UNDER THE SEARCHLIGHT
"So that is Nugent, the London chap who lives at The Hut?" said
Lieutenant Beauchamp, when the car had flashed past. "Why do you
accentuate the information by making such disgustingly ugly faces,
Pussy?"
Miss Enid Mallory tossed her dainty head in mock indignation. "You are
perfectly horrid, Mr. Beauchamp," she snapped at him. "As if I could
make an ugly face if I tried ever so. And I won't have you calling me
Pussy--now that I'm grown up."
"Grown up, is it, the little spitfire?" grinned the young sailor. "And I
am to be Mr. Beauchamp, am I? Well, we used to be Reggie and Pussy when
I was at home last, and, whatever you may do, the force of habit will be
too strong for me. Even if I try to conquer it, which I shan't."
"That was three years ago, before you went to China," retorted Enid with
dignity.
"What's the difference? We're neither of us very old yet, though I'm not
sure I didn't like you better with a pigtail down your back than with
all that crinkly bulge round your ears. However, to be serious, and
stick to our muttons--what's the matter with Nugent?"
"Father doesn't like him," replied Enid, still inclined to ride the high
horse.
"I know that Mr. Mallory doesn't like him, but why not?" persisted
Reggie. "I have the greatest regard for your father's judgment in all
things. He is invariably right in his conclusions, but he is so jolly
reticent as to how he arrives at them. I saw in the club this morning,
when Nugent's name cropped up, that he didn't cotton to the johnny, but
he refused to be drawn on the subject."
Enid was mollified at last, as she always was by any tribute to the
acumen of the parent whom she adored.
"I don't know his reason," she said, as they turned to retrace their
steps along the parade. "But father, till he retired, was at the Foreign
Office, as you are aware, and in the course of his duties he learned all
sorts of secrets and came in contact with all sorts of shady men. I
fancy his antipathy dates back to something that occurred during his
official career, but you might as well try to open an oyster with your
fingers as induce him to divulge what he knows."
Reggie Beauchamp nodded, really more interested in the sprightly hoyden
he was talking to than in the subject of their conversation. "I see," he
said. "If that's the way you figure it out, I shall be aware of Mr.
Travers Nugent when I meet him at the club. If he's a dark horse he
might rook me at billiards or bridge. I am obliged to you for this
warning, Miss Mallory. You have probably saved an unsophisticated
sailor from premature ruin and a suicide's grave."
Enid glanced up at him, her eyes dancing with mischief. "Bother Mr.
Nugent!" she exclaimed. "Now that you have addressed me with proper
respect, you may call me Pussy again if you wish--till you misbehave
again."
So for the next half-hour they reverted to earlier nomenclature, and
forgot to play at quarrelling as they wandered up and down by the summer
sea. And when at length they parted, Enid to go home to pour out tea for
her blind mother, and Reggie to enter the club, they lightly made an
appointment which was to have its grim bearing on the tale that has yet
to be told.
"Look here, Miss Mallory," said the Lieutenant, with feigned solemnity.
"I have to go into Exeter to-morrow to try on some new uniforms, and
to-night I must stay at home and help the mater entertain a wretched
curate whom she has invited to dinner. But I shall be at large to-morrow
evening. What about a prowl along the shore or up the marsh? We might
renew hostilities, and get some sort of a notion which of us is really
right in the matter of our Christian names. I may change my mind, and
come to the conclusion that you are, after all."
"Oh, may you, indeed, Reggie?" replied the girl, and with a roguish
laugh she ran away without saying whether or no she would meet him. But
he was familiar with his former playmate's impish ways, and it was in
sublime confidence that the appointment would be kept that he loitered
about on the seafront on the evening of the following day.
Sure enough, a little after nine, when the sunset glow still lingered in
the western sky, Miss Enid's white-clad figure was seen threading its
way through the loungers on the parade. It was a beautiful evening, and
the junior section of residents and visitors were about in plenty. Young
men and maidens, hatless and in evening dress, strolled up and down the
asphalte side-walk between the coastguard station and the club, for
the most part chattering of the handicaps in the forthcoming tennis
tournament, while some few exceptions, too busy making eyes at each
other for such frivolity, worshipped at the love-god's shrine. Such
public worship, however, has ever been considered bad form at
Ottermouth, except among septuagenarians and the rosy-cheeked couples
who on Sundays "walk out" together in the country lanes.
Perhaps it was because of this unwritten law of the place that Reggie
Beauchamp and Enid Mallory, having duly greeted each other with flippant
discourtesy, but having the germ of quite another sentiment in their
irresponsible hearts, intuitively turned their steps to the further end
of the parade, and came to a halt at the spot where the struggle between
the feeble efforts of the urban council and the giant forces of nature
ceased. In front lay the bank of shingle across the former river's
mouth; to the left stretched the sedge-covered, dyke-sected bed of the
old estuary.
"Shall we go back to the parade or take a turn up the marsh?" asked
Reggie. And then, without waiting for a reply, he added, "By Jingo! Look
out to sea. There is a cruiser--the _Terrible_, I think, or one of her
class."
Enid followed the direction of his pointing finger, and in the
fast-fading twilight saw the great four-funnelled monster steaming
slowly about two miles out at sea. Even as they looked, the big warship
became little more than a huge blurred shape, barely discernible in the
darkness that was swiftly blotting out land and sea.
"Well, she won't bite, I suppose," said the girl carelessly.
"No, but she might bark," laughed the Lieutenant. "I expect she's out
for night practice with her heavy guns--with blank charges, of course."
The young people quickly lost interest in the ship, and, turning aside,
struck into the path traversed by Leslie Chermside and Levison on the
morning of the preceding day. It was raised above the level of the
mud-flats which skirted it on the right; on the other side rose the
umbrageous bank of the old water-course, increasing the shadows in which
they walked.
Presently Enid's hand stole under her companion's arm, and they glided
naturally into the frank comradeship which had prevailed between them
long before the mutual banter which they had lately affected, and which
was probably due to a desire to conceal the first stirrings of something
stronger than a boy-and-girl attachment. They were both of the age when
young folk are supremely susceptible, but have a self-conscious dread of
being thought so. Out here on the marsh, in the kindly mantle of a
moonless summer night, they could enjoy the pleasure of propinquity
without fear of being laughed at.
"Let's sit down here for a bit while I smoke a cigarette," said Reggie,
when they had gone half a mile along the marsh. "It is the old ambush,
as we called it, where we used to picnic when I was a middy and you were
a kid."
He ran down the side of the raised path into a little glade formed by
some dwarf oaks at the base of the miniature cliff, and Enid followed,
seating herself on the low-growing branch of one of the trees. It was
quite dark now--so dark that though they were very close to the path
they had quitted, they could not be seen from it. Even in daylight they
would have been invisible behind their leafy screen.
"I suppose you executed that manoeuvre because you heard the footsteps
behind us," said Enid in a whisper.
"Footsteps? I didn't hear any," replied Reggie.
"Hush! Don't speak. You can hear them now."
The sound of hurrying feet was distinctly audible now from the path, and
a moment later a man--the heavy tread left no doubt that it was a
man--went by. He was almost running, and they could hear his quick
breathing, but it was impossible to tell whether he was tall or short,
young or old, rich or poor, in the inky blackness that had swallowed up
the marsh.
"A telegraph boy taking a short cut to the Manor House," suggested Enid
when the steps had died away.
"Too late for that--the office closed two hours ago," replied Reggie
Beauchamp carelessly. "More likely some poacher who has been setting
snares for rabbits, and thought he heard a keeper behind him. The
Ottermouth fishermen used to be precious handy with a bit of copper wire
and a bootlace."
The brief interruption passed from their minds, and they had been
chattering for about ten minutes when once again the silence of the
marsh was broken by the sound of advancing steps. This time the wayfarer
came along in more leisurely fashion, and in this case also it was
possible to guess from the heavy footfall that the passer by was a man.
Perhaps a minute elapsed, and then, just as the young people were
becoming absorbed in each other again, there came from further along the
marsh--that is to say, from the direction to which both the successive
pedestrians had been proceeding--a sudden sharp cry, ending in a
long-drawn wail.
"What on earth was that?" exclaimed Enid, jumping down from her bough.
"Goodness knows," laughed the careless sailor. "Either a bereaved cow or
a curlew suffering from nightmare. Sit down again, Pussy; it was nothing
to worry about."
"It struck me as being distinctly human," said Enid doubtfully, but she
swung herself back into the tree, willing to be convinced that there was
nothing wrong, rather than terminate a _tete-a-tete_ that was rapidly
gliding into a flirtation. Another pleasant quarter of an hour slipped
by, and then at the beats of a distant clock in the town striking
half-past ten she dropped from her perch.
"I must be getting back, or father will be wondering what has become of
me," she said as she made for the entrance of their lair.
Reggie's detaining hand fell on her arm.
"Half a second," he said. "There is some one coming along the path--one
of those chaps who went by returning, perhaps. Better let him get ahead,
whoever he is, before we break cover. We don't want company on our way
back."
So they waited in the shadows, listening to the oncoming footsteps till
the man who caused them was nearly opposite their hiding-place in the
little glade. His identity was nothing to them; they had no thought but
to enjoy their homeward stroll without having to tread too closely on
the heels of any inconvenient outsider.
And then, suddenly, far out at sea a great shaft of light shot skyward,
and, after steadying itself in a perpendicular gleam, swooped down upon
the marsh, moving to and fro across the broad expanse, prying out its
secret places and showing up each reed and sedge in an electric glare,
that was twice as effective as lightning because it dwelt longer on its
objectives. At first the radiant tongue played on the opposite side of
the marsh, then it flickered on the central wastes, and finally darted
on to the path close to Reggie and Enid just as the man they had heard
advancing passed by.
Unseen themselves in the thicket, they had a clear view of him as he
strode along the path, for, the latter being raised several feet above
their level, his face was silhouetted against the dark sky beyond the
electric beam. Their glimpse was only momentary, because as though
dazzled, he raised his hand to his eyes, and altogether he was not ten
seconds within the range of their vision, but it lasted long enough to
enable Enid to whisper her companion--
"That was Mr. Chermside, the young officer from India who has been
staying down here for the last month. He's supposed to be awfully gone
on Violet Maynard, the daughter of the rich Birmingham man who has taken
the Manor House for the summer."
"Then I expect that is where he was coming from," suggested Reggie. "I
met him in the club yesterday. Your father introduced him. He seemed a
decent sort of chap, but down on his luck I thought."
"You have made two blunders in one statement," was Miss Enid's pert
retort. "He can't have been coming from the Manor House because he
wasn't in evening dress. And he can't be down on his luck because he's
got heaps of money. Why, he's going to start on a cruise round the world
soon in a steam yacht that is fitting out at Portland."
"Sorry I spoke," said Reggie. "Come, he's far enough ahead not to be a
nuisance now; let me give you a hand up on to the path. I suppose that
Mr. Mallory is prejudiced against Chermside, since he's a friend of
Travers Nugent, eh?"
Disdaining the offer of assistance, Enid ran lightly up the slope on to
the path before replying.
[Illustration: "Their glimpse was only momentary, because, as though
dazzled, he raised his hand to his eyes."]
"On the contrary," she said as Reggie joined her, "I can't quite make
father out on the subject of Mr. Leslie Chermside. For once in a way the
dear old man is inconsistent, or so he seems to me. He won't commit
himself to a definite opinion, but I can see that he is deeply
interested in Mr. Nugent's friend, and in the relations existing between
the pair. I think, from signs and portents known only to myself, that
father rather likes Mr. Chermside."
"Lucky for Chermside," Reggie absently mused aloud. "There!" he added
with a quick return to nautical briskness. "Thank goodness that infernal
searchlight has moved off us and found the town at last. I prefer being
at the other end of the beastly thing to having it in one's eyes. There
goes the first gun from the cruiser."
And under cover of the restored darkness arms were clasped again, and
the young heads fell very close together for the rest of the way back to
the town that was now being vigorously bombarded in mimic warfare.
Two miles out at sea the big guns flashed and boomed, and ahead of them
on the marshland path the footsteps of the man they had seen in the rays
of the searchlight were dying away, so quickly had he outpaced the
lingerers. But Lieutenant Beauchamp and Miss Enid Mallory took no heed
of either, little dreaming of the terrible significance that attached to
what they had seen and heard that night.