GENERAL MATRAVERS REPAYS
Mademoiselle Suzanne de Freyne was travelling back to England in hot
haste. On the French train she received courtesies rarely extended in
these days to any solitary passenger, and at Boulogne she was hurried
from the gangway of the steamer back on to the dock and into an
evil-looking, four-funnelled British destroyer. Almost as she set foot
on board, they moved away from the landing-stage. An officer came
forward to meet her and saluted.
'The Captain's cabin is at your disposal, Miss de Freyne,' he
announced. 'We have an invalided General on board, but we've tucked
him up in a bunk. Afraid we shall give you a bit of a shaking up.'
'I am a very good sailor,' Suzanne assured him. 'It is delightful that
I am able to come across with you. Time counts for so much, these
days.'
'We haven't any stewardess,' the young officer remarked, as he threw
open the door of the cabin. 'You'll ring the bell for anything you
want, though. Parsons is an awfully good fellow. And you'll excuse
me, won't you? I'm on duty.'
He hurried up on deck, and in a few moments the destroyer was clear of
the harbour and tearing across the Channel into the sombre blackness of
the night. Huge waves, with a thunderous roar, swept her decks. The
spray leapt high above the tops of her squat funnels, from which
flashed little jets of flame. Suzanne, driven from the cabin by the
craving for air, stood half-way up the companion-way, looking into the
blackness. Here and there, a star seemed to reel across the face of
the sky and more than once a cloud of spray swept over her head.
Unhesitatingly, as though driven by some superhuman hand, they ploughed
their way through the black wall of space to their destination. After
the turmoil of the Channel, their slow gliding up to the side of the
dock seemed almost ghostlike. Suzanne felt almost as though she
herself were breathless as she stood at last upon the soaking deck.
There were a couple of dim lights and a few shadowy figures upon the
quay. The young officer who had spoken to her at Boulogne, stood by
her side.
'We are throwing a gangway across for you, Miss de Freyne. I'm afraid
we gave you rather a rough crossing.
'I do not mind it,' she declared. 'I was only anxious to come quickly.
Do you know if I shall be able to get on to London at once?'
'There will be a special for the General,' he told her. 'They'll
probably take you, too.'
The gangway was thrown across. The young man saluted, and Suzanne
stepped on to the rain-sodden dock. An official stepped up to her at
once.
'Miss de Freyne?' he inquired.
'Yes?'
'There is a special waiting here for General Matravers. I have had
instructions to attach a coach for you.'
'That is very delightful!' she exclaimed. 'Shall I follow you?'
The man piloted her across the track and handed her into an ordinary
first-class compartment attached to the waiting train.
'Sorry we've had to give the saloon to General Matravers,' he
explained. 'Will you have any tea or coffee, or anything to eat?'
She gave an order to the refreshment boy whom he summoned, and threw
herself down with a sigh of content into the corner seat. Presently a
tall man in khaki, with his arm in a sling and leaning upon a stick,
came up the platform, followed by two junior officers. He was shown at
once into the saloon and a little murmur of animated conversation
arose. Five minutes later the train glided away, leaving the two
junior officers disconsolate upon the long, wooden platform; passed
through the two stations, and, gathering speed at every moment, rushed
away northwards.
Suzanne had more than once boasted that she had no nerves. She
finished her coffee and sandwiches, lit a cigarette and curled herself
up in her corner. For a few moments she looked out into the darkness,
watching the scanty lights. Then her eyes turned, entirely by chance,
towards the door which connected her carriage with the saloon. They
had no sooner rested upon it than a queer, inexplicable sense of
uneasiness crept over her. She tried to look away from it, to look out
of the opposite window, to interest herself in the evening paper. She
read a line or two, then found herself slowly lowering the sheet, found
herself peering over the top towards that closed door of dark red
mahogany with its brass handle. She threw the paper down, walked to
the end of the carriage and back again. She must be going mad, she
told herself. The only occupant of that saloon was a wounded soldier
of great distinction, a General whose deeds in the earlier stages of
the war had made history. He was alone there without even an A.D.C.,
and in any case the door was probably locked. What cause of uneasiness
for her could there be in his proximity? She fought against her fit of
nerves valiantly, but she found herself tearing the paper into small
pieces, crumbling the remains of her roll between her fingers, sipping
desperately the remnants of her cold coffee. And all the time her eyes
seemed glued upon that brass door-knob. If it should move! She set
her teeth to keep from screaming. When the thing really happened, it
seemed to bring, to a certain extent, release from her hysterical
fears. Yet for the first few seconds it paralyzed her. The handle
turned, slowly and deliberately. The door was pushed open towards her.
A man looked in, stooping by reason of his height, a lean, gaunt man
clad in the uniform of a General. He looked at her for a moment
without speech. Then he came into the compartment and closed the door
behind him.
'What do you want?' she asked hoarsely.
He saluted mechanically.
'I am General Matravers,' he announced. 'May I sit down?'
She glanced at the communication cord--it was on the distant side of
the carriage. Why she should have been afraid of him she could not
tell, yet she felt as though she had never been in such danger in her
life as when he took the seat opposite to her.
'I am General Matravers,' he repeated. 'You have heard of me, perhaps?'
'But naturally,' she assented. 'We have all read of your wonderful
exploits at Mons.'
He moistened his lips with his tongue. His face seemed curiously dried
up, his eyes were hard, his features grim and bony. He presented
somehow a queer impression of lifelessness.
'Mons!' he muttered ruminatingly. 'You've never been to Hell, have
you, young lady?'
'Not yet,' she answered, watching him closely.
'That was the beginning of it,' he went on. 'We need a Dante, young
lady, to sing to us of those days, when the winds were driven from the
face of the earth by the screeching of the shells and the roar and the
clash of the guns, and they seemed to be always nearer.... Every foot
of ground was red with blood, the blood of our dear soldiers, and one
thought of the people at home.... I know men who lost their reason at
Mons.'
'It must have been terrible,' she faltered.
He sat opposite to her, nervously opening and closing the interlocked
fingers of his hands.
'You know why I am coming home?' he asked abruptly. 'Medals enough
here, you see, for a field-marshal, and I am sent home in disgrace.'
She murmured something to which he paid no attention whatever.
'I left my two A.D.C.'s at Folkestone,' he went on, 'forbade them to
enter the train. They are worried about me. Perhaps they are right.
You see, it was at--but we don't mention names--my headquarters last
week. It was the night before our advance. You read about that. I
won't mention the name of the place. We called it a partial success.
But for the thing I am going to tell you, it might have been the
turning point of the war. The attack failed--my fault.'
'I read that your division did splendidly,' she remarked.
Again he moistened his dry lips. His hands were shaking now by his
side; he seemed like a man on the verge of paralysis.
'This is what happened,' he continued. 'I was at headquarters, my own
headquarters. My orderly reported a Staff Officer from the French
headquarters. He came in, a typical-looking young French soldier,
wearing the uniform of one of their best regiments, one of those which
I knew were in the division which was to join up with ours in the
morning. He was tall and dark, with a thin, black moustache, long,
narrow eyes, a scar on his right cheek, sallow, and with a queer habit
of swinging his left arm. He brought me some intelligible, perfectly
coherent verbal instructions, asked a few questions as to my plans for
the next day, gave me a personal message from the French General
commanding the division, saluted, got back into his motor-car and drove
off. And I thought no more about it until we found out that our whole
scheme of attack was known to the enemy, and that they were prepared
for us at every point. He was a German. We were sold. Thousands of
my men were lost through that. My fault. He was a German. Are you a
German, young lady?'
'Ah, but no!' she exclaimed, shrinking a little back.
'You are not wholly English.'
'I am half French and half English,' she told him.
'The French are good people,' he went on, relapsing into his former
far-away tone, 'very fine people. They can fight too, and they can
tell Germans when they see them. That is why I am going home--because
I couldn't. I've sworn that the next German I see, I'll kill. You're
not a German, are you?'
'I told you just now,' she reminded him quietly, 'that I am half French
and half English--mostly French. I am in the service of the French
Government at the present moment, trying to help you, General.'
'Good girl,' he said absently. 'I thought there might have been a
German in here when I heard some one moving. If I can't find one, I
suppose I must shoot myself.'
He took out a little revolver and examined it. He opened the breech
and she saw that it was fully loaded.
'May I look?' she asked.
He handed it to her at once. The window by which they sat was half
down. She calmly threw it out. He looked at her in a mildly-vexed
manner.
'You should not have done that, young lady,' he expostulated. 'I was
very fond of that revolver. Besides, how am I to kill myself now?'
'I should wait,' she advised him. 'When you get to London you will
easily find Germans--too many of them.'
He shook his head.
'But I've nothing to kill them with, and I've left my army behind. I
am sent home,' he added, with a sudden hoarse pathos.
Her sense of personal fear had passed. She knew that the dangerous
moment, if indeed there had been one, lay behind.
'There is so much work to be done in England,' she said.
He seemed to be looking through the carriage windows; his hands were
twitching horribly.
'Those nights,' he muttered, 'when we thought that an hour's rest had
come, and the red fires came spitting from our flanks just when we
thought ourselves safe, when we thought them far and away behind----'
His words became unintelligible. He sat quite quiet. Presently, to
her joy, she saw a carpet of lights on either side and knew that they
were running into London.
'You had better get back to your saloon,' she said. 'We shall be at
Charing Cross in a few minutes, and there will probably be some one to
meet you.'
He rose obediently to his feet. The tears were in her eyes as he
turned away with a stiff little salute, and, stooping low, disappeared
through the doorway. Then she leaned back with a long-drawn sigh of
relief. It was a strange little episode, another of the little
adventures which gave colour to her life. She leaned out of the window
and saw the last of him as they drew up. He was met by an officer and
an elderly lady. She saw him pass out and take his place in a waiting
motor-car. Then she stepped out herself, handed her bag to a porter
and was conducted to a taxicab.
* * * * *
Suzanne sat, the next afternoon, under the trees at Ranelagh with
Lavendale. She leaned back in her chair and breathed a little sigh of
contentment.
'And you, my friend,' she asked, 'what have you been doing?
'Nothing,' he answered. I am waiting for a man to arrive from America.
His coming, I fancy, will provide me with work, but until then there is
nothing for me. To pass the time while you were in France, I went over
to Holland last week.'
She nodded.
'The one country left which may provide us with a sensation,' she
remarked. 'I suppose that is why you went.'
'I made a few inquiries,' he replied. 'My own impression of the people
was that they wanted peace very badly and Schnapps more than anything
else in the world.'
She laughed softly. It was significant of his attitude towards her
that he asked no questions of her own doings.
'I had a curious adventure on my way back from Paris yesterday,' she
told him. 'I travelled up from Boulogne in a special with General
Matravers.'
'Matravers?' he repeated. 'Isn't he one of the British Generals who
have been sent home?'
'I believe so,' she assented, 'in fact I am sure of it. He told me the
whole story on the way up. Afterwards he brought out a revolver and
swore that he was going to shoot himself.'
'What on earth did you do?' he exclaimed.
'I took it away from him,' she replied. 'He wasn't in the least
dangerous, really.'
'Look here,' Lavendale declared earnestly, 'I think it's quite time you
left off this travelling about alone.'
She laughed gaily.
'But, my friend,' she protested, 'what would you have? Can a trusted
agent'--she glanced around for a moment and lowered her voice--'of the
French and English Secret Service engage a chaperon?'
'I don't care,' he answered, a little doggedly. 'It's all very well
for us men to take a risk or two, but it's no sort of life for a
girl----'
She checked him at once.
'You don't understand,' she interrupted. 'I am a daughter of France.
Every drop of blood in my body, every part of myself, my soul, even,
belongs to my country. The work I am doing I shall go on with,
whatever it might cost me.'
He did not attempt to argue with her, the finality of her tone was too
absolute.
'I suppose it is because of this spirit,' he said, 'that France is
invincible. Tell me----'
He broke off in his sentence. Her fingers had suddenly gripped his
arm, she had leaned forward in her place. Coming down the steps on to
the terrace was a little group of soldiers in staff uniform. One of
them, in the centre of the group, was obviously a foreigner, and, from
the respect with which they all treated him, a person of distinction.
'Who are they?' she asked.
'I expect they are members of the military mission from France,' he
explained. 'They are being entertained down here to dinner to-night by
some officials from the War Office. The head-waiter told me about it.
I tackled him about a table in case you cared to stay down.'
'But only one of them is a foreigner,' she observed.
He shrugged his shoulders.
'I really don't know anything more about it,' he said. 'I don't
suppose any one does. Why are you so interested?'
She said nothing for a moment. The Frenchman was standing chatting
amiably in the centre of the terrace, and Suzanne watched him with
curious intensity. He was tall, he had a slight black moustache, his
eyes were long and narrow, there was a scar on his right cheek. He was
the very prototype of the man who had arisen in her mind a few hours
ago, called into being by those hoarse, broken-hearted words of the
ruined General.
'I must know his name,' she insisted.
He looked at her wonderingly.
'But, my dear----'
'I must know his name,' she repeated. 'Please help me. Don't ask me
why.'
He rose at once.
'I'll do my best,' he promised her.
He disappeared into the house. The little party of men strolled
backwards and forwards along the terrace. In about five minutes
Lavendale reappeared. He smiled as he approached.
'I got hold of the dinner cards,' he announced in triumph. 'His name
is Lieutenant-Colonel Leychelles.'
The little company of soldiers at that moment began to descend the
steps. Suzanne rose to her feet and, standing under the shadow of the
trees, she leaned forward. The man whom she had been watching with so
much interest, was distinctly swinging his left arm. She gripped
Lavendale by the elbow.
'Come with me,' she insisted. 'Come with me at once. Take me up to
town.'
He obeyed promptly. They passed through the house and Lavendale
ordered up his car.
'Where to?' he asked, as he took his place at the driving wheel.
'I must find General Matravers,' she declared. 'Drive up towards
London. I must think as we go.'
They glided down the drive, over Hammersmith Bridge and up to the Park.
'Don't you belong to a club somewhere?' she asked. 'We must get a
Who's Who.'
'Why, of course,' he answered. 'We can manage that easily enough.'
He pulled up presently outside the door of the Bath Club in Dover
Street.
'If you'll wait here for half a moment,' he suggested.
She nodded and he sprang down and ran lightly up the steps. He was
back again almost at once.
'The first name I came across,' he announced,--'17 Belgrave Square is
the town address. Shall I drive there? It's quite close.'
She assented. In a few moments they arrived at their destination.
Suzanne stood under the stone portico and rang the bell. In due course
a butler appeared.
'General Matravers is not seeing anybody, madam,' was his prompt reply
to Suzanne's inquiry. 'The doctor has ordered him complete rest.'
'My business,' Suzanne explained, 'is very urgent.'
'So every reporter who has been here to-day has told me,' the man
replied a little wearily. 'No one has been allowed to see him.'
'Is Lady Matravers in?' Suzanne persisted.
'Lady Matravers is not receiving. Perhaps you would like to leave your
name and a message, madam?' the man suggested.
A tall, dark-haired woman, who had been crossing the hall, paused. She
came a few steps towards Suzanne.
'I am Lady Matravers,' she announced, 'Can I do anything for you?'
Suzanne pressed forward and the butler stood on one side.
'Lady Matravers,' the former said earnestly, I have the most important
business with your husband. I know he is ill--I came up from
Folkestone with him yesterday--and yet I must see him.'
'You were his companion in the special train?' Lady Matravers asked.
'He spoke of a young lady who travelled up with him.'
'I am the young lady,' Suzanne assented. 'I am in the Secret Service
of France,' she went on, dropping her voice a little. 'Your husband
told me some curious things last night. It is in connection with one
of them that I wish to see him. It isn't for my own sake, Lady
Matravers. It is for the sake of the country.'
The door was thrown open. General Matravers, leaning upon his stick,
came into the hall. He was looking very white and shaken, but he
seemed to recognize Suzanne. He looked at her doubtfully.
'It is the young lady whom I found last night in the carriage attached
to my saloon,' he remarked, 'the young lady, my dear,' he added,
turning to his wife, 'who threw my revolver out of the window.'
Lady Matravers glanced towards the servant who was lingering in the
background and led Suzanne back into the room from which she herself
had issued. The General followed her. A quiet-faced woman in nurse's
uniform rose from a chair as they entered.
'If you are really the young lady who travelled with my husband from
Folkestone last night,' Lady Matravers said kindly, 'I am very glad
indeed to meet you. He has told me such very nice things about you.
The doctor's orders are that he is not to be disturbed on any account,
but if you wish to speak to him for a few minutes, here he is. I was
just trying to persuade him to go to bed when you came.'
'Perhaps what I have come to say may do your husband more good than
harm,' Suzanne assured her. 'General,' she added, turning towards him,
'do you mind describing to me once more the man who came to your
headquarters masquerading as a French officer, an envoy from the French
Brigadier-General?'
The General's face darkened.
'Describe him!' he exclaimed. 'Why, I can't get him out of my thoughts
for a minute! He was tall, soldierly, dark, sallow, black moustache,
narrow eyes, black hair cut short, a scar on his right cheek, and he
had a habit swinging his left arm when he walked.'
'I need not ask you whether you would know him again,' Suzanne said,
'because I am sure you would. I may be very foolish and I may be
making a very silly mistake, but there is a man over here now attached
to the French Military Mission. He is being entertained to-night at
Ranelagh by officials from the War Office. He leaves to-morrow,
ostensibly for French headquarters, and he answers your description
exactly.'
All the nervousness had left the General's manner. He was perfectly
calm, a little eager. He picked up his cap and cane from a table.
'Where is he to be found?' he asked.
'If you will come with me,' Suzanne promised, 'I will take you to him.'
The nurse hastened towards them. The General pushed her aside. His
tone had acquired a new firmness.
'Please understand, both of you,' he said, 'that no nurse or doctor's
injunctions will keep me from doing my duty. My dear,' he added,
turning to his wife and kissing her upon the forehead, 'this is not a
matter in which you must interfere. If the young lady is mistaken, I
shall come back at once. If by any chance she is right, it is
imperative that I should go. I am at your service, madam.'
'I will take care of him,' Suzanne whispered to Lady Matravers.
They let him go, doubtfully but of compulsion. He took his place in
the car and acknowledged his introduction to Lavendale with a stiff
salute. They started off at once. For the first time Suzanne began to
be a little nervous about the outcome of their journey.
'This man,' she explained, 'is being entertained at dinner at Ranelagh
at the present moment. We can go down there and you can see from the
open doorway of the dining-room whether there is any truth in my
suspicions. If we are wrong----'
'You need have no fear, young lady,' the General assured her calmly.
'I am a member of Ranelagh and well-known there. It will be quite in
order that I stroll round the place and glance in at the dining-room.
If your suspicions are, as you suggest, ill-founded, no harm will be
done. If they are true,' he added, his voice shaking for a moment, 'if
really it is vouchsafed to me in this life to find myself face to face
once more with that man----'
He broke off abruptly and muttered something under his breath. Not
another word was spoken until they had turned in at the avenue and
pulled up in front of the clubhouse. The General had become
preternaturally calm. He waited, however, for Suzanne to precede him.
'If you will lead the way, young lady,' he suggested.
They crossed through the two rooms, out on to the terrace the other
side, and turned towards the dining-room. The gardens were bright with
flowers, and the glow of the sunset seemed still to linger about the
place. One or two visitors who had dined early were already having
their coffee under the trees. From a hidden spot the musicians were
tuning their instruments. Suzanne felt her heart beat rapidly as they
drew near the dining-room; the General, apparently unmoved, walked with
measured tread, a commanding and dignified figure. A couple of young
soldiers stood up as he passed, and he accepted their salute genially.
Then he passed into the dining-room. Almost immediately in front of
him, at the table usually reserved for the golfers' luncheon, the
dinner-party was proceeding, and on the right-hand side of the host sat
the distinguished Frenchman. He was facing the door and he glanced up
at the entrance of the little party. Suzanne asked no questions. She
felt her breath almost stop, a little sob choked her. The faces of
almost every one in the room, the laughter, the murmur of conversation,
seemed suddenly in her mind to have become arrested. More than
anything else in the world she was conscious of this one thing--the man
who sat there knew that his hour had come, knew that Fate was marching
towards him in the shape of that grim, military figure.
The General walked towards the party very much with the air of one who
had come to make some casual inquiry. It was only when he was
recognized that a little interested murmur stole around the room. He
walked to within a few feet of the Frenchman and his right hand seemed
to have disappeared for a moment.
'Gentlemen,' he said, without unduly raising his voice but with curious
distinctness, 'the man whom you are entertaining here as an emissary
from our French allies, is an impostor, a German and a spy. He cost
me, a few weeks ago, the lives of two thousand of my men. A far
smaller thing, he is responsible for the ruin of my reputation. This
is less than he deserves.'
With hand as steady as a rock, the General held his revolver out before
him and deliberately fired three times at the man whom he had accused,
and who had fallen forward now, his outstretched hands sweeping the
wineglasses from in front of him--stone dead. The General watched his
victim without emotion. He even leaned forward to make sure that the
wounds were mortal. Then he walked deliberately out into the garden,
heedless of the shrieking of the women, the crowd of diners who had
sprung to their feet, the passing of the paralysis which had seemed to
keep every one in the room seated and silent.
* * * * *
They found the proofs upon his body that night--horrifying, stupefying
proofs--and the censor's hand came down. No word of that tragedy ever
appeared under any sensational headline in any newspaper. In the face
of that grim silence, even many of those who had been present found
themselves wondering whether that lightning tragedy had not been a
nightmare of the brain. To Suzanne de Freyne, however, it remained
always one of the tense moments of her life. The General, with the
revolver still in his hand, turned towards her with a polite gesture
and a happy smile as he led the way into the garden. He tossed the
weapon into a bed of geraniums and seemed utterly indifferent to the
turmoil around.
'You were right, young lady,' he said. 'That was the man.'