lights of his car became visible to all the men in the little front +garden of the cottage. + +"Hist! Wait till that's gone by!" whispered Neddy. + +"Yes, and get round to the back. Get out of sight round here." He drew +Neddy round the curve of the Tower wall till his big frame was hidden by +it; then he himself crouched down under the wall, with his head +cautiously protruded. The night had grown clearer; it was possible to +see figures at a distance of some yards now. + +Beaumaroy also watched the car. Whose it was, and the explanation of its +appearance, even occurred to his mind. But he kept still. He did not +want visitors; he conceived his hand to be a better one than it really +was, and preferred to play it by himself. If the car passed by, well and +good. Only if it stopped at the gate would he have to take action. + +It did stop at the gate. Mike saw it stop. Then its engine was shut off, +and a man got out of it, and came up to the garden gate. Though the +watching Mike had never seen him before, he had little difficulty in +guessing who he was; and he remembered something that the Sergeant had +said about him. Of a certainty it was the redoubtable Captain Naylor. +Through the darkness he loomed enormous, as tall as big Neddy himself +and no whit less broad. A powerful reinforcement for the garrison! + +And what would the Sergeant do, if he were still at his post by the +door--with or without that missing, that all-important, sack? + +Another tall figure came into Mike's view--from where he could not +distinctly see; it hardly seemed to be from the door of the cottage, for +no light showed, and there was no sound of an opening door. But it +appeared from somewhere near there; it was on the path, and it moved +along to the gate in a leisurely unhurried approach. A man with his +hands in his pockets--that was what it looked like. This must be the +garrison; this must be the Sergeant's friend, master, protector, and +_bête noire_, his "Boomery." + +But the Sergeant himself? Where was he? He could hardly be at his post; +or Beaumaroy and he must have seen one another, must have taken some +heed of one another; something must have passed between them, either +friendly or hostile. Mike turned round and whispered hastily, close into +Neddy's ear. Neddy crawled a little forward, and put his own bullet head +far enough round the curve of the wall to see the meeting between the +garrison and its unexpected reinforcement. + +Beaumaroy, hands in pockets, lounged nonchalantly down to the gate. He +opened it; the Captain entered. The two shook hands and stood there, +apparently in conversation. The words did not reach the ears of the +listeners, but the sound of voices did--voices hushed in tone. Once +Beaumaroy pointed to the house; both Mike and Neddy marked the +outstretched hand. Was Beaumaroy telling his companion about something +that had been happening at the house? Were they concocting a plan of +defence--or of attack? With the disappearance--perhaps the treachery--of +the Sergeant, and the appearance of this new ally for the garrison, the +prospects of a fight took on a very different look. Neddy might tackle +the big stranger with an equal chance. How would Mike fare in an +encounter with Beaumaroy? He did not relish the idea of it. + +And, while they fought, the traitor Sergeant might be on their backs! +Or--on the other hypothesis--he might be getting off with the swag! +Neither alternative was satisfactory. + +"P'r'aps he's gone off to the car with the sack--in a fright like, +thinking we'll guess that!" whispered Neddy. + +Mike did not much think so, though he would much have liked to. But he +received the suggestion kindly. "We might as well have a look; we can +come back afterwards if--if we like. Perhaps that big brute'll have +gone." + +"The thing as I want to do most is to wring that Sergeant's neck!" + +Their whispers were checked by a new development. The cottage door +opened for a moment and then closed again; they could tell that, both by +the sound and by the momentary ray of light. Yet a light persisted after +the door was shut. It came from a candle, which burnt steadily in the +stillness of the night. It was carried by a woman, who came down the +path towards where Beaumaroy and the Captain stood in conversation. Both +turned towards her with eager attention. + +"Now's our time, then! They aren't looking our way now. We can get +across the heath to where the car is." + +They moved on very softly, keeping the Tower between them and the group +on the path. They gained the back of the house, and so the open heath, +and made off to their destination. They moved so softly that they +escaped unheard--unless Beaumaroy were right in the notion that his ear +caught a little rustle of the bracken. He took no heed of it, unless a +passing smile might be reckoned as such. + +Doctor Mary joined him and the Captain on the path. Beaumaroy's smile +gave way to a look of expectant interest. He wondered what she was going +to say to Captain Alec. There was so much that she might say, or--just +conceivably--leave unsaid. + +She spoke calmly and quietly. "It's you, Captain Alec! I thought so! +Cynthia got anxious? I'm all right. I suppose Mr. Beaumaroy has told +you? Poor Mr. Saffron is dead." + +"I've told him," said Beaumaroy. + +"Of heart disease," Mary added. "Quite painlessly, I think--and quite a +normal case, though, of course, it's distressing." + +"I--I'm sorry," stammered Captain Alec. + +Beaumaroy's eyes met Mary's in the candle's light with a swift glance of +surprise and inquiry. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DEAD MAJESTY + + +Mary did not appear to answer Beaumaroy's glance; she continued to look +at, and to address herself to, Captain Alec. "I am tired, and I should +love a ride home. But I've still a little to do, and--I know it's +awfully late, but would you mind waiting just a little while? I'm afraid +I might be as much as half an hour." + +"Right you are, Doctor Mary--as long as you like. I'll walk up and down, +and smoke a cigar; I want one badly." Mary made an extremely faint +motion of her hand towards the house. "Oh, thanks, but really I--well, I +shall feel more comfortable here, I think." + +Mary smiled; it was always safe to rely on Captain Alec's fine feelings; +under the circumstances he would--she had felt pretty sure--prefer to +smoke his cigar outside the house. "I'll be as quick as I can. Come, Mr. +Beaumaroy!" + +Beaumaroy followed her up the path and into the house. The Sergeant was +still on the floor of the passage; he rolled apprehensive resentful eyes +at them; Mary took no heed of him, but preceded Beaumaroy into the +parlour and shut the door. + +"I don't know what your game is," remarked Beaumaroy in a low voice, +"but you couldn't have played mine better. I don't want him inside the +house; but I'm mighty glad to have him extremely visible outside it." + +"It was very quiet inside there"--she pointed to the door of the +Tower--"just before I came out. Before that, I'd heard odd sounds. Was +there somebody there--and the Sergeant in league with him?" + +"Exactly," smiled Beaumaroy. "It is all quiet; I think I'll have a +look." + +The candle on the table had burnt out. He took another from the +sideboard and lit it from the one which Mary still held. + +"Like the poker?" she asked, with a flicker of a smile on her face. + +"No, you come and help, if I cry out!" He could not repress a chuckle; +Doctor Mary was interesting him extremely. + +Lighted by his candle, he went into the Tower. She heard him moving +about there, as she stood thoughtfully by the extinct fire, still with +her candle in her hand. + +Beaumaroy returned. "He's gone--or they've gone." He exhibited to her +gaze two objects--a checked pocket-handkerchief and a tobacco pouch. +"Number one found on the edge of the grave. Number two on the floor of +the dais, just behind the canopy. If the same man had drawn them both +out of the same pocket at the same time--wanting to blow the same nose, +Doctor Mary--they'd have fallen at the same place, wouldn't they?" + +"Wonderful, Holmes!" said Mary. "And now--shall we attend to Mr. +Saffron?" + +They carried out that office, the course of which they had originally +prepared. Beaumaroy passed with his burden hard by the Sergeant, and +Mary followed. In a quarter of an hour they came downstairs again, and +Mary again led the way into the parlour. She went to the window, and +drew the curtains aside a little way. The lights of the car were +burning; the Captain's tall figure fell within their rays and was +plainly visible, strolling up and down; the ambit of the rays did not, +however, embrace the Tower window. The Captain paced and smoked, +patient, content, gone back to his own happy memories and anticipations. +Mary returned to the table and set her candle down on it. + +"All right. I think we can keep him a little longer." + +"I vote we do," said Beaumaroy. "I reckon he's scared the fellows away, +and they won't come back so long as they see his lights." + +Rash at conclusions sometimes--as has been seen--Beaumaroy was right in +his opinion of the Captain's value as a sentry, or a scarecrow to keep +away hungry birds. The confederates had stolen back to their base of +operations--to where their car lay behind the trees. There, too, no +Sergeant and no sack! Neddy reached for his roomy flask, drank of it, +and with hoarse curses consigned the entire course of events, his +accomplices, even himself, to nethermost perdition. "That place +ain't--natural!" he ended in a gloomy conviction. "'Oo pinched that +sack? The Sergeant? Well--maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't." He +finished the flask, to cure a recurrence of the shudders. + +Mike prevailed with him so far that he consented--reluctantly--to be +left alone on the blasted heath, while his friend went back to +reconnoitre. Mike went, and presently returned; the car was still there, +the tall figure was still pacing up and down. + +"And perhaps the other one's gone for the police!" Mike suggested +uneasily. "Guess we've lost the hand, Neddy! Best be moving, eh? It's no +go for to-night." + +"Catch me trying the bloomin' place any other night!" grumbled Neddy. +"It's given me the 'orrors, and no mistake." + +Mike--Mr. Percy Bennett, that erstwhile gentlemanly stranger--recognized +one of his failures. Such things are incidental to all professions. "Our +best game is to go back; if the Sergeant's on the square, we'll hear +from him." But he spoke without much hope; rationalist as he professed +himself, still he was affected by the atmosphere of the Tower. With what +difficulty do we entirely throw off atavistic notions! They both of them +had, at the bottom of their minds, the idea that the dead man on the +high seat had defeated them, and that no luck lay in meddling with his +treasure. + +"I 'ave my doubts whether that ugly Sergeant's 'uman himself," growled +Neddy, as he hoisted his bulk into the car. + +So they went back to whence they came; and the impression that the +night's adventure left upon them was heightened as the days went by. +For, strange to say, though they watched all the usual channels of +information, as Ministers say in Parliament, and also tried to open up +some unusual ones, they never heard anything again of the Sergeant, of +the sack of gold, of the yawning tomb with its golden lining, of its +silent waxen-faced enthroned guardian who had defeated them. It all--the +whole bizarre scene--vanished from their ken, as though it had been one +of those alluring thwarting dreams which afflict men in sleep. It was an +experience to which they were shy of alluding among their confidential +friends, even of talking about between themselves. In a +word--uncomfortable! + +Meanwhile the Sergeant's association with Tower Cottage had also drawn +to its close. After his search and his discovery in the Tower, Beaumaroy +came out into the passage where the prisoner lay, and proceeded to +unfasten his bonds. + +"Stand up and listen to me, Sergeant," he said. "Your pals have run +away; they can't help you, and they wouldn't if they could, because, +owing to you, they haven't got away with any plunder, and so they'll be +in a very bad temper with you. In the road, in front of the house, is +Captain Naylor--you know that officer and his dimensions? He's in a very +bad temper with you too." (Here Beaumaroy was embroidering the +situation; the Sergeant was not really in Captain Alec's thoughts.) +"Finally, I'm in a very bad temper with you myself. If I see your ugly +phiz much longer, I may break out. Don't you think you'd better +depart--by the back door, and go home? And if you're not out of Inkston +for good and all by ten o'clock in the morning, and if you ever show +yourself there again, look out for squalls. What you've got out of this +business I don't know. You can keep it--and I'll give you a parting +present myself as well." + +"I knows a thing or two----" the Sergeant began, but he saw a look that +he had seen only once or twice before on Beaumaroy's face; on each +occasion it had been followed by the death of the enemy whose act had +elicited it. + +"Oh, try that game, just try it!" Beaumaroy muttered. "Just give me that +excuse!" He advanced to the Sergeant, who fell suddenly on his knees. +"Don't make a noise, you hound, or I'll silence you for good and +all--I'd do it for twopence!" He took hold of the Sergeant's +coat-collar, jerked him on to his legs, and propelled him to the kitchen +and through it to the back door. Opening it, he despatched the Sergeant +through the doorway with an accurate and vigorous kick. He fell, and lay +sprawling on the ground for a second, then gathered himself up and ran +hastily over the heath, soon disappearing in the darkness. The memory of +Beaumaroy's look was even keener than the sensation caused by +Beaumaroy's boot. It sent him in flight back to Inkston, thence to +London, thence into the unknown, to some spot chosen for its remoteness +from Beaumaroy, from Captain Naylor, from Mike and from Neddy. He +recognized his unpopularity, thereby achieving a triumph in a difficult +little branch of wisdom. + +Beaumaroy returned to the parlour hastily; not so much to avoid keeping +Captain Alec waiting--it was quite a useful precaution to have that +sentry on duty a little longer--as because his curiosity and interest +had been excited by the description which Doctor Mary had given of Mr. +Saffron's death. It was true, probably the precise truth, but it seemed +to have been volunteered in a rather remarkable way and worded with +careful purpose. Also it was the bare truth, the truth denuded of all +its attendant circumstances--which had not been normal. + +When he rejoined her, Mary was sitting in the arm-chair by the fire; she +heard his account of the state of affairs up-to-date with a thoughtful +smile, smoking a cigarette; her smile broadened over the tale of the +water-butt. She had put on the fur cloak in which she had walked to the +cottage--the fire was out and the room cold; framed in the furs, the +outline of her face looked softer. + +"So we stand more or less as we did before the burglars appeared on the +scene," she commented. + +"Except that our personal exertions have saved that money." + +"I suppose you would prefer that all the circumstances shouldn't come +out? There have been irregularities." + +"I should prefer that, not so much on my own account--I don't know and +don't care what they could do to me--as for the old man's sake." + +"If I know you, I think you would rather enjoy being able to keep your +secret. You like having the laugh of people. I know that myself, Mr. +Beaumaroy." She exchanged a smile with him. "You want a death +certificate from me," she added. + +"I suppose I do," Beaumaroy agreed. + +"In the sort of terms in which I described Mr. Saffron's death to +Captain Alec? If I gave such a certificate, there would remain +nothing--well, nothing peculiar--except the--the appearance of things in +the Tower." + +Her eyes were now fixed on his face; he nodded his head with a smile of +understanding. There was something new in the tone of Doctor Mary's +voice; not only friendliness, though that was there, but a note of +excitement, of enjoyment, as though she also were not superior to the +pleasure of having the laugh of people. "But it's rather straining a +point to say that--and nothing more. I could do it only if you made me +feel that I could trust you absolutely." + +Beaumaroy made a little grimace, and waited for her to develop her +subject. + +"Your morality is different from most people's, and from mine. Mine is +conventional." + +"Conventual!" Beaumaroy murmured. + +"Yours isn't. It's all personal with you. You recognize no rights in +people whom you don't like, or who you think aren't deserving, or +haven't earned rights. And you don't judge your own rights by what the +law gives you, either. The right of conquest you called it; you hold +yourself free to exercise that against everybody, except your friends, +and against everybody in the interest of your friends--like poor Mr. +Saffron. I believe you'd do the same for me if I asked you to." + +"I'm glad you believe that, Doctor Mary." + +"But I can't deal with you on that basis. It's even difficult to be +friends on that basis--and certainly impossible to be partners." + +"I never suggested that we should be partners over the money," Beaumaroy +put in quickly. + +"No. But I'm suggesting now--as you did before--that we should be +partners--in a secret--in Mr. Saffron's secret." She smiled again as she +added, "You can manage it all, I know, if you like. I've unlimited +confidence in your ingenuity--quite unlimited." + +"But none at all in my honesty?" + +"You've got an honesty; but I don't call it a really honest honesty." + +"All this leads up to--the Radbolts!" declared Beaumaroy, with a gesture +of disgust. + +"It does. I want your word of honour--given to a friend--that all that +money--all of it--goes to the Radbolts, if it legally belongs to them. I +want that in exchange for the certificate." + +"A hard bargain! It isn't so much that I want the money--though I must +remark that in my judgment I have a strong claim to it; I would say a +moral claim but for my deference to your views, Doctor Mary. But it +isn't mainly that. I hate the Radbolts getting it--just as much as the +old man would have hated it." + +"I have given you my--my terms," said Mary. + +Beaumaroy stood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. His face +was twisted in a humorous disgust. Mary laughed gently. "It is possible +to--to keep the rules without being a prig, you know, though I believe +you think it isn't." + +"Including the sack in the water-butt? My sack--the sack I rescued?" + +"Including the bag in the water-butt. Yes--every single sovereign!" +Though Mary was pursuing the high moral line, there was now more +mischief than gravity in her demeanour. + +"Well, I'll do it!" He evidently spoke with a great effort. "I'll do it! +But, look here, Doctor Mary, you'll live to be sorry you made me do it. +Oh, I don't mean that that conscience of yours will be sorry. That'll +approve, no doubt, being the extremely conventionalized thing it is. But +you yourself--you'll be sorry--or I'm much mistaken in the Radbolts." + +"It isn't a question of the Radbolts," she insisted, laughing. + +"Oh yes, it is, and you'll come to feel it so." Beaumaroy was equally +obstinate. + +Mary rose. "Then that's settled--and we needn't keep Captain Alec +waiting any longer." + +"How do you know that I shan't cheat you?" he asked. + +"I don't know how I know that," Mary admitted. "But I do know it. And I +want to tell you----" + +She suddenly felt embarrassed under his gaze; her cheeks flushed, but +she went on resolutely: + +"To tell you how glad, how happy, I am that it all ends like this; that +the poor old man is free of his fancies and his fears, beyond both our +pity and our laughter." + +"Aye, he's earned rest, if there is to be rest for any of us!" + +"And you can rest too. And you can laugh with us, and not at us. Isn't +that, after all, a more human sort of laughter?" + +She was smiling still as she gave him her hand, but he saw that tears +stood in her eyes. The next instant she gave a little sob. + +"Doctor Mary!" he exclaimed in rueful expostulation. + +"No, no, how stupid you are!" She laughed through her sob. "It's not +unhappiness!" She pressed his hand tightly for an instant and then +walked quickly out of the house, calling back to him, "Don't come, +please don't come. I'd rather go to Captain Alec by myself." + +Left alone in the cottage, now so quiet and so peaceful, Beaumaroy mused +awhile as he smoked his pipe. Then he turned to his labours--his final +night of work in the Tower. There was much to do, very much to do; he +achieved his task towards morning. When day dawned, there was nothing +but water in the water-butt, and in the Tower no furnishings were +visible save three chairs--a high carved one by the fireplace, and two +much smaller on the little platform under the window. The faded old red +carpet on the floor was the only attempt at decoration. And in still one +thing more the Tower was different from what it had been. Beaumaroy +contented himself with pasting brown paper over the pane on which Mike +had operated. He did not replace the match-boarding over the window, but +stowed it away in the coal-shed. The place was horribly in need of +sunshine and fresh air--and the old gentleman was no longer alive to +fear the draught! + +When the undertaker came up to the cottage that afternoon, he glanced +from the parlour, through the open door, into the Tower. + +"Driving past on business, sir," he remarked to Beaumaroy, "I've often +wondered what the old gentleman did with that there Tower. But it looks +as if he didn't make no use of it." + +"We sometimes stored things in it," said Beaumaroy. "But, as you see, +there's nothing much there now." + +But then the undertaker, worthy man, could not see through the carpet, +or through the lid of Captain Duggle's grave. That was full--fuller than +it had been at any period of its history. In it lay the wealth, the +sceptre, and the trappings of dead majesty. For wherein did Mr. +Saffron's dead majesty differ from the dead majesty of other kings? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE CHIEF MOURNERS + + +The attendance was small at Mr. Saffron's funeral. Besides meek and +depressed Mrs. Wiles, and Beaumaroy himself, Doctor Mary found herself, +rather to her surprise, in company with old Mr. Naylor. On comparing +notes she discovered that, like herself, he had come on Beaumaroy's +urgent invitation and, moreover, that he was engaged also to come on +afterwards to Tower Cottage, where Beaumaroy was to entertain the chief +mourners at a midday repast. "Glad enough to show my respect to a +neighbour," said old Naylor. "And I always liked the old man's looks. +But really I don't see why I should go to lunch! However, +Beaumaroy----!" + +Mary did not see why he should go to lunch--nor, for that matter, why +she should either, but curiosity about the chief mourners made her glad +that she was going. The chief mourners did not look, at first sight, +attractive. Mr. Radbolt was a short plump man, with a weaselly face and +cunning eyes; his wife's eyes, of a greeny colour, stared stolidly out +from her broad red face; she was taller than her mate, and her figure +contrived to be at once stout and angular. All through the service, +Beaumaroy's gaze was set on the pair as they sat or stood in front of +him, wandering from the one to the other in an apparently fascinated +study. + +At the cottage he entertained his party in the parlour with a generous +hospitality, and treated the Radbolts with most courteous deference. The +man responded with the best manners that he had--who can do more? The +woman was much less cordial; she was curt, and treated Beaumaroy rather +as the servant than the friend of her dead cousin; there was a clear +suggestion of suspicion in her bearing towards him. After a broad stare +of astonishment on her introduction to "Dr. Arkroyd," she took very +little notice of Mary; only to Mr. Naylor was she clumsily civil and +even rather cringing; it was clear that in him she acknowledged the +gentleman. He sat by her, and she tried to insinuate herself into a +private conversation with him, apart from the others, probing him as to +his knowledge of the dead man and his mode of living. Her questions +hovered persistently round the point of Mr. Saffron's expenditure. + +"Mr. Saffron was not a friend of mine," Naylor found it necessary to +explain. "I had few opportunities of observing his way of life, even if +I had felt any wish to do so." + +"I suppose Beaumaroy knew all about his affairs," she suggested. + +"As to that, I think you must ask Mr. Beaumaroy himself." + +"From what the lawyers say, the old man seems to have been getting rid +of his money, somehow or to somebody," she grumbled in a positive +whisper. + +To Mr. Naylor's intense relief, Beaumaroy interrupted this conversation. +"Well, how do you like this little place, Mrs. Radbolt?" he asked +cheerfully. "Not a bad little crib, is it? Don't you think so too, Dr. +Arkroyd?" Throughout this gathering Beaumaroy was very punctilious with +his "Dr. Arkroyd." One would have thought that Mary and he were almost +strangers. + +"Yes, I like it," said Mary. "The Tower makes it rather unusual and +picturesque." This was not really her sincere opinion; she was playing +up to Beaumaroy, convinced that he had opened some conversational +manoeuvre. + +"Don't like it at all," answered Mrs. Radbolt. "We'll get rid of it as +soon as we can, won't we, Radbolt?" She always addressed her husband as +"Radbolt." + +"Don't be in a hurry, don't throw it away," Beaumaroy advised. "It's +not everybody's choice, of course, but there are quarters--yes, more +than one quarter--in which you might get a very good offer for this +place." His eye caught Mary's for a moment. "Indeed I wish I was in a +position to make you one myself. I should like to take it as it +stands--lock, stock, and barrel. But I've sunk all I had in another +venture--hope it'll turn out a satisfactory one! So I'm not in a +position to do it. If Mrs. Radbolt wants to sell, what would you think +of it, Dr. Arkroyd--as a speculation?" + +Mary shook her head, smiling, glad to be able to smile with plausible +reason. "I'm not as fond of rash speculations as you are, Mr. +Beaumaroy." + +"It may be worth more than it looks," he pursued. "Good neighbourhood, +healthy air, fruitful soil--very rich soil hereabouts." + +"My dear Beaumaroy, the land about here is abominable," Naylor +expostulated. + +"Perhaps generally, but some rich pockets--what one may call pockets," +corrected Beaumaroy. + +"I'm not an agriculturist," remarked weaselly Mr. Radbolt in his oily +tones. + +"And then there's a picturesque old yarn told about it. Oh, whether it's +true or not, of course I don't know. It's about a certain Captain +Duggle--not the army--the Mercantile Marine, Mrs. Radbolt. You know the +story, Dr. Arkroyd? And you too, Mr. Naylor? You're the oldest +inhabitant of Inkston present, sir. Suppose you tell it to Mr. and Mrs. +Radbolt? I'm sure it will make them attach a new value to this really +very attractive cottage--with, as Dr. Arkroyd says, the additional +feature of the Tower." + +"I know the story only as a friend of mine--Mr. Penrose--who takes great +interest in local records and traditions, told it to me. If our host +desires, I shall be happy to tell it to Mrs. Radbolt." Mr. Naylor +accompanied his words with a courtly little bow to that lady, and +launched upon the legend of Captain Duggle. + +Mr. Radbolt was a religious man. At the end of the story he observed +gravely, "The belief in diabolical personalities is not to be lightly +dismissed, Mr. Beaumaroy." + +"I'm entirely of your opinion, Mr. Radbolt." This time Mary felt that +her smile was not so plausible. + +"There seems to have been nothing in the grave," mused Mrs. Radbolt. + +"Apparently not when Captain Duggle left it--if he was ever in it--at +all events not when he left the house, in whatever way and by whatever +agency." + +"As to the latter point, I myself incline to Penrose's theory," said +Mr. Naylor. "_Delirium tremens_, you know!" + +Beaumaroy puffed at his cigar. "Still, I've often thought that, though +it was empty then, it would have made--supposing it really exists--an +excellent hiding-place for anybody who wanted such a thing. Say for a +miser, or a man who had his reasons for concealing what he was worth! I +once suggested the idea to Mr. Saffron, and he was a good deal amused. +He patted me on the shoulder and laughed heartily. He wasn't often so +much amused as that." + +A new look came into Mrs. Radbolt's green eyes. Up to now, distrust of +Beaumaroy had predominated. His frank bearing, his obvious candour and +simplicity, had weakened her suspicions. But his words suggested +something else; he might be a fool, not a knave; Mr. Saffron had been +amused, had laughed beyond his wont. That might have seemed the best way +of putting Beaumaroy off the scent. The green eyes were now alert, +eager, immensely acquisitive. + +"The grave's in the Tower, if it's anywhere. Would you like to see the +Tower, Mrs. Radbolt?" + +"Yes, I should," she answered tartly. "Being part of our property as it +is." + +Mary exchanged a glance with Mr. Naylor, as they followed the others +into the Tower. "What an abominable woman!" her glance said. Naylor +smiled a despairing acquiescence. + +The strangers--chief mourners, heirs-at-law, owners now of the place +wherein they stood--looked round the bare brick walls of the little +rotunda. Naylor examined it with interest too--the old story was a +quaint one. Mary stood at the back of the group, smiling triumphantly. +How had he disposed of--everything? She had not been wrong in her +unlimited confidence in his ingenuity. She did not falter in her faith +in his word pledged to her. + +"Safe from burglars, that grave of the Captain's, if you kept it +properly concealed!" Beaumaroy pursued in a sort of humorous meditation. +"And in these days some people like to have their money in their own +hands. Confiscatory legislation possible, isn't it, Mr. Naylor? You know +about those things better than I do. And then the taxes--shocking, Mr. +Radbolt! By Jove, I knew a chap the other day who came in for what +sounded like a pretty little inheritance. But by the time he'd paid all +the duties and so on, most of the gilt was off the gingerbread! It's +there--in front of the hearth--that the story says the grave is. Doesn't +it, Mr. Naylor?" A sudden thought seemed to strike him. "I say, Mrs. +Radbolt, would you like us to have a look whether we can find any +indications of it?" His eyes travelled beyond the lady whom he +addressed, they met Mary's. She knew their message; he was taking her +into his confidence about his experiment with the chief mourners. + +The stout angular woman had leapt to her conclusion. Much less money +than had been expected--no signs of money having been spent--and here, +not the cunning knave whom she had expected, but a garrulous open fool, +giving away what was--perhaps--a golden secret! Mammon--the greed of +acquisitiveness, the voracious appetite for getting more--gleamed in her +green eyes. + +"There? Do you say it's--it's supposed to be there?" she asked eagerly, +with a shake in her voice. + +Her husband interposed in a suave and sanctimonious voice: "My dear, if +Mr. Beaumaroy and the other gentleman won't mind my saying so, I've been +feeling that these are rather light and frivolous topics for the day, +and the occasion which brings us here. The whole thing is probably an +unfounded story, although there is a sound moral to it. Later on--just +as a matter of curiosity--if you like, my dear. But to-day--Cousin +Aloysius's day of burial--is it quite seemly?" + +The big woman looked at her smaller mate for just a moment--a +scrutinizing look. Then she said with most unexpected meekness, "I was +wrong. You always have the proper feelings, Radbolt." + +"The fault was mine, entirely mine," Beaumaroy hastily interposed. "I +dragged in the old yarn, I led Mr. Naylor into telling it, I told you +about what I said to Mr. Saffron and how he took it. All my fault! I +acknowledge the justice of your rebuke. I apologize, Mr. Radbolt! And I +think that we've exhausted the interest of the Tower." He looked at his +watch; "Er--how do you stand for time? Shall Mrs. Wiles make us a cup of +tea, or have you a train to catch?" + +"That's the woman in charge of the house, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Radbolt. + +"Comes in for the day. She doesn't sleep here." He smiled pleasantly on +Mrs. Radbolt. "To tell you the truth, I don't think that she would +consent to sleep here by herself. Silly! But--the old story, you know! + +"Don't you sleep here?" the woman persisted, though her husband was +looking at her rather uneasily. + +"Up to now I have," said Beaumaroy. "But there's nothing to keep me here +now, and Mr. Naylor has kindly offered to put me up as long as I stay at +Inkston." + +"Going to leave the place with nobody in it?" + +Beaumaroy's manner indicated surprise. "Oh, yes! There's nothing to +tempt thieves, is there? Just lock the door and put the key in my +pocket!" + +The woman looked very surly, but flummoxed. Her husband, with his suave +oiliness, came to her rescue. "My wife is always nervous, perhaps +foolishly nervous, about fire, Mr. Beaumaroy. Well, with an old house +like this, there is always the risk." + +"Upon my soul, I hadn't thought of it! And I've packed up all my things, +and your car's come and fetched them, Mr. Naylor. Still, of course I +could----" + +"Oh, we've no right, no claim, to trouble you, Mr. Beaumaroy. Only my +wife is----" + +"Fire's an obsession with me, I'm afraid," said the stout woman, with a +rumbling giggle. The sound of her mirth was intolerably disagreeable to +Mary. + +"I really think, my dear, that you'll feel easier if I stay myself, +won't you? You can send me what I want to-morrow, and rejoin me when we +arrange--because we shall have to settle what's to be done with the +place." + +"As you please, Mr. Radbolt." Beaumaroy's tone was, for the first time, +a little curt. It hinted some slight offence--as though he felt himself +charged with carelessness, and considered Mrs. Radbolt's obsession mere +fussiness. "No doubt, if you stay, Mrs. Wiles will agree to stay too, +and do her best to make you comfortable." + +"I shall feel easier that way, Radbolt," Mrs. Radbolt admitted, with +another rumble of apologetic mirth. + +Beaumaroy motioned his guests back to the parlour. His manner retained +its shade of distance and offence. "Then it really only remains for me +to wish you good-bye--and all happiness in your new property. Any +information in my possession as to Mr. Saffron's affairs I shall, of +course, be happy to give you. Is the car coming for you, Mr. Naylor?" + +"I thought it would be pleasant to walk back; and I hope Doctor Mary +will come with us and have some tea. I'll send you home afterwards, +Doctor Mary." + +Farewells were exchanged, but now without even a show of cordiality. +Naylor and Doctor Mary felt too much distaste for the chief mourners to +attain more than a cold civility. Beaumaroy did not relax into his +earlier friendliness. His apparent dislike to her husband's plan of +staying at the cottage roused Mrs. Radbolt's suspicions again; was he a +rogue after all, but a very plausible, a very deep one? Only Mr. +Radbolt's unctuousness--surely it would have smoothed the stormiest +waves?--saved the social situation. + +"Intelligent people, I thought," Beaumaroy observed, as the three +friends pursued their way across the heath towards Old Place. "Didn't +you, Mr. Naylor?" + +Old Naylor grunted. With a twinkle in his eyes, Beaumaroy tried Doctor +Mary. "What was your impression of them?" + +"Oh!" moaned Mary, with a deep and expressive note. "But how did you +know they'd be like that?" + +"Letters--and the old man's description; he had a considerable command +of language, and very violent likes and dislikes. I made a picture of +them--and it's turned out pretty accurate." + +"And those were the nearest kith and kin your poor old man had?" Naylor +shook his head sadly. "The woman obviously cared not a straw about +anything but handling his money--and couldn't even hide it! A gross and +horrible female, Beaumaroy!" + +"Were you really hurt about their insisting on staying?" asked Mary. + +"Oh, come, you're sharper than that, Doctor Mary! Still, I think I did +it pretty well. I set the old girl thinking again, didn't I?" He broke +into laughter, and Mary joined in heartily. Old Naylor glanced from one +to the other with an air of curiosity. + +"You two people look to me--somehow--as if you'd got a secret between +you." + +"Perhaps we have! Mr. Naylor's a man of honour, Doctor Mary; a man who +appreciates a situation, a man you can trust." Beaumaroy seemed very gay +and happy now, disembarrassed of a load, and buoyant alike in walk and +in spirit. "What do you say to letting Mr. Naylor--just him--nobody +else--into our secret?" + +Mary put her arm through old Mr. Naylor's. "I don't mind, if you don't. +But nobody else!" + +"Then you shall tell him--the entire story--at your leisure. Meanwhile +I'll begin at the wrong end. I told you I'd made a picture of the hated +cousins, of the heirs-at-law, these sorrowing chief mourners. Well, +having made a picture of them that's proved true, I'll make a prophecy +about them, and I'll bet you it proves just as true." + +"Go on," said Mary. "Listen, Mr. Naylor," she added, with a squeeze of +the old man's arm. + +"You're like a couple of naughty children!" he said, with an +affectionate look and laugh. + +"Well, my prophecy is that they'll swear the poor dear old man's estate +at under five thousand." + +"Well, why shouldn't----?" old Naylor began; but he stopped as he saw +Mary's eyes meet Beaumaroy's in a rapture of quick and delighted +understanding. + +"And then perhaps you'll own to being sorry, Doctor Mary!" + +"So that's what you were up to, was it?" said Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE GOLD AND THE TREASURE + + +Old Mr. Naylor called on Mary two or three days later--at an hour when, +as he well knew, Cynthia was at his own house--in order to hear the +story. There were parts of it which she could not describe fully for +lack of knowledge--the enterprise of Mike and Big Neddy, for example; +but all that she knew she told frankly, and did not scruple to invoke +her imagination to paint Beaumaroy's position, with its difficulties, +demands, obligations--and temptations. He heard her with close +attention, evidently amused, and watching her animated face with a keen +and watchful pleasure. + +"Surprising!" he said at the end, rubbing his hands together. "That's to +say, not in itself particularly surprising. Just a queer little +happening; one would think nothing of it if one read it in the +newspaper! Things are always so much more surprising when they happen +down one's own street, or within a few minutes' walk of one's garden +wall--and when one actually knows the people involved in them. Still I +was always inclined to agree with Dr. Irechester that there was +something out of the common about old Saffron and our friend Beaumaroy." + +"Dr. Irechester never found out what it was, though!" exclaimed Mary +triumphantly. + +"No, he didn't--for reasons pretty clearly indicated in your narrative." +He sat back in his chair, his elbows on the arms and his hands clasped +before him. "If I may say so, the really curious thing is to find you in +the thick of it, Doctor Mary." + +"That wasn't my fault. I couldn't refuse to attend Mr. Saffron. Dr. +Irechester himself said so." + +He paid no heed to her protest. "In the thick of it--and enjoying it so +tremendously!" + +Mary looked thoughtful. "I didn't at first. I was angry, indignant, +suspicious. I thought I was being made a fool of." + +"So you were--a fool and a tool, my dear!" + +"But that night--because it all really happened in just one night--the +chief mourners, as Mr. Beaumaroy always calls them, were no more +than----" + +"Just a rather amusing epilogue--yes, that's all." + +"That night, it did get hold of me." She laughed a little nervously, a +little uneasily. + +"And now you tell it to me--and I must say that your telling made it +twice the story that it really is--now you tell it as if it were the +greatest thing that ever happened to you!" + +For a moment Mary fenced. "Well, nothing interesting ever has happened +in my humdrum life before." But old Naylor pursed up his lips in +contempt of her fencing. "It did seem to me a great--a great experience. +Not the burglars and all that--though some of the things, like the +water-butt, did amuse me very much--but our being apart from all the +world, there by ourselves--against the whole world in a way, Mr. +Naylor." + +"The law on one side, the robbers on the other--and you two alone +together!" + +"Yes, you understand. That was the way I felt it. But we weren't +together, not in every way. I mean--we were fighting between ourselves +too--right up to the very end." She gave another low laugh. "I suppose +we're fighting still; he means to face me with some Radbolt villainy, +and make me sorry for what he calls my legalism--with an epithet!" + +"That's his idea, and my own too, I confess. Those chief mourners will +find the money--and some other things that'll make 'em stare. But +they'll lie low; they'll sit on the cash till the time comes when it's +safe to dispose of it; and they'll bilk the Inland Revenue out of the +duties. The remarkable thing is that Beaumaroy seems to want them to do +it." + +"That's to make me sorry; that's to prove me wrong, Mr. Naylor." + +"It may make you sorry--it makes me sorry, for that matter; but it +doesn't prove you wrong. You were right. My boy Alec would have taken +the same line as you did. Now you needn't laugh at me, Mary. I own up at +once--that's my highest praise." + +"I know it is; and it implies a contrast?" + +Old Naylor unclasped his hands and spread them in a deprecatory gesture. +"It must do that," he acknowledged. + +Mary gave a rebellious little toss of her head. "I don't care if it +does, Mr. Naylor! Mr. Beaumaroy is--my friend now." + +"And mine. Moreover I have such confidence in his honour and fidelity +that I have offered him a rather important and confidential position in +my business--to represent us at one of the foreign ports where we have +considerable interests." He smiled. "It's the sort of place where he +will perhaps find himself less trammelled by--er--legalism, and with +more opportunities for his undoubted gift of initiative." + +"Will he accept your offer? Will he go?" she asked rather excitedly. + +"Without doubt, I think. It's really quite a good offer. And what +prospects has he now--or here?" + +Mary stretched her hands towards the fire and gazed into it in silence. + +"I think you'll have an offer soon too, and a good one, Doctor Mary. +Irechester was over at our place yesterday. He's still of opinion that +there was something queer at Tower Cottage. Indeed he thinks that Mr. +Saffron was queer himself--in his head--and that a clever doctor would +have found it out." + +"That he himself would, if he'd gone on attending----?" + +"Precisely. But he's not surprised that you didn't; you lacked the +experience. Still he thinks none the worse of you for that, and he told +me that he has made up his mind to offer you partnership. Irechester's a +bit stiff, but a very straight fellow. You could rely on being fairly +treated, and it's a good practice. Besides he's well off, and quite +likely to retire as soon as he sees you fairly in the saddle." + +"It's a great compliment." Here Mary's voice sounded quite +straightforward and sincere. An odd little note of contempt crept into +it as she added, "And it sounds--ideal!" + +"Yes, it does," old Naylor agreed, with a private smile all to himself, +whilst Mary still gazed into the fire. "Quite ideal. You're a lucky +young woman, Mary." He rose to take his leave. "So, with our young folk +happily married, and you installed, and friend Beaumaroy suited to his +liking--why, upon my word, we may ring the curtain down on a happy +ending--of Act I, at all events!" + +She seemed to pay no heed to his words. He stood for a moment admiring +her; not a beauty, but a healthy comely young woman, stout-hearted, and +with humanity and a sense of fun in her. And, as he looked, his true +feeling about the situation suddenly burst through all restraint and +leapt from his lips. "Though, for my part, under the circumstances, if I +were you, I'd see old Irechester damned before I accepted the +partnership!" + +She turned to him--startled, yet suddenly smiling. He took her hand and +raised it to his lips. + +"Hush! Not another word! Good-bye, my dear Mary!" + +The next day, as Mary, her morning round finished, sat at lunch with +Cynthia, listening--or not listening--to her friend's excusably eager +chatter about her approaching wedding, a note was delivered into her +hands: + + "The C.M.'s are in a hurry! She's back! The window is boarded up + again! Come and see! About 4 o'clock this afternoon. B." + +Mary kept the appointment. She found Beaumaroy strolling up and down on +the road in front of the cottage. The Tower window was boarded up again, +but with new strong planks, in a much more solid and workman-like +fashion. If he were to try again, Mike would not find it so easy to +negotiate, without making a dangerous noise over the job. + +"Such impatience--such undisguised rapacity--is indecent and revolting," +Beaumaroy remarked. He seemed to be in the highest spirits. "I wonder if +they've opened it yet!" + +"They'll see you prowling about outside, won't they?" + +"I hope so. Indeed I've no doubt of it. Mrs. Greeneyes is probably +peering through the parlour window at this minute and cursing me. I like +it! To those people I represent law and order. If they can rise to the +conception of such a thing at all, I probably embody conscience. When +you come to think of it, it's a pleasant turn of events that I should +come to represent law and order and conscience to anybody--even to the +Radbolts." + +"It is rather a change," she agreed. "But let's walk on. I don't really +much want to think of them." + +"That's because you feel that you're losing the bet. I can't stop them +getting the money in the end--that's your doing! I can't stop them +cheating the Revenue--which is what they certainly mean to do--without +exposing myself to more inconvenience than I am disposed to undergo in +the cause of the Revenue. Whereas if I had left the bag in the +water-butt----! All your doing! Aren't you a little sorry?" + +"Of course there is an aspect of the case----" she admitted, smiling. + +"That's enough for me! You've lost the bet. Let's see--what were the +stakes, Mary?" + +"Come, let's walk on." She put her arm through his. "What about this +berth that Mr. Naylor's offering you? At Bogota, isn't it?" + +He looked puzzled for a moment; then his mind worked quickly back to +Cynthia's almost forgotten tragedy. He laughed in enjoyment of her +thrust. "My place isn't Bogota--though I fancy that it's rather in the +same moral latitude. You're confusing me with Captain Cranster!" + +"So I was--for a moment," said Doctor Mary demurely. "But what about +the appointment, anyhow?" + +"What about your partnership with Dr. Irechester, if you come to that?" + +Mary pressed his arm gently, and they walked on in silence for a little +while. They were clear of the neighbourhood of Tower Cottage now, but +still a considerable distance from Old Place; very much alone together +on the heath, as they had seemed to be that night--that night of +nights--at the cottage. + +"I haven't so much as received the offer yet; only Mr. Naylor has +mentioned it to me." + +"Still you'd like to be ready with your answer when the offer is made, +wouldn't you?" He drew suddenly away from her, and stood still on the +road, opposite to her. His face lost its playfulness; as it set into +gravity, the lines upon it deepened, and his eyes looked rather sad. +"This is wrong of me, perhaps, but I can't help it. I'm not going to +talk to you about myself. Confessions and apologies and excuses, and so +on, aren't in my line. I should probably tell lies if I attempted +anything of the sort. You must take me or leave me on your own judgment, +on your own feeling about me, as you've seen and known me--not long, but +pretty intimately, Mary." He suddenly reached his hand into his pocket +and pulled out the combination knife-and-fork. "That's all I've brought +away of his from Tower Cottage. And I brought it away as much for your +sake as for his. It was during our encounter over this instrument that I +first thought of you as a woman, Mary. And, by Jove, I believe you knew +it!" + +"Yes, I believe I did," she answered, her eyes set very steadily on his. + +He slipped the thing back into his pocket. "And now I love you, and I +want you, Mary." + +She fell into a sudden agitation. "Oh, but this doesn't seem for me! I'd +put all that behind me!--I----" She could scarcely find words. "I--I'm +just Doctor Mary!" + +"Lots of people to practise on--bodies and souls too--in the moral +latitude I'm going to!" + +Her body seemed to shiver a little, as though before a plunge into deep +water. "I'm very safe here," she whispered. + +"Yes, you're safe here," he acknowledged gravely, and stood silent, +waiting for her choice. + +"What a decision to have to make!" she cried suddenly. "It's all my life +in a moment! Because I don't want you to go away from me!" She drew near +to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm not a child, like +Cynthia. I can't dream dreams and make idols any more. I think I see you +as you are, and I don't know whether your love is a good thing." She +paused, searching his eyes with hers very earnestly. Then she went on, +"But if it isn't, I think there's no good thing left for me at all." + +"Mary, isn't that your answer to me?" + +"Yes." Her arms fell from his shoulders, and she stood opposite to him, +in silence again for a moment. Then her troubled face cleared to a calm +serenity. "And now I set doubts and fears behind me. I come to you in +faith, and loyalty, and love. I'm not a missionary to you, or a +reformer. God forbid! I'm just the woman who loves you, Hector." + +"I should have mocked at the missionary, and tricked the reformer." He +bared his head before her. "But by the woman who loves me and whom I +love, I will deal faithfully." He bent and kissed her forehead. + +"And now, let's walk on. No, not to Old Place--back home, past Tower +Cottage." + +She put her arm through his again, and they set out through the soft +dusk that had begun to hover about them. So they came to the cottage, +and here, for a while, instinctively stayed their steps. A light shone +in the parlour window; the Tower was dark and still. Mary turned her +face to Beaumaroy's with a sudden smile of scornful gladness. + +"Aye, aye, you're right!" His smile answered hers. "Poor devils! I'm +sorry for them, upon my soul I am!" + +"That really is just like you!" she exclaimed in mirthful exasperation. +"Sorry for the Radbolts now, are you?" + +"Well, after all, they've only got the gold. We've got the treasure, +Mary!" + + * * * * * + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +A CHANGE OF AIR + +A MAN OF MARK + +THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO + +PHROSO + +SIMON DALE + +THE KING'S MIRROR + +QUISANTÉ + +THE DOLLY DIALOGUES + +A SERVANT OF THE PUBLIC + +TALES OF TWO PEOPLE + +THE GREAT MISS DRIVER + +MRS. MAXON PROTESTS + +A YOUNG MAN'S YEAR + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beaumaroy Home from the Wars, by Anthony Hope + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUMAROY HOME FROM THE WARS *** + +***** This file should be named 39547-8.txt or 39547-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/4/39547/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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