I had been offered the help of Celestine and Sidney's man to make up in
parcels such clothes as I wished to take for our refugees and their
menfolk; but now I determined to do all the work myself. The
bored-looking footman who opened the house-door showed no surprise or
interest on seeing her Ladyship's sister arrive in advance of the rest.
He listened respectfully but dully as I briefly explained my errand and
told him that I should need no help until I rang for my trunk and other
things to be carried downstairs. When I had made this clear, I ran up to
the room above Diana's and shut myself in, meaning to make such haste
with what I had to do as to escape with my booty, if possible, before Di
and her husband came home.
I was trembling still with excitement which clouded my mind and kept me
from thinking clearly; for I was furiously angry and desperately sad at
the same time. I said to myself that I didn't care if I never saw Diana
again; yet my heart was ready to break because we had come to the
parting of the ways. To-night, I thought, I was definitely giving up my
family, or my family were giving me up, it mattered very little which.
My father had never cared for me, therefore I had not cared for him as
most girls care for their fathers. Di had made use of me, but had never
loved me, and I had "seen through" her ever since I was a tiny child.
Lately we became almost as strangers; and yet the two had been the only
ones near to me. Breaking with them was like a small figure in a group
on a big canvas suddenly loosening itself and falling off its
background, a mere lonely bit of paint.
"What will become of me?" I wondered. "I can never go back to Ballyconal
now. Yet I can't spend the rest of my life with the Miss Splatchleys.
What shall I do when I'm not wanted there any more?"
Tears began to drop slowly from my eyes, then to rain fast over the
clothing I tried to sort. I knew it was silly to think of such things.
There would be plenty of time by and by to arrange the future. But I
could not concentrate my mind on the work in hand until, as I tossed the
neatly folded clothes about with a kind of stupid aimlessness, I came
once more upon Sidney Vandyke's khaki uniform.
"This I will not take, anyhow!" I decided. "It would be of no use, and I
do believe it might carry a curse with it, because of the evil thoughts
of the man who wore it last. I wish I could burn it up!"
That I could not do; but to show spite I wreaked such childish vengeance
as I could by dashing the uniform on to the floor and proceeding to
trample on the coat with my high-heeled white satin slippers.
As I kicked it away in loathing at last, one of the slippers flew off
and seemed spitefully to follow the coat as if to deal one final insult.
It turned a somersault on the way, as defiantly as the _Golden Eagle_
had "looped the loop" over German heads at Brussels, and then plumped
down on top of the fallen garment, landing with its pointed satin nose
poked under the flap of a slightly gaping breast-pocket.
I slipped my silk-clad foot into the shoe where it lay, and pushing the
point still further into the pocket, thus lifted the coat on my toe to
give it another disgustful toss. As I did this it seemed that something
crackled with the sound--or the feel, I could hardly tell which--of
stiff paper. Then a very strange thing happened to me: suddenly I saw
before my eyes, as clearly as though it were really there, the
khaki-coloured notebook I had given Eagle--the notebook out of which he
had torn a leaf with a message written on it for Major Vandyke.
I didn't know (I don't know now, and never shall) what painted this
picture on my brain: whether it was the high, mysterious Power which had
been leading me slowly but very surely to this minute, or whether it was
nothing more than a mental association between a khaki coat worn by
Eagle's enemy on that disastrous night and a faint crackle of paper
jarring tensely on strung nerves. I know which I _like_ to think; but in
either case the effect was the same.
I saw the notebook. I saw Eagle hastily scrawling his appeal for a
written order to fire the guns. I saw Major Vandyke wearing this coat,
read the message, crumple up the paper, and then--then--the vision
faded. But the question rang in my ears: what would he be likely to do
with the paper? What should _I_ have done had I been a man in his place?
Would I have torn the message into bits and trusted to the wind to
scatter it?...
No! If I meant to swear that no such document had ever reached me, I
should have been afraid to leave bits of khaki-coloured, blue-lined
paper lying about the ground. I should have crumpled the message deep
down in the bottom of a pocket, and burnt it later, when I was safe in
my own tent. Yes, that was what any man as quick-witted and unscrupulous
as Sidney Vandyke would have been likely to do. He could not possibly
have forgotten such a bit of evidence afterward, and left it in the
pocket of his coat instead of destroying it; such things could happen
only in the crudest melodramas, where the actors were mere puppets for
uncritical and ignorant audiences to applaud. It was wildly absurd to
dream that I might find any hidden treasure tucked away in a
breast-pocket of Sidney Vandyke's cast-off uniform; and I did not for a
moment believe it; yet the vision of the khaki-coloured paper had been
so clear that I dared not resist the impulse it prompted.
I picked up the coat, holding it away from me gingerly, by the collar,
as a small white cat might grip a large brown rat by the back of its
neck. Then, also gingerly, I dipped my fingers into one pocket after
another. All were empty: yet now quite distinctly I heard a crisp,
delicate crackling of paper.
It was like searching for a ghost and seeing no sign, but catching a
faint echo of invisible feet. Something was hidden there. I could not be
mistaken. Perhaps the thing when found would not be worth finding; but a
thousand times over, it was worth the pain of looking for.
I cleared a place on the large table which had been spread with
contributions for the refugees, and laid the coat out flat. All over the
two fronts I slowly, carefully, passed my fingers until, between the
cloth and lining, far down on the left side near the edge of the coat, I
touched the thing that crackled.
Whatever it was, this thing must have slipped down through a break in
one of the pockets. I explored again, and discovered a small rip not
more than two inches in length at the bottom of the inside
breast-pocket. But the lost bit of paper could not be got at through
this opening. The lining of the coat would have to be slit down before
the hidden thing could be reached, and I pulled the pocket wrong side
out, hoping with a quick jerk to tear it from the coat. More easily said
than done! The material was expensively tough, and resisted my frantic
tuggings, yet I wouldn't give up. I dared not go foraging downstairs for
a pair of scissors; neither did I wish to ring for a servant to bring me
them. I wanted desperately to be alone with this cast-off garment of
Sidney Vandyke's--alone with any secret I might force it to yield up.
The coat seemed to resist every effort and trick of mine, as if it still
served its old master and were stubbornly resolved to protect him
against a stranger's prying; but at last a sharp jerk made a stitch give
way. After that the rest was easy. I wrenched the pocket half out, and
that once done I was able with both hands to tear the lining down nearly
its whole length. Then I thrust my hand between it and the cloth, and
touched a crumpled piece of paper.
I dreaded while I longed to look at what I had discovered: for I
realized that in all human probability I was about to suffer a crushing
disappointment. This lost scrap of paper might prove to be part of some
torn, irrelevant letter of long ago; or it might be an American
greenback, or a forgotten memorandum. As I withdrew my hand--the paper
in it--involuntarily I shut my eyes, as if shrinking from a blow. But I
scolded myself for cowardly weakness, and opened my eyes again to see a
folded, refolded, and crumpled piece of khaki-coloured paper ruled with
blue lines. Then I knew that, from the first faint crackling which I had
felt rather than heard, I had been sure in my heart of finding this
thing: sure that I had always been meant by Fate to find it.
With cold and shaking fingers I cautiously unfolded the paper without
tearing it. Yes! It was a leaf torn from a notebook--the khaki notebook
I had given Eagle. One page was blank. The other was almost covered with
writing, scribbled with blue pencil, a pencil which must have been
rather blunt, because the marking was heavy, though it showed signs of
haste. No one familiar with Eagle March's hand could have failed to
recognize it as his, rough and hurried as was the scrawl.
At the top of the page was jotted down the date of that unforgettable
night at El Paso.
"Have just received by your orderly verbal command to fire nos. one
and two guns, aiming beyond Mexican end of bridge. I beg if this is
correct that you repeat order in writing.
"MARCH."
Here was the evidence which would have saved Eagle at his court-martial
and proved Major Vandyke a liar and blackguard. He had, no doubt,
crushed the incriminating paper into the deepest depths of his
breast-pocket, perhaps covering it up with other things lest it should
flutter away and betray him. There had been no time to destroy the paper
at that moment, and so he had put off disposing of it until after his
famous rush across the Rio Grande had been safely accomplished. When he
returned and could get back to his own tent, his first thought must have
been of the document whose existence he meant to deny. To empty his
pocket and find the paper gone must have been a frightful blow, and
Sidney could hardly have known a peaceful moment until after the
court-martial, when all danger of the lost message coming to light
seemed to be past forever.
No wonder (as Tony had written, describing the trial) that the accuser
had been more worn and nerve-shattered than the accused. No wonder that,
even when he arrived in England, Sidney Vandyke had looked changed and
ill! No wonder he had taken to steadying his nerves with alcohol, and
had not tried to conquer the habit!
By this time he must have ceased to dread the reappearance of the
vanished document; but it had reappeared, and it was not too late to be
of use. The small scrap of paper in my hand was big enough to give me
all the power I had prayed for--the power to prove Captain March's
innocence and Major Vandyke's guilt.
"Eagle said to-night that if the time ever came when he could take
revenge without putting himself in the wrong, God help Vandyke!" I
remembered. "We little thought how soon it would come. But it's here!
It's here! The 'stone wall' has tumbled down, like the wall of Jericho,
and it's Sidney Vandyke's head, not Eagle's, that will be broken."
I was almost out of my wits with joy. I danced a war-dance of triumph,
swinging the khaki coat and waving the document over my head. Then, when
a wild whirl had satisfied my wish to celebrate, I refolded the bit of
paper, hung the coat over my arm, and dashed to the door. Downstairs I
plunged, passed Diana's room, and had reached the head of the stairs
leading to the ground floor when I actually bumped against Di coming up.
If I had not stepped hastily back I should have thrown her downstairs.
As it was, she caught at the banisters and barred the way against me.
The flashing glimpse I had caught of her face, before we almost
telescoped like two trains running into one another, had shown it pale
and depressed; but the surprise of our encounter brought light to her
eyes and colour to her cheeks. Her look changed from mere startled
annoyance to puzzled suspicion. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "One
would have thought the house was on fire! Another instant and you'd have
knocked me down. What is the matter with you, Peggy?"
"I'm in a hurry, that's all," I answered.
"What are you doing with Sidney's coat over your arm?" she catechized me
sharply.
"Didn't you know it was among the 'rubbish' upstairs that you were so
anxious to get rid of?" I retorted in the same tone.
"Yes, I knew that; but why do you career downstairs with it as if the
sky were falling, and leave everything else? You _shall_ tell me! I
won't let you go till you do."
With the first words she had spoken after our collision, Di had mounted
the top step, though still guarding the way down; and with her shrill
threat she pushed me back from the stairhead by throwing herself against
me and at the same time grasping the coat as if to snatch it off my arm.
Diana is much taller and stronger than I am. She could take the coat
from me by force; and the thought darted through my head that without it
to prove where and how the lost message had been found, the paper would
lose half its value. My word, unsupported by proof, would not be enough
against Major Vandyke, for it was known that I detested him, and was a
sworn friend to Captain March. I must keep the coat at any cost to
myself--or even to Diana.
Standing at bay, looking up at her white face of anger and suspicion, I
felt very small and frail of body; but my soul gathered strength of
battle. I clasped my bare arms over the coat and locked my fingers round
my two elbows.
"This is mine," I said. "You gave it to me to do as I liked with. You've
no right to take it away. I'm going to make a present of it to somebody
who's been robbed of everything, and needs it."
This was the best explanation I could think of. But it was not good
enough for Diana. She attempted to push me farther back, and I resisted,
trying to wriggle myself free and elude her; but she was on the alert,
and too quick as well as too strong for my trick to succeed.
"No, you shan't slip away like that, you little wild-cat!" she cried,
beginning to pant slightly. In the white light of the electric
candelabra, which made the corridor bright as day, I saw her beautiful
bosom heave under its double rope of creamy pearls. All the charming
softness which men loved was gone from her face. It looked hard and
cruel.
Just as I meant to escape at any price, so she meant at any price to
keep me. I guessed that she had come home alone, and let herself in with
a latch-key, for apparently there were no servants about. That was
fortunate for me; and fortunate that Father and Kitty, and above all
Sidney, had gone on somewhere else from the Russian Embassy, for there
would have been very little chance for me if I had had to run the
gauntlet.
"You hate Sidney. I believe you hate me, too!" she went on when she had
got her breath. "I don't trust anything you say or do. You've some
horrid idea in your head. I read that in your face the instant I saw you
here. You mean mischief. What's in your mind I don't know, but I _shall_
know! You'd better tell me!"
"I've told you all I have to tell," I said. "If I'm a wild-cat, you're a
tigress. What will the servants think if they come and see you like
this?"
"I don't care what they think. And besides, they won't come. I've
changed my mind about giving you that coat. I must ask Sidney first if
he wants to keep it for any reason. I'll let you know to-morrow."
"To-morrow will be too late. I've to see my man to-night."
"Why are you taking him the coat, and not the rest of the suit?" she
persisted.
"It's only the coat that will be of use to him." I had the answer ready.
Without warning she made another dive at the coat to catch me unawares.
She failed and my hold tightened; but the sudden wrench twisted the
thing partly wrong side out, to show the lining. The cry Diana gave, the
horror that flashed in lightning from her eyes, told me what she had
seen, what she must have guessed.
"My God, Peggy!" she gasped. "You believe _that_ of him? You were
seeking for--but you found nothing. Of course--of course you found
nothing!"
"There's nothing there now," I said, trying not to let my voice tremble.
Diana's eyes searched mine. They were dilated. Her face, and even her
lips--always coral red--were sickly pale. "What do you mean?" she asked
in a low, choked voice. "Do you mean that you did find--oh! I see
now--the whole disgraceful thing! You were taking this coat to Eagle
March. You traitor! I thank God I came in time."
She seized me by both shoulders. Her white hands, with their rose-pink
nails and little round dimples at the finger roots, felt hard and
remorseless as steel claws. She looked suddenly capable of anything. The
thought struck on my heart like a hammer-stroke that she would stop at
nothing to save Sidney's reputation. For the first time, I was afraid
for myself. I was afraid she would be too strong for me. She would push
me along the corridor and through the open door into her room. If I
screamed she would tell the servants I had gone mad. She would get the
coat away from me. She would find the paper, if she had to tear my
clothes off to do it. Once inside the room, she would have all the
advantage if she could turn the key and lock us in together. I, too, was
in a mood to stop at nothing. I was fighting for the man I loved. She
was fighting merely for a man with whom her fate was bound up; but in
strength of body I was no match for her. It was only in a battle of wits
that I might have a fair chance. But on the other side of her door it
would be too late to use my brains.
"It's now or never!" I thought.
Clutching the coat for dear life with one hand, with the other I
snatched at the pearls which were the "immediate jewels" of my sister's
soul. I gave the double rope a sharp jerk, and with a snap the string
yielded. Pearls spouted in all directions like a creamy spray, and with
a cry, involuntarily Diana loosened her hold on me to save them. That
was my chance! I ducked under her arms and dashed downstairs--like a
streak of lightning. Before Diana had run halfway down I was at the
door. For an instant I fumbled in an anguish of suspense at the catch.
Then it yielded. I slammed the door in Di's face, and bare-shouldered as
I was (I had taken off my wrap to do the packing) I ran like a rabbit
after a taxi I saw at a little distance.
"Taxi, taxi!" I called. And though my lips were dry and my voice seemed
to my own ears almost inaudible, as when one tries to scream in a
nightmare, the man heard and stopped. Luckily the taxi was empty. If it
had not been things might have ended differently; for as I scrambled in,
panting, "Quick, number 21a Whitehall Court!" I saw, with one corner of
my eye, that Diana stood in the doorway looking out.