Like the aftermath of a heavy storm, the night held nothing but the
solemn forest stillness; the tired sahibs lay in its calm creatures of a
transient Nirvana till brought from this void of restful bliss by the
clarion of a jungle cock rousing his feathered harem.
A golden-beaked black "hill myna" tried his wondrous imitative vocal
powers on the cock's call from the depths of a tree just above them, and
when this palled upon his fancy he piped like a magpie or drooled like a
cuckoo; then he voiced some gibberish that might have been simian or
gathered from the chatter of village children.
The camp stirred; the natives, shame in their hearts and aches in their
heads, crawled into action. Amir Alli, the cook, built a fire, and
brewed tea and made toast.
Lord Victor was filled with curiosity over the cock crow, and when it
was explained that there were wild fowl about he became possessed of a
desire to shoot some.
After breakfast Finnerty loaded a gun and sent Mahadua with Lord Victor
after the jungle fowl. They were gone an hour, for the beautiful
black-red jungle cock had led them deep into the forest before falling
to the gun.
Upon their return Finnerty fancied there was an unusual diffidence about
Lord Victor; he seemed disinclined to dilate upon his sporting trip;
also Mahadua had a worried look, as if he held back something he should
unfold.
A little later, as Finnerty went to the spot where Moti and Raj Bahadar
were feeding upon limbs the men had brought, he heard Mahadua say to
Gothya: "Does a spirit leave hoofprints in the earth as big as my cap,
believer in ghosts? And does it ride back to the hills in daylight?"
Then Gothya caught sight of Finnerty, and the wrangle ceased.
When the major had looked at the elephants for a minute he drew Mahadua
into the jungle, and there said: "Now, shikari man, tell me what has
entered through those little eyes of yours this morning?"
The face of Mahadua wrinkled in misery. "Sahib," he begged, "what am I
to do? I eat master's salt, and yet----" He was fumbling in the pocket
of his jacket; now he drew forth a rupee and tendered it to Finnerty,
adding: "Take this, master, and give it back to the young lord sahib
that I may now speak, not having eaten his salt to remain silent."
Finnerty threw the silver piece into the jungle, saying: "Bribery is for
monkeys. And now that you serve but one master what have you of service
for him?"
The man's eyes, which had been following with regret the rupee's
spinning flight, now reverted to his master's face. "Going I saw in soft
earth the print of hoofs, the front ones having been shod with iron;
they were not small ones such as Bhutan ponies have, nor a little larger
like the Arab horses, but wide and full, such as grow on the _Turki_
breed."
By the "Turki breed" Mahadua meant the Turcoman or Persian horse,
Finnerty knew, and the grey stallion Marie rode was one such. He asked:
"Was it the track of the white horse Gothya thought carried an evil
spirit?"
"Yes, sahib; for as we went beyond after the jungle hens the mem-sahib
who rides the grey stallion passed, going up into the hills, and a road
bears its burden both coming and going."
Finnerty jumped mentally. Why had Lord Victor given Mahadua a rupee to
say nothing of this incident? "But she did not see you nor the sahib?"
he queried.
"She did not see your servant, but the young man spoke with her."
"And he gave you a rupee?"
"He put a finger on his lips and closed his eyes when he passed the
rupee, and thinking the going abroad to eat the air by the mem-sahib of
no importance to master I said nothing."
Neither did Finnerty say anything of this to either Lord Victor or
Swinton. But he made up his mind that he would also go up into the hills
that day. It was his duty.
Persistently his mind revolted at the thought of denouncing the girl. In
some moments of self-analysis his heart warmed in confessional, but this
feeling, traitorous to his duty, he put in the storehouse of locked-away
impulses. He had never even whispered into words these troublous
thoughts. It took some mastering, did the transient glint of pleasing
womanhood into his barren jungle life, for the big man was an Irish
dreamer, a Celt whose emotions responded to the subtle tonic of beauty
and charm. Ever since he had taken Marie in his arms to put her in the
howdah he had felt her head against his shoulder; had seen the heavy
sweep of black hair that was curiously shot with silver.
Finnerty could see an uneasy look in Lord Victor's eyes as that young
man watched him coming back out of the jungle with Mahadua. Why had the
youngster talked with the girl on the grey stallion--why had he not let
her pass? Why had he given the shikari a rupee to say nothing of the
meeting? There was some mystery behind the whole thing. She had come
back late the previous evening, and now she was going up into the hills
at this early hour.
The elephant Finnerty had sent for had not arrived; perhaps the
half-drunken messengers had lain down in the jungle to sleep off the
arak. But at last the tusker appeared. It was during this wait that
Finnerty proposed to Swinton that they should go up into the hills. He
saw Lord Victor start and look up, apprehension in his eyes, when he
broached the matter, but though the latter advanced many reasons why
they should not make the journey he did not accept the major's polite
release of his company; he stuck. Indeed, Finnerty was hoping Gilfain
would decide to return to Darpore, for the young man's presence would
hamper their work of investigation.
He knew that the grey stallion's hoofprints would be picked up on the
path that led to the hills when they came to the spot where the girl,
having finished her detour, would swing her mount back to the beaten
way, so he rode with his eyes on the ground. He first discerned them
faintly cupping some hard, stony ground, but he said nothing, riding in
silence till, where the trail lay across a stretch of mellow, black
soil, imprints of the wide hoofs were indented as though inverted
saucers had cut a quaint design. Here he halted and cried in assumed
surprise: "By Jove! Somebody rides abroad early this morning!"
But his assumption of surprise was not more consummate than Gilfain's,
for the latter's face held a baby expression of inquiring wonderment as
he said: "Floaty sort of idea, I'd call it, for any one to jog up into
these primeval glades for pleasure."
Swinton, who knew the stallion's hoofprints from a former study of them,
raised his eyes to Finnerty's, there reading that the major also knew
who the rider was.
Now by this adventitious lead their task was simplified, and Finnerty
clung tenaciously to the telltale tracks. This fact gradually dawned
upon Lord Victor, and he became uneasy, dreading to come upon the girl
while with his two companions.
They had ridden for an hour, always upward, the timber growing lighter,
the ground rockier, and open spots of jungle more frequent, when, on a
lean, gravelled ridge, Finnerty stopped, and, dismounting, searched the
ground for traces of a horse that had passed.
"Have you dropped something, major?" Lord Victor asked querulously.
"Yes," Finnerty answered, remounting; "I think it's back on the trail."
Swinton followed, and Lord Victor, muttering, "What the devil are you
fellows up to?" trailed the other two.
A quarter of a mile back, where a small path branched, Finnerty picked
up their lead and they again went upward, now more toward the east. The
presence of Lord Victor held unworded the dominating interest in
Swinton's and Finnerty's minds, so they rode almost silently.
It was noon when they, now high up among hills that stretched away to
the foot of Safed Jan, whose white-clothed forehead rested in the
clouds, came out upon a long, stony plateau. Finnerty, pointing with his
whip, said: "There lies the Safed Jan Pass, and beyond is the road to
Tibet, and also the road that runs south through Nepal and Naga land to
Chittagong. I've never been up this far before."
"If this trip is in my honour, you're too devilish hospitable," Lord
Victor growled; "mountain climbing as a pastime is bally well a
discredited sport."
Here and there on the plateau the damp-darkened side of a newly upturned
stone told that the grey stallion had passed on the path they rode; but
at the farther extremity of the plateau they came, with startling
suddenness, upon a deep cleft--a gorge hundreds of feet deep, and yet so
smooth to the surface that at fifty yards it was unobservable. There the
path ended, and on the farther side, twenty feet away, perched like a
bird's nest in a niche of the cliff, was a temple, partly hollowed from
the solid rock and partly built of brick. To one side, carved from the
rock, was an image of Chamba.
With a rueful grin, Finnerty cast his eye up and down the gorge whose
one end was lost between mountain cliffs, and whose other dipped down to
cut the feet of two meeting hills. He dismounted and prowled up and down
the chasm's brink. There were no hoofprints, no disturbing of sand or
gravel; absolutely nothing but the quiescent weathered surface that had
lain thus for centuries.
When Finnerty returned, Swinton, amused at the intense expression of
discomfiture on his face, said: "Our early-morning friend must sit a
horse called Pegasus."
Finnerty, raising his voice, called across the chasm. He was answered by
an echo of his own rich Irish tone that leaped from gorge to gorge to
die away up the mountainside. He seized a stone and threw it with angry
force against the brick wall of the temple; the stone bounded back, and
from the chasm's depths floated up the tinkle of its fall. But that was
all; there was no response.
Somewhat to Finnerty's surprise, Swinton said: "Well, we've given our
curiosity a good run for it; suppose we jog back? When we get in the
cool of the jungle we'll eat our bit of lunch."
Finnerty did not voice the objection that was in his mind. Certainly the
girl had passed that way--was still up above them; why should they give
up pursuit because the trail was momentarily broken?
Back across the plateau Swinton had assumed the lead, and fifty yards in
the jungle he stopped, saying: "I'm peckish; we'll have a good,
leisurely lunch, here."
When they had eaten, Lord Victor, saying he was going to have a look at
the bald pate of Safed Jan, strolled back toward the plateau. When he
had gone Swinton spoke: "If we stay here long enough, major, the girl,
who of course rode that horse whose tracks we followed, will come around
that sharp turn in the path, and, figuratively, plunk into our arms. We
are at the neck of the bottle--the gateway. There's a mighty cleverly
constructed drawbridge in the face of that temple; that brickwork hides
it pretty well."
Finnerty whistled. "And the girl, you think, vanished over the let-down
bridge?"
"Yes, and probably sat there eyeing us all the time."
"By Jove, they saw us coming on the plateau and drew up the bridge!"
"Yes."
"And what do we do now?"
"Wait here. We'll see her face to face, I'm certain; that will be
something. Whether she will have with her what she searches for I don't
know."
"Some companion she expects to meet here?"
"It must be, and I'm going to search him."
"Unless it's too big a party."
"When do we start?" Lord Victor queried, returning; but he received only
an evasive answer. He grew petulant as an hour went by.
And now Swinton had disappeared up the trail toward the plateau. After a
time he came back, and with a motion of his eyebrows told Finnerty that
some one was coming. They could hear an occasional clink of iron
striking stone as a horse, moving at a slow walk, came across the
plateau, and then a gentle, muffled, rhythmic series of thuds told that
he was on the jungle path.
Finnerty had laid his heavy hand with a strong grip on Lord Victor's
forearm, the pressure, almost painful, conveying to that young man's
mind an inarticulate threat that if he voiced a warning something would
happen him; he read its confirmation in a pair of blue Irish eyes that
stared at him from below contracted brows.
A grey horse suddenly rounding the sharp turn came to a halt, for
Swinton was sprawled fair across the path.
A heavy veil, fastened around the girl's helmet, failed to release at
her trembling, spasmodic grasp, and her face went white as Swinton,
leisurely rising, stood just to one side of the stallion's head, his
implacable, unreadable eyes turned toward her. She knew, perhaps from
the man's attitude within reach of her bridle rein, perhaps from the set
of that face, perhaps from blind intuition, that the captain had
recognised her.
Finnerty came forward, lifting his helmet in an interference of blessed
relief, for he, too, sensed that there was something wrong--something
even beyond the previous suspicion.
Lord Victor, who had sprung to his feet with a gasping cry at the girl's
appearance, stood limp with apprehension, his mind so much of a boy's
mind, casting about futilely for some plan to help her, for there was
dread in her face, and, like a boy's mind, his found the solution of the
difficulty in a trick, just such a trick as a schoolboy would pitch
upon. The whole process of its evolution had taken but two seconds, so
it really was an inspiration. He darted toward the horse, crying
banteringly: "I say! Introduce me, old top." Then his foot caught in a
visionary root, and he plunged, his small, bare head all but burying
itself in Swinton's stomach.
The grey stallion leaped from the rake of a spur, his thundering gallop
all but drowning the blasphemous reproach that issued from Swinton's
lips, as, in a fury of sudden passion, he took a deliberate swing at the
young nobleman's nose.
[Illustration: "THE GRAY STALLION'S THUNDERING GALLOP ALL BUT DROWNING
THE BLASPHEMOUS REPROACH THAT ISSUED FROM SWINTON'S LIPS."]
Finnerty unostentatiously crowded his bulk between the two, saying, with
an inward laugh: "You're a dangerous man; you've winded the captain, and
you've frightened that horse into a runaway. He may break the girl's
neck."
They were a curious trio, each one holding a motive that the other two
had not attained to, each one now dubious of the others' full intent,
and yet no one wishing to clear the air by questions or
recriminations--not just yet, anyway.
"What the devil did the girl bolt for?" Swinton asked angrily.
"The _horse_ bolted," Finnerty answered, lying in an Irishman's good
cause--a woman.
"You clumsy young ass!" Swinton hurled at Gilfain. "I wanted to----"
Then the hot flush of temper, so rare with him, was checked by his
mastering passion--secretiveness.
Lord Victor laughed. "My dear and austere mentor, I apologise. In my
hurry to forestall you with the young lady whom you have ridden forth so
many mornings to meet I bally well stumped your wicket, I'm afraid--and
my own, too, for we're both bowled."
Finnerty philosophically drew his leather cheroot case and proffered it
to Swinton, saying: "Take a weed!"
The captain complied, lighting it in an abstraction of remastery. He had
made the astounding discovery that Marie was the young lady from whose
evil influence Lord Victor presumably had been removed by sending him to
Darpore, and, as an enlargement of this disturbing knowledge, was the
now hammering conviction that she had brought the stolen papers to be
delivered to traitorous Prince Ananda.
At that instant of his mental sequence the captain all but burned his
nose, paralysed by a flashing thought. "Good Lord!" he groaned. "It is
these papers that she seeks up this way; the somebody who is coming
overland is bringing them for fear the authorities might have caught her
on the steamer routes." Then in relief to this came the remembrance that
so far she had not met the some one, for she travelled alone. But now
that she--as he read in her eyes--had recognised him--her very wild
plunge to escape proved it--his chance of discovering anything would be
practically nil; he would possibly receive the same hushing treatment
that had been meted out to Perreira, the half-caste.
"Shall we go back now?" Lord Victor was asking. "It's rather tame
to-day; I'm not half fed up on tiger fights and elephant combats."
"Presently," Swinton answered, sitting down to still more methodically
correlate the points of this newer vision. He could not confide any part
of his discovery to Finnerty with Lord Victor present; he would decide
later on whether he should, indeed, mention it at all. At first flush he
had thought of galloping after the girl, but even if he had succeeded in
overtaking her what could he do? If he searched her and found nothing,
he would have ruined everything; probably Finnerty would have ranged up
with the girl against this proceeding.
Further vibration of this human triangle, the three men of divers
intent, was switched to startled expectancy by the clang of something
upon the plateau--an iron-shod staff striking a stone or the impact of a
horse's hoof. This was followed by silence. Finnerty stepped gently
across to his horse, unslung from the saddle his 10-bore, and slipped
two cartridges into it as he returned to stand leisurely against a tree
trunk, an uplifted finger commanding silence. They could now hear the
shuffling, muffled noises which emanate from people who travel a jungle
trail no matter how cautiously they move, and something in the
multiplicity of sounds intimated that several units composed the
approaching caravan.
Two Naga spearmen first appeared around the turn, their eager, searching
eyes showing they were on the alert for something. The threatening maw
of the 10-bore caused them to stand stock-still, their jungle cunning
teaching them the value of implicit obedience. They made no outcry. In
four seconds the shaggy head of a pony came into view, and then his
body, bearing in the saddle a sahib, and behind could be seen native
carriers. The man on horseback reined up; then he laughed--a cynical,
unmusical sneer it was. He touched the spur to his pony's flank, brushed
by the Naga spearmen, and, eyeing the 10-bore quizzically, asked: "Well,
my dear boy, what's the idea?"
Finnerty lowered the gun, answering: "Nothing; preparedness, that's all.
Thought it might be a war party of Naga head-hunters when I saw those
two spearmen."
The horseman slipped from his saddle and stood holding the rein; a
lithe, sinewy, lean-faced man of forty-five years, his sharp grey eyes,
a little too close set, holding a vulpine wariness.
Swinton had noticed his easy pose in the saddle, suggesting polo
command, and now the two or three quick, precise steps forward spoke,
"Service."
To Finnerty the cynical, drawling voice rang familiar; it had a curious,
metallic, high-pitched crispness that the drawl failed to smother, but
the man's face, caked with the drifting hill dust that sweat had
matrixed, was like a mask. Finnerty proffered a cheroot, which the
stranger accepted eagerly, saying: "Fancy my beggars bagged mine. I've
had only some native mixture to puff from a crude clay pipe I made and
baked in a fire."
"Come from Tibet way?" the major queried.
"No; been up country buying cotton for Chittagong people, and got raided
by dacoits; had to work out this way."
This story, even fantastic and sudden-built as it sounded, might have
passed ordinarily as just the rightful duplicity of a man not called
upon to confide the reasons of his exploration trip to any one, had not
the one word "Chittagong" burned like acid.
Swinton felt that the stranger's eyes were searching him, though his
words were for Finnerty. Both knew the speaker was lying. His whole
get-up was not the easy, indifferent, restful apparel of a man who had
been some long time in the jungle. He wore brown leather riding boots
instead of perhaps canvas shoes; his limbs were incased in cord breeches
that spoke of a late Bond Street origin; a stock that had once been
white held a horseshoe pin studded with moonstones, its lower ends
passing beneath a gaudily checked vest. This very get-up dinned
familiarity into the major's mind; he struggled with memory, mentally
asking, "Where have I seen this chap?" The tawny moustache, bristling in
pointed smoothness, had a rakish familiarity, and yet the echoes came
from far back on the path of life, as elusively haunting as a dream
recalled in the morning.
Abstractedly, as they talked, the stranger shifted his riding whip to
his teeth, and, reaching down with the liberated hand, gave a slight tug
at his boot strap, and that instant Finnerty knew his man. It was almost
a gasping cry of recognition: "Captain Foley--by all the powers!"
The stranger's face blanched, and Swinton sprang to his feet, galvanised
by a tremendous revelation.
An amused cackle came from beneath the tawny moustache, followed by an
even-worded drawl: "You Johnnies are certainly out for a fine draw this
morning; my name happens to be Blake-Hume--Charles Blake-Hume."
Finnerty grinned. "The same old delightfully humorous Pat Foley that I
knew in the Tenth Hussars at Umballa, when I was a griffin fresh out;
even in the choice of a new name you're aristocratic--'Blake-Hume!' My
dear boy, you could no more shed yourself than you could that desire for
a fancy vest and the moonstone pin that you wore in a deviltry of revolt
against the idea that moonstones were unlucky."
Swinton was now convinced that Finnerty had made no mistake; he could
see it in a sudden narrowing of the foxy eyes, and, taking a step closer
to their visitor, he said: "Captain Foley, your daughter Marie has just
passed down the trail."
This simple assertion had the comparative effect of a hand grenade
dropped midway between Finnerty and the stranger; possibly the major was
the more astounded one of the two.
"What, in the name of Heaven, are you saying, man?" he cried, though he
still kept his steadfast blue eyes held on Captain Foley, for something
in the latter's attitude suggested danger.
"Simply this," Swinton answered; "Captain Foley is the father of the
girl known here as Marie Boelke, and it was she who stole a state paper
from the possession of Earl Craig."
"Candour seems to be a jewel above price in the jungles this morning, so
my compliments to you, my dear Captain Herbert, government policeman,"
Foley snarled.
Stung by the gratuitous sneer, Finnerty said with feeling: "Perhaps
'Mad' Foley"--he dropped the captain, knowing that Foley had been cast
from the service--"you also recognise me, but for certain pieces of
silver you would deny it. Do you remember the time I saved you a jolly
good hiding that was fair coming to you for one of your crazy tricks?"
"Perfectly, my dear Finnerty; you were known to the mess as the 'Ulster
Babe'; it was just a humour of mine now to play you a little, and as for
the 'bobby' here, one could never mistake those bits of blue china that
have been dubbed the 'farthing eyes.' Indeed I know you both _quite
well_."
Swinton, less edged than Finnerty, now tendered some cynical coin in
payment: "Perhaps you know this young gentleman also; I think he has
cause for remembering _you_."
"Good morning, Lord Victor! You are in pleasant company," and Captain
Foley let his irritating cackle escape. He gathered the bridle rein in
his left hand, grasping the mane at his pony's wither, and turned the
stirrup outward to receive his foot as preparation for a leisurely lift
to the saddle.
In answer to a hand signal, Finnerty lifted his 10-bore to cover Captain
Foley as Swinton said: "Just a moment, Mister Foley; there are certain
formalities imposed upon suspected persons crossing the Nepal border,
which include perhaps a search. We want the papers your daughter stole
from Earl Craig under your influence, and for which you were paid German
gold."
"The bobby is devilish considerate, Lord Gilly, in not naming you as the
careless one, isn't he? Charmingly diffident sort of chap, to put the
onus on the venerable early. The old gent would be tremendously shocked
to know he was accused of flirting with a young girl, don't you think?"
"I _do_ think something, which is that you're no end of a bounder to
bring your daughter's name into your flooey talk," Lord Victor retorted
angrily.
"Tell your coolies to open up everything," and Swinton's opaque eyes
held Foley's shifty ones menacingly. "As to yourself, strip!"
"The coolies are at his majesty's service, Mister Bobby; as for myself
I'll see you damned first. I am in independent territory; Maharajah
Darpore is, like myself, not a vassal of Johnnie Bull. If you put a hand
on me I'll blink those farthing eyes of yours, Mister Bloody Bobby."
Next instant the speaker sprawled on his back, both shoulders to the
earthen mat, as Finnerty threw a quick wrestler's hold across his neck.
The big Irishman's blood had been heated by the very words that had
roused Lord Victor's anger. Besides, this was the easier way; they had
no time for international equity. Swinton quickly searched the prostrate
man. His boots were pulled off, the insoles ripped out--even a knife
blade inserted between the two laps of the outer soles, practically
wrecking them. A Webley revolver that hung from a belt Foley wore was
emptied of its shells; even its barrel was prodded for a hidden roll of
thin paper. The search of the packs was most thorough, and fully devoid
of results.
Foley laughed cynically when the two searchers stood empty-handed,
discomfiture patent in their faces.
"You turned the paper over to your daughter," Swinton accused in an
unusually verbal mood.
"According to your own statement, my dear government spy, you had the
young lady in your hands here; did you find this apocryphal document?"
Swinton's eyes met Finnerty's, which were saying quite plainly: "The
girl has beaten us out!" There also lingered in the Irishman's eyes,
Swinton fancied, a pathetic look of regret that now there could be no
doubt about her mission; he even heard a deep-drawn breath, such as a
game better takes when he has lost heavily.
"A devilish nice mess you have made of your life and your daughter's,
Captain Foley," Lord Victor suddenly ejaculated. "You were a 'king's bad
bargain' in the army, and you're a man's bad bargain out of it."
Foley stared; then he sneered: "The young cock must be cutting his
spurs. Rather tallish order from a waster, Lord Gilly." He turned to
Captain Swinton. "Now that you have performed your police duties I have
a bottle of Scotch, which no doubt you observed among my traps, and if
you gentlemen have no objection to joining me we'll drink a toast,
'Happy to meet, sorry to part, and happy to meet again.'"
"I don't drink with the king's enemies!" Swinton clipped the words with
a sound as if coins dropped.
"Nor I--with thieves," added Lord Victor.
"I'm sorry for you, my boy," the major said solemnly. "I'm ashamed to
refuse to drink with an Irishman, but I'm fed up on traitors."
Swinton drew the major to one side. When they had finished a discussion
as to whether there was any benefit in detaining Foley or not, which was
settled in the negative, Foley asked, a sneer curling the tawny
moustache: "Well, you pair of bobbies, do I pass?"
"You may go--to hell!" Finnerty added the warm destination in bitterness
of soul over his shattered dream.
The coolies had repacked their burdens; the two Naga spearmen at a
command trotted down the path; Foley swung into the saddle, and with a
mocking, "Au revoir, Lord Gilly, Mister Bobby, and my dear Ulster Babe,"
was gone.
"Dished!" Finnerty exclaimed bitterly.
"The girl--we are outwitted by a woman!" Swinton admitted despondently.
"You two Johnnies have thrown up your tails," Lord Victor objected. "If
the girl has the document you're so cocksure of, it's something to know
that it's in Darpore. That's what I call a deuced good clue."
"My dear boy," Finnerty said, under evident control, "you're as innocent
as a babe. You don't happen to know that there's a mutiny near ripe in
Darpore, and it just needed a torch, such as this document, to set the
whole state in a blaze."
Swinton, galvanised out of his habitual control, added fiercely: "And,
you young ass! You knew who the girl was; we saw you at Jadoo Pool--we
saved your life. If I'd known that it was Marie Foley I'd have dogged
every footstep she took----"
"But you knew when you had her here," Lord Victor objected, momentarily
forgetting his part in that episode.
"Yes, by Heaven, I did, and I can thank your sprawling interference for
her escape! Why didn't you tell us that it was the girl who had stolen
these state papers?"
"I've got a floaty idea that this lack of mutual confidence originated
with your honourable self, Captain--Captain Herbert, as I now learn your
name is. Do you think the earl would have countenanced my accepting the
hospitality of a prince accompanied by a government spy?"
"You've answered your own question, Lord Victor," Swinton said quietly.
"Earl Craig belongs to the old school, the Exeter Hall crowd who believe
the Oriental is an Occidental--India for the Indians is their motto--and
that the Hun is a civilised gentleman, not as some of us know him, a
rapacious brute who seeks to dominate the world. It is that cabal, the
Haldane tribe, in psychic affinity with the soulless Hun, that makes it
possible for this cuckoo creature, Boelke, to plant his eggs of sedition
in the Darpore nest. Earl Craig would not have been a party to my way of
unmasking or clearing the Darpores, father and son; he'd call it
un-English. But I may say I did not come out here to watch you; there
was no suspicion that you would come in contact with the stolen paper.
My mission was concerned with some arms that are headed for India. I
hope you see why it was thought advisable to keep you in ignorance of my
status."
Lord Victor did not assimilate this rapidly worded statement as quickly
as it was offered. He pondered a little, and then said: "I did not know
that Marie Foley was here, and she got no end of a surprise when I
turned up. It was all a bally fluke her arranging to meet me; she funked
it when that gold cigarette case was handed her by Prince Ananda with
the information that I had found it. She thought I had recognised it,
which I hadn't; at least it dangled in my memory, but I hadn't connected
it with her. She rode down the hill, and when she saw me coming along
dropped a note so that I saw it fall--devilish clever, I call it--making
an appointment at Jadoo Pool, and there she made me promise not to
denounce her."
"Somewhat easy, I fancy," Swinton said sarcastically; "threw the glamour
of love over you."
"You dear old bachelor! You have very visionary ideas of that matter.
She doesn't care two straws for me; it was purely a matter of 'on
honour' business, because she gave me her solemn word that she hadn't
stolen the document, and that she hadn't brought it out to Darpore. As
to the 'grand passion,' I have a floaty idea that the handsome major,
with his trick of life-saving, has taken Marie's fancy."
Finnerty blushed, but Swinton said gloomily: "You see the result of
believing her. She was just too fiendishly cunning; she hadn't the
paper, but knew that her traitor father was bringing it and that she,
comparatively immune from search, could safely carry it to the last lap
of its journey. She knew that we were liable to intercept the father and
very probably search him."
"Looks like it," Finnerty commented. "I didn't know that Foley had a
daughter; I heard he'd been cashiered."
"He raced himself out of the army--gambled too heavily," Swinton
explained; "then, it being the only thing he cared for, went at it
professionally till he raced himself out of England. After that he
drifted to Austria and married a Viennese, reported to be of noble
family. Whether it was a chance to plant a spy in England or that the
woman really fell in love with him I don't know. Marie, of course, is
the daughter, and between them the Foleys stole that document through a
chance that came because of Lord Victor's fancy for the girl."
Swinton had spoken without any feeling in his voice--automatically, like
a witness giving evidence. Gilfain seemed to understand this, for he
made no comment. But Finnerty said lugubriously: "Devilish nasty mess,
and we've been dished." He picked up the 10-bore, and, going over to his
horse, strapped it under his saddle flap, saying: "We'd better jog
back."