IN WHICH CAPTAIN WELFARE MAKES A SIGNAL
Both Edmund’s temper and my own were naturally worn a little thin
under the tension of this uncertainty, and the friction of our futile
calculations of chances. But neither of us could leave the subject
alone or settle our minds to anything else. Each of us made guesses
which to the other seemed more and more foolish and irritating.
Edmund set himself to prove the inevitability of disaster, really, I
suppose, in order to elicit my arguments in favour of optimism, which
nevertheless he took a morbid pleasure in demolishing.
The bishop’s arrival on the following afternoon was only just in time
to dispel something like a positive mutual dislike which was being
engendered between us by the strain.
But, as I knew he would, the bishop brought with him an atmosphere of
sanity and hopefulness. He did not attempt to minimise the gravity of
our position when it was explained to him, but helped us to look the
hard facts in the face.
“If the man has been arrested,” he said, “it seems to me that we are
powerless. The whole of the facts are bound to come out. Your conduct,”
he added, turning to me, “has of course been blameless, even, I should
imagine, from the legal point of view. At least I do not quite see in
what form any charge could be made against you. The extreme difficulty
of the circumstances in which you were placed would of course be
appreciated. I do not see how your action could be described as
abetting, since you did all in your power to break up the conspiracy
and defeat its ends.
“Your brother’s case is of course quite different. The fact that he
had no direct financial interest in the sale of the drug is only an
extenuating circumstance. You were aware of the whole transaction,”
he said, addressing Edmund; “you aided in it, if only by helping to
navigate the boat. I do not think there is the least doubt that a judge
would take a very grave view of your offence, and of its effect on
the prestige of the English in Egypt. In your case discovery would of
course mean irretrievable disgrace, a punishment utterly out of all
proportion to the real sinfulness of your act, at least as I see it.
It is because of the injustice involved in that, in what would be the
real sentence, and because of the damage that would be done to our
countrymen in the East, that I feel we are justified in circumventing
the law, if that be still possible.”
I could see the tide of humiliation pass across Edmund’s face, as he
sat with folded arms, listening to the bishop’s calm judicial statement
of the position, but when at last he looked up, I thought I saw in his
eyes that it had been a cleansing tide.
“I am afraid,” he said very slowly, “it would be impertinent in me, my
lord, to thank you for what you are doing, for what you have proposed
to do, even for speaking to me, after you have known all this about me.
God knows I understand now the rottenness of my whole life so far.
If I could only keep my brother’s name out of it, I would rather that
everything came out; I would rather take the punishment. I do not mind,
since you and he think I might have made good still, if the chance had
come. I can face everything but disgrace coming home to him. You know
he has been more than any brother to me. I had forgotten what it was to
be a gentleman. But if I have to make my new start in prison I shall
act as one now. I can do it, since you believe I could. I wish I knew
how to thank you.”
Edmund’s voice broke in a sob very painful to us to hear.
The bishop rose and went over to him. “My dear boy,” he said, laying
a hand on his shoulder with an instinctive pastoral gesture, “you are
welcome to thank me. I know it is a natural, wholesome desire. But
you must understand that I am only trying to interpret what I believe
to be our Lord’s attitude to sinners who repent. You have probably
come to disbelieve in what is called prayer. Nevertheless prayer is a
natural instinct implanted in all of us; a desire we cannot get rid of,
whatever our beliefs or disbeliefs may be. I advise you to leave us now
and go and yield to that instinct. Whatever may happen now we need say
no more about this aspect of the case.”
As Edmund rose to obey him, the bishop took his hand for a moment in
silence, and there was a look in his face that made me think of Him who
rose “with healing in his wings.”
“Poor warped boy!” he exclaimed as the door closed; “there is a
great capacity for goodness and nobility in him, all stunted by mere
circumstance. Davoren, I feel that we must save him at almost any cost.
Why should we desire the punishment even of this nefarious Arab? It
will surely be better to make him ‘cease to do evil and learn to do
well.’ Have you ever thought out the distinction between crime and sin?”
“I have never regarded them as necessarily related,” I answered.
“No, they are not. If we could establish that essential relationship
we should have achieved the ideal State. Probably that was what Plato
really meant. But now we must come down to sordid details. Assuming
that this Arab escapes the police and finds you here, have you any plan
for dealing with him?”
“None. We have discussed it up and down since yesterday, but could come
to no conclusion.”
“I should be inclined to offer him a chance to accompany your brother
and Captain Welfare, that is if they decided to go to Nyasaland. We
could offer him congenial employment, fair pay, and above all a chance
of escape from ‘justice.’ We must remember that the one strength of
our position is that he is a hunted man. A desperate man is dangerous,
therefore the proper treatment for him is to offer him hope.”
We spent a long time discussing what our course should be if the worst
came to pass, and how we were to make a future for Edmund when he
should have purged his folly. The afternoon was fading into evening,
when Bates came in with a perturbed expression.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “there is a man at the door who
refuses to go away until he has seen you.”
“Well, Bates? Why should he not see me? What is his business?”
“He wouldn’t say, sir. Excuse me, sir, but he is a foreign looking
person, though not dressed as such. I think he is one of those Arabs
that came in the yacht, sir.”
The bishop and I looked at each other with a great relief. Here was
Jakoub, and he was still at liberty, the worst had not yet come to pass.
“I’ll go and see him, Bates,” I said; “will you excuse me, bishop?”
“Don’t mind me if you wish to bring him in here,” the bishop answered
in a perfectly natural manner.
I went out to meet Jakoub at the door, Bates following me like a dog
bristling with distrust of some instinctive foe.
As soon as he opened the door a man stepped quickly inside, in spite of
a protesting movement from Bates.
For a moment my heart misgave me, for in this cloth-capped stranger,
clad in cheap but respectable brown tweed, I failed to recognise
Jakoub. But a flash from his eyes reassured me, and there was no
mistaking his greeting. “All raight, effendi!” he said in his old
mocking tone, “it is I, Jakoub.”
I think his quick intuition was disconcerted at my manifest pleasure in
welcoming him! No doubt he had calculated on meeting fear or anger.
“Come in,” I said cordially. “I am very glad to see you again, Jakoub.
It is quite right, Bates, just go and tell Mr. Edmund he will find an
old friend with us in the study.”
Bates went upstairs distrustfully, and I led Jakoub into the study.
“Bishop, this is Jakoub,” I said with a happy smile; “Jakoub, this is
my sheikh.”
The bishop nodded pleasantly and Jakoub instinctively salaamed,
touching his forehead and breast.
He stood with his hands folded before him looking uneasily from one
to the other of us. He was evidently nonplussed and suspicious, and
doubtless felt at a disadvantage in the strange ugly clothes which
vulgarised and robbed him of all his natural dignity.
“I came to speak with you private,” he said sullenly.
“Sit down then. We are private. The sheikh knows all about our
business, Jakoub. Mr. Montgomery is here too. He will be with us in a
moment.”
I used the false name purposely to try if Jakoub knew Edmund by any
other, but he made no comment.
“If you think I am in a trap, you mistake. Very big mistake,” he
muttered viciously.
“None of us thinks so, Jakoub. If you are in trouble, we want to help
you. Have a cigarette?” He took the cigarette greedily, as one who had
fasted for some time. It seemed to restore a little of his confidence.
“Jakoub is in no trouble,” he remarked, as he sat uneasily on the edge
of a low chair.
Edmund came in at this moment, quite calm and collected, without a
trace of his recent emotional crisis.
“Well, Jakoub,” he said, “you have turned up?”
“Yes. I have come. I have come for my rights, for my money and for Van
Ermengen, effendi’s. We will not be robbed.”
“No,” said Edmund, “but you may be arrested, you know. The police----”
“Bah! Your police--I fear them not. We knew they would wait for me
at your harbour. So I make myself to have the job to go away in the
little boat with a line to the buoy. Last night before the steamer
stop, before the gangway is out, I am away from her in the dark. I
wrap my galabieh round a stone and drop her in the water. Then I put
on these, these clothes, boots, hat; and I row to a good place on the
shore, while your police are looking for me on the ship! Who will find
Jakoub now? I am not a mouse to walk in a trap!”
“That was very clever,” the bishop put in.
“It is my business to be clever!” said Jakoub, showing his teeth a
little, as he looked round from one to the other of us, malignant and
implacable.
I was at a loss as to how to continue the conversation. I felt as I
have sometimes felt when trying to play chess for the entertainment
of better players, uncertain even as to whose move it was next. It
was therefore a great relief to me when Edmund spoke in a tone that
suggested his intention of taking command of our side.
“You had better tell us,” he said, “why you have come here, and what it
is that you want.”
“I have come for the money I am owed, I and Van Ermengen effendi. I
have my papers, my account.”
He sought in the unfamiliar pockets of what tailors call a “lounge
suit,” and produced a folded sheet of foolscap which Edmund took from
him.
“We have already had all this by post from Van Ermengen,” Edmund
remarked as he looked over the paper. “Why did he send you here?”
“Because you did not answer. You sent no money,” Jakoub answered
doggedly.
“And suppose we send this money to Van Ermengen, how are you going to
get your share from him? If we enable you to escape the police here,
will you go back to Egypt? Don’t take me for a fool, Jakoub. It won’t
help you.”
“You pay me my share here. I care no more for Van Ermengen.”
The bishop and I looked at each other. We began to see the drift of
Edmund’s diplomacy; to detach Jakoub from Van Ermengen was decidedly a
gain.
“I don’t suppose you do care for him,” Edmund said, “and yet you are
trying to play his game, knowing he will swindle you in the end.”
“But without him I could not have come here,” Jakoub pointed out with
another smile of cool effrontery.
“I could stay no more in Egypt,” he added, “so I use Van Ermengen to
find you and Captain Ringrose, and the effendi here. It is you who have
gone with my property--you are the thieves, and you will give back my
share, or come with me to the prison.”
“You might get us into prison, Jakoub, but you could not get us hanged.
Do you know,” he asked suddenly, taking a step towards Jakoub and
standing over him in a threatening attitude, “do you know that we can
have you hanged? Do you know that we found Achmed in Marseilles and he
told us all that happened in that house at Damanhour where the merchant
was murdered two years ago? We know where to find Achmed whenever we
want him.”
Jakoub’s face was distorted with the spasm of sudden terror, like that
of a man who suddenly sees some unsuspected object close by him in the
dark. His right hand made a movement towards the unaccustomed breast
pocket, but Edmund seized his wrist in a flash. His grasp brought a cry
from Jakoub.
“Effendi! You break my arm! Let me go.”
“Hand over your weapon first.”
“I have none. I swear it. Search me, effendi!”
Edmund slowly relinquished his grasp. I thought of the knife I had seen
in Jakoub’s hand that night at Alexandria when I was awakened by the
brushing of that hand along my bedroom wall. But I was paralysed by
the sudden violence of this scene in my quiet study. I saw the bishop
sitting tense, braced for sudden action. But Edmund did not trouble to
search Jakoub; he lounged back to the mantelpiece and it seemed that a
crisis had ended.
“It does not matter if you have a weapon, Jakoub, for you dare not use
it. Now listen, we offer you safety, or at least to help you to safety
if we can. You may not believe it, but it is a fact that the whole of
the hashish is at the bottom of the sea. We threw it overboard and sank
it for reasons of our own. We may help you to earn an honest living in
safety, if you choose to. At least, that is what we meant to offer you.
But these gentlemen did not know for certain until this minute that you
were a murderer. When I tell them what the man was whom you killed,
they may still help you. I do not know.”
Edmund paused and looked enquiringly at the bishop.
“We ought to have known of this,” the bishop said very gravely.
“I was going to tell you, my lord. If I may send Jakoub out of the room
I will tell you the whole story. He had better think over our offer,
in case it still holds good. But understand, Jakoub, that alone and
unaided in England you can no more escape our police than a quail can
escape your net when it lands in Egypt. This is not Egypt. If you
choose to quarrel with us you know now what to expect.”
I felt a kind of pity for Jakoub as I looked at him. He was changed
from the masterful villain I had known, the man to whose skill and
courage in the desert I probably owed my life.
He was now a huddled figure in his chair, and under Edmund’s new
threat he looked beaten, weak, and forlorn. It occurred to me that he
might have had little or no food on his journey, and I always find
something pathetic in the more primitive human needs. I was sure, too,
that Jakoub would regard Edmund’s last remark as a warning that the
whole system of backshish would, in this country, be against him as
a foreigner without money. It would seem to him quite natural that a
person like myself should have the entire legislature in his pay, and
this would of course be a depressing thought. My feelings as a host
were aroused on his behalf, but I recognised the impossibility of
suggesting that he should join us at dinner.
“Perhaps,” I said, “Jakoub is ready for some food and a glass of wine?
I am sorry not to have thought of it sooner. I am afraid you are tired,
Jakoub.”
I noticed a flicker of humorous appreciation of the situation pass
between Edmund and Jakoub, and as the latter must have had murder
in his heart but a moment before, and the other had used force to
frustrate the intention, I suppose my conventional words were really
somewhat absurd.
But Jakoub rose and salaamed with the ceremony demanded of an Oriental
when hospitality is in question.
“Jakoub is never tired,” he said, “but he has come far, fasting. The
effendi is kind, and Jakoub gives thanks to Allah and to him. Jakoub
needs food and remembers the red wine he drank in the Temple of Osiris.
It is not yet Ramadan.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “I’ll ring for Bates.”
Bates at the door, in response to my summons, gave us a wonderful
piece of acting. He was representing the part of a servant unconscious
of the existence of the foreign element in our conclave. The perfect
correctness of his demeanour made all three of us feel abject in a way
that no threat from Jakoub could have done.
“Bates,” I said, “this gentleman will have some dinner in the
morning-room. And tell Mrs. Rattray that we shall be ready in a quarter
of an hour.”
Bates’s aspect relaxed its severity at once, and I perceived that I
had acquired merit in his eyes. He knew that I never referred to my
friends as “gentlemen,” and my use of the term now was, in his eyes,
opprobrious. I think he may have suspected me of an intention to have
Jakoub in the dining-room, which would have involved his giving me
notice, and wrecking his own life’s happiness. As it was, he made an
imperious gesture to Jakoub, who followed him out of the room quite
meekly.
“I think we had better go and dress,” I said, looking at my watch, “we
can talk things over after dinner.”
We said no more to each other then, but as we went upstairs in silence
it occurred to me that Bates might handle Jakoub more successfully even
than the bishop.
Dinner that night was a meal purposely abbreviated, for we could not
resume our discussion until Bates had completed his functions and left
us with the walnuts and a decanter of port for Edmund and myself.
The lingering twilight of summer reduced the shaded candles on the
table to the level of an agreeable but adventitious ornament. There
are few things more lovely than the ruby patch on white damask of
candle-light focussed through cut glass containing some ancient vintage
of the grape of sun-soaked Portugal. That crimson spot, with radiating
lines and concentric curves of topaz light, has always given me,
since childhood days, the thrill of joy that jewellery provides, and
stained-glass windows, and distant rockets bursting inaudible in a
summer sky.
I think we all three were conscious of the hedonistic influence of
our surroundings, and found it difficult to bring our minds back to
the sinister presence in the adjoining room, to the idea of Jakoub
there, calculating his line of conduct from an ethical standpoint
unintelligible to us.
I certainly felt an intense reluctance to return to the consideration
of our clouded future, and I am sure the others shared it.
We might have sat there indefinitely as far as I was concerned. But
the bishop with a sigh recalled us to the immediate necessities of our
situation.
We had been discoursing pleasantly of many things interesting but
remote from our immediate circumstances, when he broke in on our
artificial calm.
“Well, we are keeping Jakoub waiting,” he said; “had we not better know
the facts about this new charge against him?”
“Yes. You must know the facts. I have been waiting to tell you,” Edmund
answered. “I can only give you the facts as I have heard them from
a man who has no reason to love Jakoub. All I can say is that both
Welfare and I have every reason to believe the story, for we both knew
the man who was killed. Either of us would have killed him if we could.
It is a disgusting story.”
It was a story so loathsome in its details that I have tried to blot
them from my mind. It concerned an elderly Egyptian who had made vast
sums of money by land speculations at the time when the Egyptian cotton
industry was embryonic. He had chosen one of his sons as his heir, and
sent the youth to Europe to be “educated.” The young man had absorbed
all the villainy and corruption that can be found in the lowest
classes of the great cities of England and the continent, and returned
to inherit his father’s wealth with his native Oriental brutality
instructed and refined by Western cunning and Western niceties of
debauchery and greed. As he lost his inherited wealth to more cunning
rogues, he tried to recover it by becoming the principal organiser of
the hashish trade. In this capacity he came to owe Jakoub the wages of
subordinate villainy. Jakoub had taken him by surprise in his secret
villa at Damanhour. He had found him torturing a woman who had been a
girl in Jakoub’s village in the Delta. Jakoub had slain him and escaped
undetected. Edmund had now found a witness who could prove Jakoub to be
the murderer.
“I have threatened Jakoub with this knowledge,” Edmund concluded, “but
sooner than use it against him really, I would have my tongue torn out.”
Neither of us made any comment on the story, and Edmund remained silent
during a considerable pause, nervously fidgeting with his napkin ring.
“I think we must have the man in, Davoren,” the bishop said at last,
“but first we must be quite assured as to what we are to say to him.”
“Yes. We had better get it over,” I agreed.
“Am I to understand definitely,” the bishop asked Edmund, “that if all
goes well you will accept this offer of the Colonial Secretary?”
“I will indeed, most thankfully,” Edmund assured him.
“And you think it probable that Captain Welfare would join you?”
“I cannot imagine his refusing.”
“Well, that’s all right so far----”
He was interrupted by a metallic clang, twice repeated. It was the old
sound of the hammer on the anvil in the forge, brought to us along the
tunnel. But it was an unusual time to hear it, and to all of us there
was something minatory in the sound of those three strokes.
The bishop broke off in his sentence, and we all three listened, silent
and uneasy.
The three loud strokes were repeated.
“They are working late at the forge,” the bishop remarked.
“That is not blacksmith’s work,” I answered with an apprehensive note
in my voice.
There came a succession of blows, apparently from a lighter hammer, yet
with a sound unusual and unfamiliar to me, making as it were a kind of
tune.
Suddenly Edmund’s face “sprang to attention” as it were. He took a
pencil from his pocket, and seizing a menu card, began making rapid
marks on it, as the tune on the anvil rang on.
The bishop and I watched him in amazement.
“It’s Welfare,” he said; “our private call in Morse. Here’s his
message coming. Excuse me.”
For some minutes the noise went on, the bishop and I, elbows on table,
watching Edmund as he jotted down dots and dashes on the cardboard. He
put out his hand for a fresh card, and I had had the sense to have one
ready for him, so there was no interruption in his recording of the
message.
Presently the hammering ceased.
We listened for a moment, but no more sound came from the anvil. Edmund
set himself to deciphering and transcribing the message.
Finally he read aloud: “Police traced Jakoub to vicarage. Doors
watched. Will arrest at once. Send him down passage. I will meet him at
end.”
“We must act at once,” the bishop observed, rising from his chair;
“perhaps you had better get him away,” he added to Edmund. Edmund
nodded and moved towards the door.
“One moment,” I said, “I must get Mrs. Rattray and the maid out of the
kitchen. We shall have to take Bates into our confidence.”
I left the room, and finding Mrs. Rattray sent her and her assistant to
carry out some extraordinary rearrangement of the bishop’s room. I told
her that his Lordship had been unwell, and these arrangements were the
doctor’s orders. This silenced her protests of amazement, and having
got rid of the women I spoke hurriedly to Bates in the hall.
“Bates,” I said, “the police are coming here for this Arab. They will
be here any moment now.”
“Very good, sir.” Bates answered with evident gratification.
“But he is not to be arrested here. Mr. Edmund has particular reasons
for not wishing it.”
“Oh, very well, sir.”
“Mr. Edmund is going to let him out through the cellar, into the
passage. When the police call you will show them into the dining-room.
In the meantime you must make it appear that the man has gone through
the morning-room window. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am afraid, Bates, it may not be possible for you to speak the
precise truth about the business--to the police, I mean. Have you any
objection?”
“Well, sir, as long as you and his Lordship say so, I have no doubt it
is all correct.”
“That’s all right then.”
As I spoke Edmund came out of the morning-room with Jakoub.
“The idiot swears it’s a trap. He says he won’t go unless the ‘sheikh,’
as he calls him, promises we are doing the straight thing.”
“It is Ringrose,” growled Jakoub; “I know him; this is his plan to trap
me.”
“I swear, Jakoub----” I began, but then the bishop, who had overheard
the conversation, joined us.
“I promise you,” he said, “in the name of the one God whom we both
worship, that we are doing what we believe to be the best thing for you
as well as for others. I promise that in this we are dealing faithfully
with you. Now go quickly. It is your only chance of safety.”
Jakoub followed Edmund down to the cellar without another word.
The bishop and I returned to the dining-room and resumed our seats at
the table.
My heart was beating painfully as we heard through the floor the harsh
grating of the door that led from the cellar to the passage. We heard
it opened, and it seemed an age before it was dragged to, and the rusty
bolts shot back. I think the bishop breathed a little rapidly too.
As Edmund rejoined us with an enquiring glance I shook my head.
“I wonder what is keeping them,” he said as he sat down in his place.
I explained briefly what I had arranged with Bates.
“Don’t you think, bishop,” I asked, “that it would be better for you to
leave us? If anything were to go wrong, it would be intolerable that
your name should even be mentioned.”
“It is certainly disagreeable,” he replied; “it is intensely painful to
deceive these men in the execution of their duty. We are unquestionably
aiding a criminal to escape, in fact ‘compounding a felony.’
Nevertheless, my conscience is quite definite in the matter and
approves of what we are doing. It is the old question, Davoren, of the
difference between crime and sin. The crime for which the law would put
this man to death was not a sin. It was manifestly a righteous action.
It was an impulse which no decent man would have resisted. Of course,
society could not exist if everyone were to be allowed to decide such
questions. But I claim as much right to judge of wickedness as a judge
has to decide questions of crime. But if I left you now it would be
cowardice, and my conscience would not acquit me.”
“But how terribly the world would misjudge you!”
“That is not a thing from which a Christian should shrink,” the bishop
observed quietly, and so closed the discussion.
Edmund helped himself to a glass of wine.
“It will look more natural when they come in,” he said, “as if we were
only just finishing dinner.”
I was glad to follow his example, for in truth the sudden development
of our perplexities, the strange manner of its announcement, and the
necessity for sudden action had left me shaken in mind and body and, I
fear, a little tremulous.
As Edmund lit a cigarette the hall-door bell was rung.