SOLVING THE PROBLEM
Dinner was finished at Sandymere, Miss Challoner had gone out, and, in
accordance with ancient custom, the cloth had been removed from the
great mahogany table. Its glistening surface was broken only by a
decanter, two choice wine-glasses, and a tall silver candlestick.
Lighting a cigar, Blake looked about while he braced himself for the
ordeal that must be faced.
He knew the big room well, but its air of solemnity, with which the
heavy Georgian furniture was in keeping, impressed him. The ceiling
had been decorated by a French artist of the eighteenth century, and
the faded delicacy of the design, bearing as it did the stamp of its
period, helped to give the place a look of age. Challoner could trace
his descent much farther than his house and furniture suggested, but
the family had first come to the front in the East India Company's
wars, and while maintaining its position afterward had escaped the
modernizing influence of the country's awakening in the early Victorian
days.
It seemed to Blake, fresh from the new and democratic West, that his
uncle, shrewd and well-informed man as he was, was very much of the
type of Wellington's officers. For all that he pitied him. Challoner
looked old and worn, and round his eyes there were wrinkles that hinted
at anxious thought. His life was lonely; his unmarried sister, who
spent much of her time in visits, was the only relative who shared his
home. Now that age was limiting his activities and interests, he had
one great source of gratification: the career of the soldier son who
was worthily following in his steps. His nephew determined that this
should be saved for him, as he remembered the benefits he had received
at the Colonel's hands.
"Dick," Challoner said earnestly, "I'm very glad to see you home. I
should like to think you have come to stay."
"Thank you, sir. I'll stay as long as you need me.
"I feel that I need you altogether. It's now doubtful whether Bertram
will leave India, after all. His regiment has been ordered into the
hills, where there's serious trouble brewing, and he has asked
permission to remain. Even if he comes home, he will have many duties,
and I have nobody left."
Blake did not answer immediately, and his uncle studied him. Dick had
grown thin, but he looked very strong, and the evening dress set off
his fine, muscular figure. His face was still somewhat pinched, but
its deep bronze and the steadiness of his eyes and the firmness of his
lips gave him a very soldierly look and a certain air of distinction.
There was no doubt that he was true to the Challoner type.
"I must go back sooner or later," Blake said slowly; "there is an
engagement I am bound to keep. Besides, your pressing me to stay
raises a question. The last time we met you acquiesced in my decision
that I had better keep out of the country, and I see no reason for
changing it."
"The question must certainly be raised; that is why I sent for you.
You can understand my anxiety to learn what truth there is in the story
I have heard."
"It might be better if you told me all about it."
"Very well; the task is painful, but it can't be shirked."
Challoner carefully outlined Clarke's theory of what had happened
during the night attack, and Blake listened quietly.
"Of course," Challoner concluded, "the man had an obvious end to serve,
and I dare say he was capable of misrepresenting things to suit it.
I'll confess that I found the thought comforting; but I want the truth,
Dick. I must do what's right."
"Clarke once approached me about the matter, but he will never trouble
either of us again. I helped to bury him up in the wilds."
"Dead!" exclaimed Challoner.
"Frozen. In fact, it was not his fault that we escaped his fate. He
set a trap for us, intending that we should starve."
"But why?"
"His motive was obvious. There was a man with us whose farm and stock
would, in the event of his death, fall into Clarke's hands; and it's
clear that I was a serious obstacle in his way. Can't you see that he
couldn't use his absurd story to bleed you unless I supported it?"
Challoner felt the force of this. He was a shrewd man, but just then
he was too disturbed to reason closely and he failed to perceive that
his nephew's refusal to confirm the story did not necessarily disprove
it. That Clarke had thought it worth while to attempt his life bulked
most largely in his uncle's eyes.
"He urged me to take some shares in a petroleum syndicate," he said.
"Then, I believe you missed a good thing." Blake seized upon the change
of topic. "The shares would probably have paid you well. He found the
oil, and put us on the track of it, though of course he didn't have any
wish to do that. We expect to make a good deal out of the discovery."
"It looks like justice," Challoner declared. "But we are getting away
from the point. I'd better tell you that after my talk with the man, I
felt that he might be dangerous and that I must send for you."
"Why didn't you send for Bertram?"
Challoner hesitated.
"When I cabled out instructions to find you, there was no word of his
leaving India; then, you must see how hard it would have been to hint
at my suspicions. It would have opened a breach between us that could
never be closed."
"Yes," said Blake, leaning forward on the table and speaking earnestly,
"your reluctance was very natural. I'm afraid of presuming too far,
but I can't understand how you could believe this thing of your only
son."
"It lies between my son and my nephew, Dick." There was emotion in the
Colonel's voice. "I had a great liking for your father, and I brought
you up. Then I took a keen pride in you; there were respects in which
I found you truer to our type than Bertram."
"You heaped favors on me," Blake replied. "That I bitterly
disappointed you has been my deepest shame; in fact, it's the one thing
that counts. For the rest, I can't regret the friends who turned their
backs on me; and poverty never troubled the Blakes."
"But the taint--the stain on your name!"
"I have the advantage of bearing it alone, and, to tell the truth, it
doesn't bother me much. That a man should go straight in the present
is all they ask in Canada, and homeless adventurers with no
possessions--the kind of comrades I've generally met--are charitable.
As a rule, it wouldn't become them to be fastidious. Anyway, sir, you
must see the absurdity of believing that Bertram could have failed in
his duty in the way the tale suggests."
"I once felt that strongly; the trouble is that the objection applies
with equal force to you. Do you deny the story this man told me?"
Blake felt that his task was hard. He had to convict himself, and he
must do so logically: Challoner was by no means a fool. As he nerved
himself to the effort he was conscious of a rather grim amusement.
"I think it would be better if I tried to show you how the attack was
made. Is the old set of Indian chessmen still in the drawer?"
"I believe so. It must be twenty years since they were taken out.
It's strange you should remember them."
A stirring of half-painful emotions troubled Blake. He loved the old
house and all that it contained and had a deep-seated pride in the
Challoner traditions. Now he must make the Colonel believe that he was
a degenerate scion of the honored stock and could have no part in them.
"I have forgotten nothing at Sandymere; but we must stick to the
subject." Crossing the floor he came back with the chessmen, which he
carefully arranged, setting up the white pawns in two separate ranks to
represent bodies of infantry, with the knights and bishops for
officers. The colored pieces he placed in an irregular mass.
"Now," he began, "this represents the disposition of our force pretty
well. I was here, at the top of the ravine"--he laid a cigar on the
table to indicate the spot--"Bertram on the ridge yonder. This bunch
of red pawns stands for the Ghazee rush."
"It agrees with what I've heard," said Challoner, surveying the roughly
marked scene of battle with critical eyes. "You were weak in numbers,
but your position was strong. It could have been held!"
Blake began to move the pieces.
"The Ghazees rolled straight over our first line; my mine, which might
have checked them, wouldn't go off--a broken circuit in the firing
wires, I suppose. We were hustled out of the trenches; it was too dark
for effective rifle fire."
"The trench the second detachment held should have been difficult to
rush!"
"But," Blake insisted, "you must remember that the beggars were
Ghazees; they're hard to stop. Then, our men were worn out and had
been sniped every night for the last week or two. However, the
bugler's the key to my explanation; I'll put this dab of cigar ash here
to represent him. This bishop's Bertram, and you can judge by the
distance whether the fellow could have heard the order to blow, 'Cease
fire,' through the row that was going on."
He resumed his quick moving of the chessmen, accompanying it by a
running commentary.
"Here's another weak point in the tale, which must be obvious to any
one who has handled troops; these fellows couldn't have gained a
footing in this hollow because it was raked by our fire. There was no
cover and the range was short. Then, you see the folly of believing
that the section with which the bugler was could have moved along the
ridge; they couldn't have crossed between the Ghazees and the trench.
They'd have been exposed to our own fire in the rear."
He added more to much the same effect, and then swept the chessmen up
into a heap and looked at his companion.
"I think you ought to be convinced," he said.
"It all turns upon the bugler's movements," Challoner contended.
"And he was killed. I've tried to show you that he couldn't have been
where Clarke's account had him."
Challoner was silent for a while, and Blake watched him anxiously until
he looked up.
"I think you have succeeded, Dick, though I feel that with a trifling
alteration here and there you could have cleared yourself. Now we'll
let the painful matter drop for good; unless, indeed, some fresh light
is ever thrown on it."
"That can't happen," Blake declared staunchly.
Challoner rose and laid a hand on his arm. "If you were once at fault,
you have since shown yourself a man of honor. Though the thing hurt me
at the time, I'm glad you are my nephew. Had there been any baseness
in you, some suspicion must always have rested on your cousin. Well,
we are neither of us sentimentalists, but I must say that you have
amply made amends."
He turned away and Blake went out into the open air to walk up and
down. The face of the old house rose above him, dark against the clear
night sky; in front the great oaks in the park rolled back in shadowy
masses. Blake loved Sandymere; he had thought of it often in his
wanderings, and now he was glad that through his action his cousin
would enjoy it without reproach. After all, it was some return to make
for the favors he had received. For himself there remained the charm
of the lonely trail and the wide wilderness.
For all that, he had been badly tempted. Poverty and disgrace were
serious obstacles to marriage, and had he been free to do so, he would
eagerly have sought the hand of Millicent Graham. It was hard to hold
his longing for her in check. However, Harding was confident that they
were going to be rich, and that would remove one of his disadvantages.
Thinking about the girl tenderly, he walked up and down the terrace
until he grew calm, and then he went in to talk to Miss Challoner.