stability and a physical condition which was ominous. And yet Lily read
a deeper meaning into the screed, and her early contempt was chastened.
Just as she had asked herself a week ago if she had done her duty by
this man, so could she repeat the question with insistence. Phrases of
his letter appealed to her pity, despite a lack of faith; perhaps she
was less influenced by them than by the judgment pronounced at the
tribunal of her own conscience. She would go to him; but having gone,
what then? Must the old way of life be taken once more? Could she
contemplate a future as his wife, living out the long days of sacrifice
without complaint?
The afternoon passed and found her unable to come to a decision.
Sitting at her window she could see the stir and bustle before the
Palace Hotel, the arrival of sleighs, and the coming and going of
strangers. Her hope that she might receive a visit from the object of
all this interest was not to be gratified. Benny did not come to the
chalet; he contented himself with a pencilled note brought down by a lad
during the afternoon, and containing just three words, "All goes well."
She saw him for a moment walking with Dr. Orange and Sir Gordon Snagg
toward the Park at about four o'clock, but after that the dark fell and
her day was over.
Was it to be her last night in Switzerland? she wondered, as she sat by
the window with Luton's letter still in her hand.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*THE EVE OF THE GREAT ATTEMPT*
The reporters, who arrived from London shortly after midday, were
astonished to hear that Benny knew little of the excitement which his
entry for the great prize had occasioned in London.
Some of them had written very pleasantly of this unknown aspirant;
others had been severely derisive, a fact they overlooked when they
called at the chalet later on and took out their note-books as a matter
of course.
He, good man, had but a dim understanding of later-day journalism, and
these attentions overwhelmed him. Some of his replies were quite
unconventional. They asked him where he was educated, and he answered
"anywhere." An interrogation concerning his favourite pursuits obtained
the response "doing nothing." Generally, he said that if the engine
kept going, he would win the money; but that if the engine stopped, he
would not win it, and this was written down as an item of great
importance, and cabled to London for the next day's issue.
Now all this had carried the man into a new world, and so swiftly that
it seemed but yesterday he was a plodder in a dull workshop, without
prospects and unknown. He had dreamed of fame, but not of this kind of
fame, which came to him, note-book in hand, and desired to hear whether
he flew on whisky or cold water. The world he would conquer was a
shadow world; the great vague universe, wherein so many ambitions are
interred. To be a newspaper hero was well enough, but he reflected a
little sadly that even an acrobat may be that. He wondered already if
he would find the fruits of success to be bitter; and this speculation
set him thinking of Lily Delayne. Did he owe it to her indifference
that flight to-morrow was possible? In truth, he believed that he did.
Brother Jack, upon the other hand, welcomed the reporters with real
cordiality. He delighted to talk of his clever brother; to tell them
impossible anecdotes of Benny's youth, and to insist that he himself had
always known he was a genius. Jack spent a long afternoon in this
employment, and when he varied it, his activities carried him up to the
plateau whence the start was to be made, and back again to the shed
wherein the machine was housed. What hours of strenuous labour it stood
for; how they had worked to get everything ready! And now their work
was done. Not a wire that had not been overhauled; not a stay which had
not been tested.
Of those who had come from England to witness the great attempt, Sir
John Perinder, the proprietor of the _Daily Recorder_, was the most
eminent. A well-built, clear-eyed man, his manner was volatile to a
ridiculous extent, and had earned for him the title of the greatest
hustler in the universe. Naturally he asked Benny to dinner at the
Palace, and with him Brother Jack and the Abbe Villari, of whom he heard
with much interest. These had been but a little while at the table when
they discovered that their host knew a great deal about aviation, and
had the clearest perceptions as to the future of flying. At the same
time he did not deceive himself by any of those futile prophecies in
which unthinking men delight.
"You fellows are about to give us a new sport," he said bluntly, "young
men will fly because they are tired of motoring. There will be a fine
trade with the war-offices of Europe, but the rest I don't see. None of
us now living will take aeroplanes where we now take cabs. That's
foolish talk; the world will prefer _terra firma_ to the air, just as it
prefers _terra firma_ to the sea. Do you think I would go to America on
a ship if I could travel in a train? You know that I wouldn't. And so
with your airships, good enough for their own purposes, but limited by
the factor of personal courage. Why, I wouldn't go up in one for a
thousand, and I'll warrant Monsieur l'Abbe here wouldn't go up for two."
Here, however, he met a tough adversary. The abbe had followed the
movement with interest from the beginning. He had even built a machine
of his own, and purposed to show it at Rome in the spring of the year.
His optimism baffled the blunt baronet, who brushed it aside with a
jest, and went on to speak of to-morrow's flight.
"If you win," he said to Benny, "you'll do the greatest thing ever done
by man. I've been a climber for twenty years, and never did I think
that a man would look down on what I've looked up to with awe. You'll do
that to-morrow if you succeed. You're going to see the Alps as no man
has ever seen them since the world dropped out of the sun. That's
something to sleep on, Mr. Benson; it's something to take with you on
your journey. I'd give ten thousand pounds to see it myself--twenty
thousand for the courage which would let me do what you are going to do.
It's a safe offer. There isn't a greater coward living where a height
is concerned, and yet I climb mountains. Explain that if you can."
Benny would have explained it if he had been given half a chance, but he
had hardly opened his mouth when the baronet was off again, saying how
the affair must be "boomed" in this or the other way; the reports which
must be given of it; the particular points which the aviator must note
during his voyage. He declared that the public liked sensation, but
must have it first hand nowadays. The man who has seen another man
eaten by a lion in Africa is of no use--he must be eaten himself. Few
mechanical minds were capable of conveying mechanical sensations, and
that was the difficulty. He hoped that Benny would prove the exception
to the rule, and give them a story for their money. Commercialism
intruded when he added that no other paper in Europe would have put up
such a sum, and that he relied upon Benny not to let him down. This the
inventor modestly offered not to do if he could help it. "We ride in
the same boat," he explained, and added, in imitation of Douglas
Jerrold, "but we use different sculls."
The party was gay enough, and broke up early. The bright light which
beat suddenly upon this quite modest throne somewhat alarmed Benny, and
set him hungering for the solitude of the chalet. He had left gendarmes
in charge of his machine, but he was anxious none the less; and upon
that was all the fulsome adulation now lavished upon him by good-natured
folk who had just discovered his existence.
He could detect a change everywhere, a new respect paid to him, and a
desire to be seen in his company. Even such athletic aristocrats as
Keith Rivers patronised him no longer; while it began to be plain that
he had lighted a candle which failure alone would put out. That was the
rub which must be present in his reckoning. It would be a mighty
humiliation to fail before the thousands who were coming to Andana to
see him start. He knew that there would be thousands, for the hotel
people said as much; and when he managed to escape his host and to steal
as a fugitive from the Palace, the night bore witness to the truth of
such prophecies.
Surely such a spectacle had never been seen in this place before.
Scores of great arc lamps illuminated the scene. Workmen from Sierre,
from Martigny, and from Lausanne were busy erecting shelters for the
people and building barriers. Sleighs came up the mountain-side, so
many that he wondered whence they had been conjured up. Averse to all
such trappings of spectacle himself, he guessed that Sir John Perinder
had contrived this aspect of tournament, and had set the lists that the
_Daily Recorder_ might be glorified. He imagined that the affair had
been largely advertised both in Switzerland and in Italy, and this was
the case. All joined willingly in such an emprise; the hotel-keepers to
begin with, then the railway companies. Excursions were to be run from
Milan, from Geneva, even from Paris. The flight across the Alps
appealed to the imagination of all.
Benny had a great deal of courage, but this new aspect of life filled
him with dread. At the same time it was not unattended by a certain
pride which spoke of many emotions. He realised that he had yet to earn
the homage now paid to him. After all, he was but a tyro in
achievement, and the world had taken him at his own estimate. If he
failed to succeed, he would be forgotten in three days, and no one would
listen to him afterwards. This he remembered as he took his way up the
mountain-side toward his own chalet. He might be leaving Switzerland a
broken man to-morrow, and the contempt of the multitude would attend
him. Vain to accomplish in secret that which he had promised to do in
public. The world is credulous where the inventor is concerned and
seldom gives him a second chance.
He wondered if all were really as well as Brother Jack and the abbe
believed it to be. They had done wonders during those long days, worked
heroically, and with true devotion. He himself had set them no mean
example when he had discovered a woman's indifference and the true
meaning of her lightly-spoken words. Why should he think of her? What
part had she to play in the story of his life? His very friendship
might be misconstrued, and he resolved to terminate it so soon as his
self-invited obligation had been fulfilled. For the moment she was
alone and without a friend--this great lady who was of a world apart,
whom he had worshipped in secret as his own type of true womanhood. He
remembered the day when he had first seen her at Holmswell, her gentle
bearing, her sweet courtesy. What right had he to expect her interest?
Reason answered, none.
He was approaching her chalet at this time, and perceived that a light
shone from the window of her sitting-room. When he drew a little
nearer, he discerned Lily herself, dressed in a gown of white lace, and
seated at the writing-table by the window. She was not writing,
however, and her profound reverie appeared to be unbroken by any
knowledge of the stir without. In such an attitude there were aspects
of her beauty he had yet to mark, a grace of pose and bearing as
inimitable by the divinities of his own world as they were inherent in
hers. Benny stood a long while, as though a single step would warn her
and shut the vision from his sight. He would have wanted words to
convey his impressions, and would have contented himself, perhaps, by
the one word "queenly." She was born to reign, this mistress of a
heritage of woe; life had dealt hardly with her when it shut her from
her kingdom.
Men rarely confess to their most secret thought, even in the
confessional of the intimate hours. Benny would have been ashamed to
tell his oldest friend that he had dwelt for an instant there, at the
gate of the chalet, in a shadowland of dreams, and that it had shown him
this gracious lady as his wife. His destiny linked to hers, imagination
led him to the high places of the world. He shared her kingdom in his
thoughts, and wore the armour of a chivalry as true as any in the human
story. Recreated by the dream, he struck off the shackles of birth and
obliterated the scars of a mean heritage. For such a woman, a man could
give life itself, he thought; for her there would be no sacrifice from
which the mind would shrink. Nor could calamity cast down this idol
from its pedestal. He worshipped more surely because she no longer
commanded worship as a right. The world's contempt would dower her anew
in his eyes, would give him a title which otherwise he had not
possessed.
For a little while these vain thoughts afflicted him, to give place to
others of a very different order. So many strangers were at Andana that
he was not surprised to discover an intruder even here upon the mountain
path, but when that intruder emerged suddenly from the shadows, and
Benny saw that it was the little gendarme, Philip, his interest was
awakened while his false gods were shattered. The gendarme, on his
part, recognised him immediately, and with hardly a gesture of apology
set out to follow him to his house.
"I wish you success for to-morrow, sir," he said, and then, as simply,
"I may not be here, unfortunately, to offer my compliments then."
Benny looked at him with curiosity.
"You are going away, Monsieur Philip?"
"Yes, sir, into Italy; the man who killed my brother is there."
Benny walked a little faster, but he did not turn his head.
"How do you know that he is in Italy, Monsieur Philip?"
"Because I have discovered that he left the hotel at Brigue on the night
of the murder. I have a friend here, and he knows. The man did not go
to Paris; then he has gone to Milan, and I shall find him."
"Do you know who he is?"
The lad stood still and repeated the words very slowly.
"He is an Englishman. They call him Sir Luton Delayne, and his wife is
at the chalet down yonder."
Benny stopped also. They stood together, looking down to the window
whence the light shone out upon the snow.
"Oh, but that is nonsense. Sir Luton Delayne is a great man in his own
country. What do your superiors say to it?"
Monsieur Philip answered without emotion.
"They will give me leave of absence, sir. I am to go to Milan."
"And if you do not find him at Milan?"
"Then the Italian police will help me. I have their promise. It is
impossible now that he will escape arrest, sir. I thought you would be
glad to know that."
He saluted respectfully and went down toward the valley.
Benny, however, did not move from the place. The light shone upon the
glistening snow as a beacon which must guide him, even if it were to the
house of his illusions.
*CHAPTER XIX*
*THE THIEF*
Lily closed her day upon a resolution to set off to Maggiore early on
the following morning. She arrived at a decision reluctantly, and each
hour made the self-appointed task more difficult. It had seemed heroic
when first contemplated--a tribute to duty, and a very real sacrifice;
but as the hours sped, she shrank from it and sought the old excuses.
What claim had Luton upon her generosity? She knew that he had none.
As a further obstacle there was the chalet, and the restful days she
would abandon so reluctantly.
How pleasant the life might have been in the sunshine of the beautiful
valley! Everyone had been so kind to her here. These simple folk,
seeking simple pleasures, had shown her a new world and taught her
elementary truths of which her own philosophy made no account. She
thought that she knew them all as friends already; the admirable doctor;
little Bess, who was the good fairy of the Palace; the boys, with their
tales of woe; the girls, who devoted the interludes to the measurement
of imaginary carpets. And then, to be remembered before them all, was
there not Benny, the incomparable Benny, a creature so unlike any she
had ever known that he came to her as a very apostle of a new
revelation?
Here was a prophet, who had been without honour yesterday, but who stood
to-night upon the brink of that kingdom of success which few may enter.
A woman of the world, she understood what all this might mean to the
honest fellow who had befriended her so staunchly. She saw him feted
and honoured, grown rich in an hour, a leader among men. Her perception
discovered the soul of the man, that soul which a woman--perhaps but one
woman in all the world--might fathom.
What ironical destiny had brought these two together? She reflected
upon it, contrasting him with others she had known, the ornaments of her
world and the drones. Many of these would hardly enter a room which
harboured Benny to-night, but she knew that they would fawn upon him
to-morrow, for such are the concessions of sycophants to success. He in
turn would come to despise the humbler circles in which he had moved and
to lose some of those rare qualities which were his strength. Of one
thing, however, she had no doubt, and it was this--that a woman's love
would be necessary to such a career as his, and that without it mere
material success might carry him but a little way.
She had not answered Luton's letter, and it was still unanswered when
she went to bed at half-past eleven. The plateau of Andana, usually so
still after ten o'clock, then echoed the music of the sleigh bells with
a persistence almost intolerable. She heard the cries of workmen, the
lumbering of heavy vehicles, the muffled sounds of hammering. And all
this contrasted so strangely with the great mountains across the valley,
where the moon shone clear upon the giant Weisshorn, and the lesser
peaks paid to the greater the homage of a glorious iridescence. A white
and silent world it was, mocking the ambitions of men--yet not of all
men, for would not one conquer them to-morrow? Such ambition appealed
to her womanly instincts unerringly. She trembled when she made the
silent confession that this man loved her, but that his love would
remain unspoken to the end.
It would have been about one o'clock when the last of the sleighs
arrived at the Palace Hotel, and a little later when the workmen had
finished their labours. She sank to a dreamless sleep about this time,
but awoke almost immediately with the conviction that someone had
entered the chalet. A vague intuition of unwonted sounds set her heart
beating and held her almost breathless. Someone had entered the little
sitting-room, and was not twenty paces from the bed in which she lay.
She could hear the man's footsteps as he crossed the room, and believing
that he was at her own door she began to tremble violently. A
realisation of her lonely situation afflicted her with a sense of
inevitability which robbed her of every shred of her courage. She lay
quite still, afraid to move a hand. The silence of the night without
surpassed belief.
The man had crossed the room and was now at her writing-table. She
could hear the rustle of papers and the click as of a lock. In a sense
this was a relief, and gave her the necessary respite. She began to
remember how unlikely it was that any thief would visit so poor a house
as this chalet, or, if he did visit it, would trouble himself about
letters. The excellent reputation well earned by the people of Andana
occurred to her, and would have reassured her but for the alternative.
For if this man were not a common thief, what then? Instantly she
recalled the affair at Vermala, and a new fear came upon her. Yes, she
understood it all in an instant and, creeping from her bed, she dressed
herself with tremulous fingers.
Surely the man must hear her and take alarm. This was her idea as her
clothes rustled in her hand, and her tiny feet shuffled upon the
polished boards. The man would hear her and burst through the folding
doors presently. When, however, he made no sign, she became a little
emboldened, and being now quite dressed, she went to the interstice of
the doors and looked through. Then she perceived her husband's valet,
Paul Lacroix, who was searching her writing-table by the aid of an
electric torch, whose aureole fell weirdly upon the scattered papers.
Paul Lacroix! That it should be he! She remembered that she had last
seen him at Holmswell on the eve of the debacle. He had always been a
silent, civil fellow whom it was a pleasure to have in the house. Luton,
she knew, trusted him entirely, and the others gave a very good account
of him. When the crash came, he had followed his master without
complaint, to Africa and then to the East. She believed him staunch,
and would have named him as one of the few in her own house who had done
his duty loyally both to master and to mistress. And here he was at
Andana, prying among her papers! The very fact robbed her of all fear
and, opening the door immediately, she asked him what he was doing.
He was a man of the middle height, clean-shaven, and with crisp black
hair, which contrasted sharply with a very pale face. It may be that he
was not unprepared for interruption; for he merely looked up as Lily
entered, and then, shutting down the desk with a click, he held his hand
upon it while he answered her.
"Madame," he said, "I am seeking Sir Luton's address."
The effrontery of it astonished her. She switched on the electric light
and came a little further into the room.
"You are seeking my husband's address, but why did you not come to me?"
He smiled a little contemptuously.
"I did not come, Madame, because you would not have given me what I
wanted."
There was a threat here, and she could not mistake it. The peril of her
situation occurred to her immediately. He had offered no opposition
when she switched on the light; he knew, then, that she dare not summon
assistance, and was content with the knowledge for his security.
"I do not understand you," she said with wonder. "Why are you not with
Sir Luton?"
He laughed openly.
"You know that, Madame--you and the other. Why do you ask me the
question?"
She thought upon it, trying to recall the account of the flight as it
had been given to her.
"You were to go to Paris," she said presently, "you were to await Sir
Luton there?"
He did not deny it. His shoulders were lifted in a characteristic
gesture, his hands outspread when he rejoined:
"But, Madame, my master will never go to Paris--not while the police of
Switzerland are looking for him."
She began to breathe as one distressed. Little had been said, but that
was sufficient. She knew the character of this man now; there was no
need to ask another question.
"Be plain," she said, after an interval of hesitation, "what is your
object, what do you mean by this intrusion?"
He bowed his head.
"I wish to go to London. I have an offer of employment from an American
there. Sir Luton must give me a character--and one hundred pounds. If
I cannot have the character, I must have one hundred pounds. Then I
shall be ready to say that my master has gone away, and that I am unable
to apply to him. Madame, if you can help me in this?"
She reflected, trembling a little in the night air, and greatly afraid
now both for herself and for her husband. Certainly she must not give
Luton's address--that would be a madness surpassing belief. And if she
paid the hundred pounds--why, she had not such a sum in her possession
at the moment.
"How can I give you the money here in Switzerland?" she asked. "You
know that it is impossible."
He was prepared for such an answer.
"Madame, no doubt, would have her jewellery with her--there would be
something she could offer me. It would be very unfortunate if there were
not, for then I must go to Martigny to the police. Will not Madame
think of it?"
He advanced a step and stood quite close to her. She could see his clear
eyes looking her through and through, and she quailed before their
scrutiny. A call for help would bring those white hands to her
throat--she was quite sure of it.
"I will give you what you want," she said, "if you will wait here."
He bowed again, and she returned to her bedroom. She had little
jewellery with her; but a basket brooch of rubies and diamonds was worth
far more than the sum he demanded, and for the sacrifice of that she was
not quite prepared. Trembling hands unlocked her jewel case, and
trembling fingers searched it. Then she heard a step behind her, and
turning about swiftly, she discovered the valet at her elbow. The
expression upon his face had changed altogether. It had become that of
a wolf seeking prey.