THE COLONEL WAS A GENTLEMAN AT
THE LAST
It was ten o’clock the following morning before any of the gang saw
the girl. She had spent a sleepless night revising her philosophies
and arranging the future as she saw it.
Mulberry who had put away his rifle and was appearing in the capacity
of an urbane general-manager greeted Kate with a nod.
He was superintending the transference of the ingots to the waiting
trolleys which stood on the road at the top of the chalk pit and were
approached by a zig-zag path which had been cut in the face of the
bluff by the original owner of the property.
Later Mr. Mulberry climbed up the path to interview the stout
contractor.
“I will pay you in advance,” said Mr. Mulberry beaming benevolently
and producing a wad of notes from his pocket book. “You have full
instructions as to where these packages are to go?”
“Yes, sir,” said the man. “To the Thames Docks and I am to hand them
over to the gentleman who engaged me the day before yesterday.”
“Mr. Stockmar,” said Mulberry.
“That is the name, sir. Are these things valuable?”
Mulberry shook his head.
“Scientifically they are of the greatest value, commercially they are
of no value. You have probably heard of dioxide of lead, the heaviest
metal that the earth holds?”
“I can’t say that I have, sir,” said the contractor frankly. “I am not
much of a scientist.”
“It is a very useful element,” lied Mr. Mulberry glibly, “in the
creation of paper. It is highly inflammable but not explosive so long
as it is handled by experts like my men here,” he waved his hand to
the procession of swarthy labourers who were coming up the hill, each
bearing a package on his shoulder.
“They are Italians, aren’t they, sir?”
Mr. Mulberry nodded.
“They are the only people who can handle this chemical,” he explained.
“I see, sir,” said the master carman wisely, “some of these foreigners
are wonderful chaps with chemicals.”
He looked down into the hollow.
“Mighty nice young lady that, sir,” he said respectfully, not knowing
whether Kate, who had just emerged from the building and was wandering
aimlessly across the yard, was an employee or a friend.
“Oh, yes, that is my confidential secretary,” said Mr. Mulberry.
“Mighty nice, if I may be allowed to say so, very lady-like.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Mulberry.
He lingered long enough to see the last packages laid on the floor of
the last truck, shook hands with the contractor with great affability
and strode nonchalantly down the slope and none to see him would have
imagined that he had just entrusted nearly three million pounds’ worth
of gold, to the tender mercies of a chance carman.
He was half way down the first of the slopes when he met Kate coming
up.
“Kate,” he said in a low voice, “if you are going up to the top and
that fellow asks you who you are, you must tell him you are my
confidential secretary. I hope you don’t mind, I had to explain you.”
She nodded and continued her slow walk until she came to the road. The
cars were now buzzing preparatory to making a start. The contractor,
whom she had met before, gave her a cheery nod.
“Have you a piece of paper?” she asked.
“I’ve a card, miss,” he said.
“That will do,” she said; “lend me your pencil.”
She wrote a few lines and handed them to the man.
“I am the managing director’s confidential secretary,” she said.
“I know, miss,” replied the man.
He looked at the card with a frown.
“You are to take the trucks first of all to this address and see the
gentleman whose name I have written.”
“But I was told to go straight to the docks.”
She smiled and nodded.
“I know,” she said, “but my chief thinks you had better go here. His
lordship will either accompany you to their destination or he may
store your chemicals for the night.”
He looked at the address.
“The Earl of Flanborough,” he read; “suppose he isn’t there, miss?”
This was a contingency which she had overlooked.
“Ask for Lady Moya Felton--that is his daughter,” she said; “you had
best see her first in any circumstances.”
“I see, miss,” said the man a little impressed. “I know his lordship.
I have often seen him at Seahampton.”
“Now I think you had better go,” said Kate, “before you receive any
fresh instructions.”
The man chuckled, swung himself into the seat of the second car beside
the driver and first one and then the other of the great lorries,
moved slowly down the white road. She watched them until the last one
had passed the crest of the hill, then she slowly descended the
zig-zag path.
She met Gregori in the doorway.
“Where have you been, Kate?” he demanded.
“I have been to see the loot off,” she said flippantly.
“The less you are seen, the better,” he grumbled. “I told that ass,
Mulberry, not to let the man catch a glimpse of you. Don’t go in, I
want to talk to you.”
He was ill at ease and evidently found it difficult to make a
beginning.
“You know, Kate, I am very fond of you,” he said.
“You have every reason to be.”
“I still have,” he said.
“I am not so sure of that,” she interrupted, “but go on.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked suspiciously.
“Go on,” she demanded; “where does your fondness lead?”
“It leads to your marrying me,” he said; “your uncle does not object
and we will be married as soon as we reach South America.”
“South America!” she stared at him. “So that is our destination, is
it?” she said slowly. “And I am to marry you when we arrive, by
arrangement with my uncle?”
“That’s about the size of it,” replied Gregori.
“And suppose I make other arrangements?”
“There are no other arrangements you can make,” he said with easy
confidence; “the fact is, Kate, that you have to drop these high and
mighty manners of yours. We stood them very well because it paid us to
stand them, I suppose. But we are all in the same boat--and shall be
literally.” He laughed aloud at the sally. “You hold some queer views,
you know, and we can’t afford to let you run loose.”
She jerked up her head and turned abruptly away and would have left
him but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back.
“When I say you must marry me,” he said, “I mean just what I say.”
“Have I a voice in this arrangement?” she asked, slowly disengaging
her arm.
“You have a voice in it if you agree. You have no voice if you cut up
rough.”
“I see,” she said. “I will think about it. This is not a decision
which I can arrive at in a minute.”
She went to her room and locked the door.
At five o’clock that evening her uncle came for her.
“Have you been to sleep?” he asked.
It was curious, she thought, how the manner and even the tone of these
men had changed in the past few hours. She was so used to an attitude
of deference, almost sycophantic, which they ordinarily displayed,
that the change had come in the nature of a shock. And there was a
change. Even her uncle had dropped his mask of good-nature and now
treated her as a child, and a child that needed to be disciplined.
“I have been thinking,” she said.
He grunted something and walked back with her to the office.
“This fellow, Michael Pretherston, has to be settled with. Do you
understand that?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“The cars will be on the road in half an hour and you and I will be
the first to leave.”
“Do you think so?”
“What do you mean?” he asked sharply. “I warn you, Kate, that I am not
going to stand any monkey tricks from you.”
To this she made no answer but pushed at the iron door that led to the
meeting place and entered. To her surprise, Michael was present. In
addition to his handcuffs his arms had been drawn back by the
insertion of a short stick and secured with ropes. Gregori was sitting
on the table and made no attempt to stand up, which was another piece
of evidence that the hold she thought she had over these men had gone,
if it had ever existed.
“Kate, you can use your persuasion on this fellow,” said Gregori
wearily; “it is his last chance. He has had a night to think it over
and he’s still obstinate.”
The girl walked up to the detective.
“Michael,” she said softly, “would nothing induce you to become--one
of us?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing that we could give you--that I could give you?”
He looked at her steadily.
“Nothing that I would take from you at that price,” he said quietly.
“Don’t you love your life?”
“‘As dearly as any alive,’” quoted Michael.
“Don’t you love anything in the world? Isn’t there a girl?” she asked
with a little break in her voice.
He nodded.
“There is a girl,” he said and looked past her.
It seemed as though an icy hand had gripped her heart and for a while
she could not frame the next question.
“Isn’t she worth it?” she said, recovering her balance at last.
“She is worth many things,” said Michael, “but not that.”
She looked down at the floor.
“Poor girl,” she said.
“Having tried sentiment,” sneered Gregori, “we will now try a little
practical argument--Pretherston you have got about an hour to live.”
“I shall die in very bad company,” said Michael with a wry face. “I
had hoped at the least that I might die at the hands of a lawful
hangman, as you will die. To be butchered by a cheap cutthroat
half-breed is not a pleasant prospect.”
“Damn you,” said Gregori with passion and struck him in the face.
He would have repeated the blow but the girl slipped between them.
“Michael, you shall die in good company,” she said in so matter of
fact a tone that none of them realized immediately what she was
saying; “that is, if you think I am good company.”
“What do you mean?” gasped the Colonel.
“Why, I think you will kill me, too,” she said with a serenity which
to Michael was wonderful, “because I have betrayed you all.”
Garon came flinging through the door.
“They haven’t turned up,” he screamed, “the wagons have gone.”
“Gone,” said Gregori huskily, “gone where?”
“I have just been on the ’phone,” gasped the doctor; “they went to
Lord Flanborough’s. He has got the stuff.”
There was a dead silence broken by the girl.
“They went to Lord Flanborough’s,” she repeated nodding her head. “I
know that. I sent them there.”
The tension was dreadful, no man spoke, then suddenly Gregori swung
round on the girl and his face was the face of a devil.
“You!” he grated and leaped at her throat.
In that one moment all the scattered atoms of race, of pride, of
kinship united in the distorted brain of Colonel Westhanger. His lean
arms shot out and Gregori fell headlong to the floor.
“Back, you dog!” roared the old man.
It was the last word he uttered. There was a stinging report from the
floor and Colonel Westhanger fell limply across the table with a
bullet through his heart.
The girl who was half fainting with terror shrank back against the
wall as Gregori rose, his still smoking pistol in his hand.
“You are a prophet,” he said harshly; “you said you would die with
Michael Pretherston and by God! you spoke the truth. Put them
together,” he said, “I want to think things out.”