the poor girl’s corpse back to the yacht and I thought her mother
would have died as well--or gone out of her mind. She was screaming
to get away from the place. But the old man was not put off his game
so easily. The next day, whilst I stayed on board with the distracted
mother, he and his son went and dug again in that tragic cairn.
“They brought back all they found--the broken lid of a chest, branded
with the date 1665. That, curiously enough, was _underneath_ the
skeleton, suggesting that the hoard had been rifled before the man,
whoever he was, was killed.”
“A strange story!” commented another of the audience. “And what’s your
hypothesis in explanation, doctor?”
The doctor smiled.
“Well--you can have your choice,” he said. “There is the possibility
that, in a prior existence, Miss Vandermeulen was in fact Lucia, that
she seduced John Dawson into revealing the secret of the treasure,
that she murdered him on the spot and went off with it--and that
the vengeful spirit of the old buccaneer, hovering around these
latitudes, came into touch with her new reincarnation, and, playing
with a fine irony upon that same lust of gold which was responsible
for his murder but of which she was this time entirely innocent, led
her to a death by that same poniard with which she had killed _him_.
Alternatively, there is the hypothesis that her spontaneous writing and
the impersonation of Lucia were but an automatic dramatization by her
subconsciousness of hints dropped into it by her brother’s reading of
‘Treasure Island’ and subsequent conversations between her father and
his son, and that her death was a mere coincidence.”
“An incredibly complete coincidence!” said one of the men.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“There was one other curious thing,” he said. “Some years later, in
a history of the buccaneers, I came across a paragraph to the effect
that the island called Old Providence since the eighteenth century was
known to the buccaneers as Santa Katalina, and that only subsequently
was that name transferred to the islet north of it. So Pauline’s
subconscious memory was right! Furthermore, it stated that the large
island, then called Santa Katalina, was seized and garrisoned by the
buccaneers in 1664 under the leadership of a man named Mansvelt. He
sailed off to get recruits, leaving the island in command of a certain
Simon, and died upon the voyage. Simon surrendered the island to the
Spaniards who had besieged it. The date was 1665.
“Of course, Miss Vandermeulen may have read that paragraph and
subconsciously retained the names--but, for her, it was an improbable
kind of reading. At any rate, she had a curious knowledge of an
out-of-the-way piece of history. As I said, when you tap the
subconsciousness you never know what buried treasure you may find.
Well, I leave you to your hypotheses, gentlemen.” He stood up, knocked
out his pipe. “Good-night!”
A PROBLEM IN REPRISALS
In the dusk of a winter afternoon a battalion of the French Contingent
of the Army of Occupation dispersed to its billets in the little
German village. The _Chef-de-bataillon_ and the _médecin-major_,
having installed their staffs in their respective bureaux, walked up
the street in search of the quarters which had been chosen for them
in the meanwhile. The scared faces of slatternly women, obsequiously
gesturing the mud-stained French soldiers into occupation of their
cottages, turned to look anxiously at them as they passed, in evident
apprehension of the order which should let loose a vengeful destruction
only too probable to their uneasy consciences. Here and there a
haggard-looking man, an ex-soldier probably, slunk into his house, out
of sight, but the native population of the village was preponderatingly
feminine. The two officers--the _commandant_, good-humoured and
inclined to rotundity, his eyes twinkling under brows a shade less gray
than his moustache; the doctor, a middle-aged man, quiet, restrained
to curtness in speech and expression, with eyes that swept sombrely
without interest over his environment--ignored alike the false smiles
and the genuinely alarmed glances of these wives and mothers of their
once arrogant enemies.
A captain came down the street toward them and saluted on near
approach. It was the adjutant of the battalion. He was young and his
natural cheerfulness was enhanced to perpetual high spirits in the
enjoyment of the experiences following upon overwhelming victory.
“We are well housed, _mon commandant_,” he said joyously, with a
flash of white teeth under his little brown moustache. “_Comfort
moderne--presque!_ Not a château, it is true--but large enough. The
best in the village, in any case. Bedrooms for the three of us, and a
room for our _popote_. Our baggage is already in, and dinner will be
ready in half an hour. _Tout ce qu’il y a de mieux, n’est-ce pas?_” He
finished with his young laugh.
The gray eyes of the battalion-commander twinkled at him.
“And the _patronne_, Jordan?--Old and ugly?”
The young man’s face lit up. He put one finger to his lips and blew an
airy kiss.
“Ah, _mon commandant_!” he replied in a tone of assumed ecstasy. “You
shall see her! A pearl, a jewel, _une femme exquise_!--That is to say,”
he added, with a change of note, “she would be if she were not a _femme
boche_. One almost forgets it, to look at her. But _boche_ or not, she
is young, she is beautiful, and, _mon commandant_, rarest of all--she
is intelligent!”
The battalion commander laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and
drew him along with them as they resumed their momentarily interrupted
progress.
“I see I have to congratulate you upon another conquest,” he said, with
amused tolerance. “He is incredible, _notre cher Jordan_, Delassus!” he
added with a smile to the doctor.
“_Je ne dis pas_,” protested the young captain with an affectation
of modesty. “But we understand each other and that is already
much--although, unfortunately, she speaks no French and my German lacks
vocabulary. But she made me understand that her husband was an officer
killed in the war. ‘_Mann_--_Offizier_--_tot_--_Krieg_.’ That’s right,
doctor, _n’est-ce pas_?--You are the linguist.”
The doctor nodded assent.
“Quite correct. You should make rapid progress under an instructor so
willing to impart interesting information,” he said drily.
The young man protested warmly against the implication.
“Your cynicism is out of place, doctor. I assure you. She is
_timide_--_timide_ like a frightened bird.--I extorted it from
her.--But you shall see for yourselves. Here we are!”
They were at the end of the village. The young captain led them through
a carriage gateway, sadly in need of a coat of paint, up a weed-grown
drive to a fairly large house, that had once been white but was now
stained with the overflow of gutters long left out of repair. A belt of
trees hid it from the road. The main door, in the centre of the house
with windows on both sides of it, was open, as if in expectation of
them. Wisps of smoke from several of the chimneys hinted at hospitality
in preparation.
As the three of them entered the hall, a young woman appeared on the
threshold of one of the rooms communicating with it. Her natural
slimness was emphasized by a gown of black, and this sombre garb threw
into relief the fair hair which was massed heavily above her delicate
features. It needed, perhaps, the youthful enthusiasm of the captain to
call her beautiful; but her appearance had something of fragile charm
which conferred a distinction rare among German women. She stood there,
a little drawn back from her first emergence, contemplating them with
eyes that evidently sought to measure the potentiality for mischief in
these forced guests. Her attitude appealed dumbly for protection, so
forlorn and frail and timid was it as she shrunk back in the doorway.
“Introduce us, Jordan!” whispered the battalion-commander to his
subordinate. “_On est civilisé, quoi donc!_”
The young captain had lost a considerable amount of his assurance.
Rather flustered, he saluted and pointed to his superior.
“_Commandant!_” then, turning to the other, “Doctor!” he blurted,
clumsily.
Their hostess bowed slightly with a pathetic little smile as the two
officers saluted. The doctor advanced a step.
“Have no fear, _gnädige Frau_,” he said politely in German. “The war is
over and France does not avenge itself upon women. No harm will come to
you.”
Her face lit up.
“_Ach_, you speak German!”
“I studied in Germany in my youth, _gnädige Frau_, and I have not quite
forgotten the language.”
She smiled at him.
“_Gewiss nicht!_” Then, with a swift change of expression, she clutched
imploringly at his arm. “You will protect me? I am so alone and
frightened!” She hesitated as though seeking a cognate circumstance in
him that should compel his sympathy. “You are married?”
The polite smile went out of his face. His expression hardened.
“I was, _gnädige Frau_,” he replied, curtly.
She stared at him, divining that she had blundered upon some painful
mystery. With feminine tact she steered quickly away from it into the
region of safe commonplace. She threw open one of the doors leading
into the hall.
“Here, _meine Herren_, is the _Speisezimmer_,” she said in a tone of
colourless courtesy that contrasted with her emotion-charged voice of
a moment before. “It is at your service for your meals. There,” she
pointed to a door at the other side of the hall, “is the _Salon_--also
at your service. I have had a fire lit in it. Your orderlies are now
in the kitchen. I will send them to you to show you your rooms.” She
inclined her head slightly in sign of farewell and passed out through a
door at the end of the hall.
The young captain looked at his commanding officer.
“_Eh bien, mon commandant?_ What did I tell you? Is she not----?”
His superior interrupted him, a twinkle in his eye.
“She is, _mon cher Jordan_--but you have not a chance against the
doctor here!” He laughed, clapping the doctor on the back.
The _médecin-major_ frowned. His ascetic features hardened again.
“_Mon cher commandant_, you do me too much honour,” he said coldly. “I
assure you that there is no living woman who can interest me.”
“Bah!” said the battalion-commander a trifle fatuously, “_moi, je suis
connaisseur dans ces affaires-lá!_ I am sure that something is going to
happen between you and that woman. I can always feel that sort of thing
in the air like--” he hesitated for an illustration, “like some people
can see ghosts.”
The doctor looked him in the eyes.
“_Mon Commandant_,” he said, curtly, “if you could see ghosts you would
not feel so sure.”
There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The captain broke it by
shouting for the orderlies.
The three officers were introduced to their rooms and parted to perform
their toilet before dinner.
The meal which followed in the rather overfurnished Speisezimmer was
overshadowed by the gloomy taciturnity of the doctor who appeared still
to resent the battalion-commander’s suggestions of gallantry. Not all
the sprightly sallies of the adjutant, not the persistent _bonhomie_
of the battalion-commander, resolutely ignoring any hostility between
himself and the doctor, could bring a smile into that hard-set face
with the sombre eyes. Their hostess did not appear again and was not
mentioned between them. When they had finished, the captain suggested
that they should smoke their cigars in the Salon.
“I feel I want to put my feet on the piano,” he said, with a vague
remembrance of a popular picture, “like the _boches_ at Versailles in
’seventy! To infect our hostess’s curtains with cigar-smoke is a poor
compromise, but it is something! _Allons, messieurs!_--let us indulge
in hideous reprisals! The _boche_ has devastated our homes--let us
avenge ourselves by spoiling his curtains!”
The battalion-commander looked smilingly across to the doctor.
“_Mon cher Delassus_, are you for this policy of reprisals?”
The doctor looked up as though startled out of a train of thought.
“_Mon commandant_, it is a subject on which I dare not let myself
think.”
There was something so harsh in his tone that neither of his companions
could continue their banter. Both looked at the doctor. They knew
little or nothing of his private life, for he had joined the battalion
only just prior to the armistice, but evidently it contained a tragedy
the memory of which they had unwittingly revived. Both maintained a
respectful silence for a few moments. Then the adjutant rose and went
out of the room. He called out to them from the Salon that a splendid
fire awaited them, and the others rose from the table also.
The battalion-commander laid his hand affectionately upon the doctor’s
shoulder.
“_Mon cher_,” he said, “forgive me if I have unconsciously wounded
sacred sentiments.”
The doctor pressed the hand that was extended to him. They went
together across the hall into the Salon.
A blazing wood fire fitfully lit up a large room still without other
means of illumination. Jordan explained that he had sent an orderly
for some candles, as Madame had no petroleum for the lamps. The
battalion-commander and the doctor threw themselves luxuriously into
deep armchairs on either side of the fireplace and lit their cigars. In
a few minutes the orderly arrived with the candles. Jordan fitted them
into two large candelabra on the mantelpiece and lit them.
The eyes of all three officers roved around the apartment. It was, like
the dining-room, rather overfurnished and was particularly rich in
bric-à-brac of all kinds. It was, in fact, overcrowded with porcelain
figures, small mirrors, pictures of moderate size, all sorts of
valuable objects that in almost every case were of _easily portable
dimensions_. This last attribute leaped simultaneously to the minds of
two of them.
“_Mon commandant_,” began Jordan, in a humorously affected judicial
tone, “I am penetrated by an unworthy suspicion----!”
“French! _Nom d’un nom!_” cried the battalion-commander. “Everything
here!--The collection of the burglar _boche_ officer!--Doctor! You
speak German!--Ask that woman----!”
Both were suddenly arrested by the attitude of the doctor. He was
staring in a fixed fascination at a small Buhl clock upon the
mantelpiece. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, snatched down the clock,
and gazed eagerly at the back of it.
“_Mon Dieu!_” he cried. “_This is mine!_--it comes from my
house!--Look!”
He showed them an inscription on the back:
[1]“_A Jules, pour marquer les heures d’un amour qui ne cessera pas
quand le temps même cessera, de sa Marcelle._”
He stared at them like a lunatic.
“My wife!” he cried. “My wife!--Oh, Marcelle, Marcelle, where are you?
Where are you?”
The others also had risen to their feet. A tense silence followed upon
the wild cry.
The battalion-commander touched the doctor’s arm.
“_Mon ami_,” he said gently, “--can we help you----?”
The erstwhile sombre eyes of the doctor blazed down upon him, as
though searching for a mortal enemy even in this friend. Then, with a
distinctly apparent effort of will, the anguished man mastered himself.
“Listen!” he said. “This clock was a present to me from my wife. It was
a love-marriage, ours--we loved, she and I----” he broke off, his eyes
blazing again. Then, with a gesture of the hand as though he put that
from him, he continued: “Before the war I was in practice at Cambrai.
We lived out of the town--in a country house such as this. In August,
1914, I was mobilized. They sent me to Lorraine. I left my wife at
home, believing her to be safe. You know what happened. The enemy swept
over that part of the country. Trench-warfare began and my home, all
I cared for in the world--my wife--was in the German lines. I never
saw her again. I could never get any news. I waited four desperate
years--and then, when we advanced, I went to find my home. It simply
did not exist--it was a heap of bricks with a trench through it. My
wife--no hint!” He pressed a hand over his eyes, then stared once more
at the clock. “And now--I find this--here!”
Again there was a tense silence. The battalion-commander broke it at
last.
“Interrogate the woman,” he said, briefly. “She must know something.”
“It is a pity her husband is dead,” said the captain, with grim humour.
“We could have the pleasure of condemning him by court-martial, after
he had confessed--whatever there is to confess.”
The doctor’s face set hard. He replaced the clock on the mantelpiece
and wrote a few words on a page of his notebook.
“I am going to have the truth,” he said, tearing out the page and
folding it up. “Ring the bell, my dear Jordan.”
An orderly appeared.
“Take this to Madame,” said the doctor, “at once.”
The orderly departed. The three men waited, two of them tingling with
the excitement of this unexpected drama, the third standing with
compressed lips and eyes that seemed to be frowning into a world which
transcended this. He was certainly oblivious of his companions in the
fixity of his thought. At last his lips moved.
“Marcelle! Marcelle!” he murmured. “My love! I am going to know--and,
if need be, to avenge!”
At that moment the door opened and the frail little figure of the
German woman appeared upon the threshold.
“_Meine Herren?_” she said, in timid enquiry.
The doctor looked up. His companions marvelled to see the expression of
his face change to a smiling courtesy. But there was a glitter in the
usually sombre eyes which spurred their hardly repressed excitement.
“Will you have the kindness to enter, _gnädige Frau_?” said the doctor.
His voice was suave, but there was a note in it which his companions,
although they did not understand the words, recognized as compelling.
The German woman glanced at him apprehensively, and obeyed. The doctor
drew up an armchair for her, close to the fire.
“Will you not seat yourself, _gnädige Frau_?” he asked still in the
suave voice with the undertone of command.
She inclined her head speechlessly and sat down. They noticed that her
hands were trembling. The doctor motioned his companions to resume
their seats. He himself remained standing, his back to the fireplace,
his form hiding the clock on the mantelpiece from the eyes of the woman
had she looked up. He smiled at her in a reassuring manner, as she
waited dumbly for him to state the reason for his summons.
“We are very much interested in your collection of porcelain, _gnädige
Frau_,” he said, smoothly. “It is French, is it not?”
A sudden expression of alarm flitted into her eyes, was banished. She
nodded her head.
“_Ja--ja, mein Herr_,” she answered hesitatingly. She moistened her
lips. Her hands gripped each other tightly upon her lap.
The battalion-commander and the captain observed her with a quickened
interest. Despite their ignorance of German, the word “_Porzelän_” gave
them the clue to their comrade’s opening question.
“It is the result of many years’ gradual acquisition, I presume?” he
pursued, in a casual tone.
She shot an upward glance at him from under her eyebrows ere she
replied.
“_Ja--mein Herr._”
“It is well chosen,” said the doctor. “I congratulate you on your
knowledge and good taste. Perhaps you would explain some of the pieces
to us--pieces I do not recognize?”
She looked up at him with wide and innocent eyes.
“I cannot, _mein Herr_. I know nothing about porcelain. It was my
husband’s collection. I keep it in memory of him.”
There was an accent of sincerity in the last phrase which drew a sharp
glance from the doctor.
“Ah,” he said quietly. “He was killed, was he not?”
Her eyes filled with tears, her mouth twitched.
“Killed in one of the very last battles, _mein Herr_.” She drew
a long sobbing breath and looked wildly at him. “_Ach Gott!_ do
not remind me! do not remind me!” she cried. “He was all I had in
the world--everything--everything! You do not know how good and
kind and loving he was! And now he is gone--he will never come
back--never--never! And I loved him so!” She broke down into sobs,
hiding her face in her hands.
The doctor waited until the crisis had subsided. A diagnosis of
hysteria formed itself in his professional mind.
“So you have no real interest in this collection?” he enquired. “Would
you sell it?”
“_Ach, nein--nein_!” she answered. “I keep it in memory of him, my
Heinrich, who loved it so.--I feel him here when I dust it and care for
it.” She looked wildly round the room. “I feel him here now!”
The doctor nodded his head in courteous assent to a possibility.
“Did he inherit it?” he asked casually, as though merely pursuing a
conversation which could not, in politeness, be allowed to cease on a
note of distress.
She shook her head.
“Ah, he bought it?”
She moistened her lips nervously ere she replied.
“Yes.”
“Before the war?”
Her face hardened as she answered again.
“Yes.”
There was a moment of silence and then the doctor changed his position
slightly before the mantelpiece.
“And this pretty clock?” he asked, pointing to it. “Did he buy that
also?”
She stared at it and then nodded her head.
“_Ja, mein Herr._”
“_So!_--that is curious. I am particularly interested in that clock,
_gnädige Frau_. Can you remember where it was bought?”
She hesitated, ventured a scared glance at him, and obviously forced
herself to speech. The two officers involuntarily bent forward in their
interest.
“No, _mein Herr_.”
She glanced round as though seeking an opportunity for escape.
The doctor repeated his question in a level tone of authority, his eyes
fixed on her.
“You are sure you cannot remember where that clock was bought, _gnädige
Frau_?”
“Quite sure.” Her breast was heaving. She half rose from her seat. “Why
do you ask me all these questions? Let me go!--Let me go! You have no
right to question me like this! I--I tell you it was bought--it was all
bought!”
The doctor stepped forward with a quick movement, seized her wrist, and
forced her back into her seat.
“I beg of you!” he said in a voice that compelled obedience.
She subsided, trembling in every limb. Her eyes followed his every
movement with the fascinated attention of a frightened animal.
The doctor came close to her, and from her point of view glanced up to
the mantelpiece. Then, stepping back, he arranged the candles so that
the face of the clock, seen from her position, was a disc of bright
reflection.
Without a word but with a deliberation which awed even the watching
officers by its inflexible though mysterious purpose, he turned to her
once more, and, with the gently firm touch of a medical man, posed
her head so that she looked straight before her. Paralyzed under his
masterful dominance, she submitted plastically. She was too frightened
to utter a sound. Only her eyes widened as she saw him produce a heavy
revolver.
“Now, _gnädige Frau_!” he said, and his voice, though passionless,
was intense in its expression of level will-power, “do not move your
head! Look up--under your eyebrows. You see that clock? Look at
it--continue to look at it!--If you take your eyes off it for one
fraction of a second I shall shoot you dead! You are looking at it? It
marks a quarter to eight. When it strikes eight you will tell me quite
truthfully how you came by it!”
He ceased. The young woman, her face white with terror, her mouth
twitching, her nostrils distended, sat motionless, staring up under her
eyebrows at the face of the clock.
There was a dead silence in the room. The minutes passed. The young
woman did not move a muscle. Her wide-open eyes fixed on the clock, she
seemed to stiffen into a cataleptic rigidity.
The doctor put aside his revolver. He approached her, took one of her
wrists and lifted her hand from her lap. It lay limply in his.
“You are feeling sleepy,” he said in his level, positive voice. “You
are going to sleep. My voice is sounding muffled and far away--but you
will still hear it. You are losing the sense of your surroundings--but
you still see that clock face. You cannot help but see it. And when it
strikes eight you are going to tell the truth.” He dropped the hand
which fell lifelessly again upon her lap.
The young woman sat motionless as a statue. Her breathing changed to
the deep respirations of sleep, although her eyes remained wide open.
The clock struck eight. At the last of its thin, silvery notes the
young woman shuddered. Her lips moved.
“My husband sent it to me,” she said in a toneless, dreamy voice.