The camp was pitched in open ground, and had the drawback of that--for
there were no shading trees or sheltering heights, as to which Varne
Coates remarked that it didn't matter a curse about shading trees if
only that any moment a swarm of locusts might happen along and feed off
all the "shade" within half an hour or so, leaving them as bare as Hyde
Park in January; while as for the sheltering heights, well they had just
seen what those could "shelter"--and it was better to be out of range of
such.
The point on which the camp was pitched could certainly boast no charm
of picturesqueness. It stared out upon open plains destitute of
foliage, and rendered here and there even more ugly by low humps of
hill, whose mud coloured domes were relieved here and there by white
streaks of gypsum. Bounding it on both sides, but at some little
distance, rose craggy mountain ridges, good stalking ground for
_markhor_ and _gadh_, and, from another side of the operation, the same,
as we have seen, for the Gularzai sniper. But the big living tent was
roomy, and as replete with such travelling comfort as only
comfort-loving India somehow, seemed ever able to run to: and the
sleeping tents, too, were not wanting in that much to be appreciated
advantage. These, and the tents of the various servants, the khansamah
tent, and those of the Levy sowars who formed the escort, made up quite
a respectable sized nomad village.
"Wonder if Ford'll turn up to-morrow," remarked Coates, as they sat
smoking their after-dinner cheroots under the stars in front of the big
tent. Ford was the Conservator of Forests for the district of Mazaran--
incidentally there were no "forests" worthy of the name in the said
district, but Ford was Forest Officer nevertheless, and drew his pay as
such all the same.
"Ford? Oh, yes, of course," answered Helston, shooting out a big trail
of smoke and pulling himself out of a big meditation in which he had
been wrapped. "Yes. He'll do. He's all right."
"Yes. And on this infernal frontier it's not a bad thing to have
another hard man around who can shoot straight. These _soors_ don't
love us any too well--as you've seen to-day."
It might be asked under the circumstances why the devil two men should
be such fools as to go putting their heads into the lion's mouth, by
camping around here and there right in the heart of a wild country
peopled by hostile and fanatical barbarians, just for the sake of
shooting a few wild goats. But--there you are. They were Englishmen,
and this, we suppose, is an all sufficing answer.
"What a rum thing it is, Helston," went on Coates, jumping to another
subject, "that you should have run into my old pal Seward Mervyn. I've
often thought about it, do you know?"
"Yes, but the world's very small. Yet, I'm not sure that England, that
little bit of an island on the map, isn't the largest section of it--as
far as running into people goes."
"Why it must be some years since I saw him. He must be ageing."
"I should say not. He struck me as a remarkably wiry and energetic sort
of man."
"Energetic? Yes. He was too much that," said the other. "He was
always wanting to know everything. In point of fact, strictly between
ourselves--he got to know too much."
"Did he? In what direction?"
The tone was even, languid; the tone, in short, of a man who is enjoying
his after-dinner smoke in the open air after a day of hard healthful
exercise. But in reality the speaker suddenly found himself all
athrill.
"Oh, he wanted to find out everything about the people--and there are
about fifty different sorts and phases of people on the Northern border
alone. Not content with getting behind their different character and
manners and customs--and this is between ourselves, mind," and the
speaker instinctively lowered his voice--"he got himself mixed up in
their secret societies."
"The deuce he did!"
"Yes. Said he wanted to know the whole thing thoroughly, and everything
about it, and that was the only way of getting to do so. But he ended
by biting off rather more than he could chew."
"How?"
"How? Well now you're getting rather beyond me, old chap. I can only
tell you that he retired suddenly, but not a day too soon. The climate
of India became no longer healthy for him, you understand."
There was no misunderstanding the significance of the speaker's tone.
Helston Varne was becoming more and more vividly interested.
"So? Did he turn the knowledge he'd gained to official account then?"
he said. "Go back on them, for instance?"
"There again I can't tell you anything definite. But some of us--very
few of us--know that he didn't retire a day too soon."
"H'm," and Helston Varne selected another cheroot from the box and
lighted it slowly and deliberately. "But I thought these secret
societies were far reaching, indeed world-wide reaching. Would he be
much safer--or any safer at all--anywhere he went?"
"That too, is more than I can say. But you saw something of him at
home. Did he seem all right there? You say he's buried in some out of
the way country place. Well, did it strike you he might be--what shall
we say--sort of in hiding?"
"N-no. I can't say it did, exactly. He told me he'd lost a lot of dibs
over some damn silly invention he'd thought to make a pot over, and was
glad to live in a shack which he got for nothing because it was supposed
to be haunted."
Outwardly cool, the speaker was conscious of a stirring awakening. He
began to see light--vivid light, but he was not going to give things
away. His kinsman clearly had never heard of the Heath Hover mystery,
and now to him, Helston Varne, the Heath Hover mystery began to take on
an interest which had been dropping of late to expiring point.
It is strange how a long sought solution will suddenly come as in a
flash. The Heath Hover mystery had so far baffled this man to whom the
unravelling of mysteries was as the breath of life, baffled him because
there had been absolutely nothing to go upon. Once he had thought there
was, and that was the day he had been an unwilling prisoner in the Heath
Hover cellar. But that had evaded him, and since then he had owned
himself puzzled. And now just a few casual conversational remarks let
fall by his kinsman, here, away on the Indian frontier, seemed to let a
whole flood of light in upon it. At that moment indeed he was very
nearly piecing together the whole puzzle. His said kinsman's voice
broke the absorption of his thoughts.
"Hand the cheroot box across, Helston--Thanks--By the way you were
saying, if I remember right, that Mervyn had got a niece stopping with
him. What's she like?"
"Lovely."
The other whistled.
"Fact. I don't often wax superlative, Coates, but nothing short of
superlative will define her appearance."
"Oh-h!" said Coates, significantly. But Helston took absolutely no
notice.
"And the strange part is that she doesn't even know it," he went on,
"which constitutes not the least part of the charm."
"Doesn't she? That's rather a tall story to swallow, Helston."
"I agree. But it happens to be true."
"What's her name?"
"Seward. She's his sister's child. But she might just as well be his
own as far as their relationship goes. In fact there are precious few
to whom their own children are as much."
"Yes, I remember. Mervyn used to talk of that affair. He always
objected to his brother-in-law, said he was a cross between a waster and
a jackass, but mostly jackass. He objected too, on the ground of near
relationship, for I believe they were first or second cousins."
"Well I can tell you, Miss Seward forms a very complete exception to the
generally received opinion on that subject. She's all there, and no
mistake."
His kinsman was relighting his cheroot, which was burning badly, and in
the flare of the vesta Helston could see the significant grin which was
wreathing his lined, bronzed features; understood its burden too. But
he said nothing--except:
"What sort of man was Mervyn when he was over here, Coates?"
"Sort? Oh he was a man of--bouts, for want of a definition. He had his
equable bouts, and his gloomy bouts, his peppery bouts and his gusty
bouts, and sometimes downright nasty and cynical bouts. They didn't
overlap either, but were as hard and fast apart by rule and line as the
watertight compartments of a ship. Still, all round, he was all right.
I could stick him better than most people, and we were very `pal-ly' he
and I. He was a fine sportsman too."
"Didn't he ever marry?"
"Now you ask, he did make--that mistake. But it didn't last long--not
more than a year or two. Bad egg you know. Did a bunk--I forget
whether it was a Police wallah or a civilian. They didn't get far
though, for they were both lost in the _Tara_, when she foundered with
nearly all on board going home, you'll remember. Mervyn was rather
relieved, as it saved him the bother and expense and scandal of taking
proceedings. But he didn't repeat the mistake. Well, now--that's
Mervyn."
"Yes. That's Mervyn," repeated Helston. "It seems to form a whole
epitome of him."
His mind reverted to Heath Hover, and his mind's eye seemed to form a
picture--of the lonely, self-contained man--dry, gruff in manner and
biting in conversation--that of course before the arrival of Melian, for
he was judge enough to deduce that Mervyn had sloughed a great deal of
those characteristics since that sunny presence had been there to
irradiate the solitary and secluded habitation, and to melt the sour
hardness of an atrophied life.
"What do you think will be the end of Mervyn?" he went on, after a
pause. The other started.
"The end of--Eh--what? The end of Mervyn? Good Lord! I hadn't given
it a thought. But why? What on earth should have put that into your
head, Helston?"
"Perhaps it's been in my head for some time--almost from the moment I
first saw the man. He's remarkably outside the ordinary, and I'm always
genuinely interested in such."
"Quite sure you're not `genuinely interested' in some one else, old
chap?" said Coates, slily.
"I'm quite sure that I am--and that very much so," came the perfectly
unperturbed reply. "But to come back to Mervyn, you haven't answered my
question."
"Well, how the blazes can I? I've never given it a thought I tell you."
"Well, I have. Do you think for instance, he'll ever come out here
again?"
"Not if he's wise," came the decided answer.
"I should say he was that--from what I saw of him. Still I have an
idea--and a strong one--that he will come out here again."
"Did he talk about doing so, then?"
"Never. But, don't be surprised if ever he does."
"I'll try not. But--look here, old Sherlock Holmes. What are you
getting at? Eh?"
"Nothing wonderful. Only I'm interested in--Mervyn."
The other stared--then began to put two and two together. His kinsman
had been "superlative" on the subject of the girl--not effusively so,
but quietly, and therefore all the more forcibly so, and being
superlative on the subject of anybody spelt a great deal as coming from
Helston Varne. Could it be that Mervyn was in opposition and he would
gladly see Mervyn removed? Yet that hardly seemed to hang, for he
gathered that the two men were on the friendliest of terms.
"If he comes out here again," he now answered, "I'm afraid the end of
him won't be far off. It may not be lingering, but it'll be sudden."
"That'd be a pity. Yet--do you know. I have it somewhere down,
Coates--somewhere down--that it mightn't be the worst thing for him--for
Mervyn--to come out here again. I can't tell you where I have it, but
it's there."
Varne Coates began to feel really interested. He had an immense respect
for the acumen of his younger relative, and for the almost superhuman
judgment and skill wherewith the latter had probed some of the most
delicate and baffling mysteries whose enlightenment had ever startled
the world--no less than for the intrepidity and dash which had secured
his individual safety in perilous crises involved in such. Be it
remembered that he knew nothing of the connexion of Mervyn with any such
mystery as the one in question, yet now for the first time he began to
scent something of the kind. He also began to scent underlying romance.
"Well I give it up, old chap," he answered with a laugh. "Give it up
clean. You've always got something mysterious up your sleeve, but I
suppose it'll all come out in God's good time--and yours. Though if
Mervyn did come out I'd be jolly glad to see him, and have a cheery old
_bukh_ together again--and a little _shikar. Kwai-hai_!"
The bearer padded up in answer to the resounding call, and salaamed.
"_Peg lao_, Bolaki Ram," said his master, and in obedience a bottle and
a syphon and two tall tumblers were set out on the camp table before
them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helston Varne, lying on his charpoy in his sleeping tent, felt very far
removed indeed from going to sleep. To begin with, his relative's
information with regard to Mervyn had given him abundant food for
thought. It had pieced together a great deal that had been wanting, and
it had also carried him back largely to Heath Hover and that which Heath
Hover contained. Strong-headed as strong framed, this man in the very
zenith of his prime, had found out his weak spot--and, why should he
not--so he now told himself? Nothing--nobody--within the ordinary had
ever touched him. Now he had found something--somebody--outside the
ordinary--clean outside the ordinary. He recalled vividly that last
meeting at the head of Plane Pond, under the sprouting green leafage of
early spring in the Plane woods. He had decided it should not be the
last, and when Helston Varne decided anything, it was strange if that
contingency should fail to befall. He remembered vividly those trustful
blue eyes, so clear and straight, and withal appealing in their glance.
And now he was effecting the substance of their appeal, for he had not
come to this wild and turbulent end of the earth, either by accident or
for his own amusement--and then a short, wholly mirthful laugh escaped
him as he remembered how he had gone down to help Nashby over the
unravelling of the Heath Hover mystery. Heavens, how that worthy rural
police inspector would have stared could he have so much as guessed at
what that real unravelling would lead up to! But the situation was
changed now, for in such unravelling Nashby was clean counted out. He,
the unraveller, was wholly in the interest of the other side.
Far out over the plain a wolf howled, and was answered by another.
Something in the sound brought back that of the owls hooting in the
Plane woods, and "Broceliande," and the contrast to the present
surroundings came out sharply defined. Why their adventures of that
very day seemed to make the other remote and commonplace--though there
was one element about it which reflected the very reverse of
commonplace. Even his well regulated system seemed to stir uneasily at
the thought, and stretched upon his charpoy here at midnight in one of
the wildest tracts of wilderness in the world, Helston Varne felt as if
sleep would never visit him again.
The wolves howled, this time nearer. He could hear the half alarmed
snort of one or two of the picketted horses, and a restless camel
indulge in its characteristic, swearing snarl. He got up and mixed
himself another peg, lit a fresh cheroot, then lay down again, staring
at the tent roof and thinking--thinking back.