Towards noon on a summer’s day several years later two men were sitting
before an inn some miles from the ancient town of Lincoln. Drawn up in
the shade of a towering ash was a large grey touring-car, covered with
dust. On the worn table stood two tankards of ale. The travellers rested
in silence and content, smoking.
The road by which the inn stood was really no more than a lane, and the
peace of the motorists was not disturbed by the traffic of a main road.
Indeed, the only human being visible was a distant speck on the dust,
coming towards them. He seemed, however, to be making a good pace, for
he soon drew near.
“If,” said the elder of the two men, in a low tired voice, “if we take
the short cut through Carmion Wood, we will be at Malmanor for lunch.”
“Then you’ll go short-cutting alone,” said the other firmly. “I’ve heard
enough tales about Carmion Wood to last me a lifetime without my adding
one more to them. And as for spooks, one is enough for this child in one
lifetime, thanks very much.”
The two men, for lack of any other distraction, watched the pedestrian
draw near. He turned out to be a giant of a man; and had, apparently, no
intention of resting at the inn. The very air of the tall pedestrian was
a challenge to the lazy content of the sunlit noon. He was walking at a
great pace, his felt hat swinging from his hand. A giant he was: his
hair greying: his massive face set with assurance.
“By all that’s holy!” gasped the elder of the two observers. A little
lean gentleman that was, with a lined face which had been handsome in a
striking way but for the haggard marks of the dissipations of a man of
the world. He had only one arm, and that added a curiously flippant air
of devilry to his little, lean, sardonic person.
“Puce!” yelled the other, a young man with a chubby, good-humoured face.
“Puce, you silly old ass! Come here at once!”
The giant swung round at the good-natured cry, stared at the two smiling
men. Then the massive face broke into the old, genial smile by which his
friends had always known and loved the gentleman from America, and he
came towards them with hand outstretched.
“Well, boys!” laughed Mr. Puce. “This is one big surprise. But it’s good
to see you again, I’ll say that.”
“The years have rolled on, Puce, the years have rolled on,” sighed
Quillier in his tired way, but warmly enough he shook the gentleman from
America with his one hand.
“They certainly have!” said Mr. Puce, mopping his brow and smiling down
on the two. “And by the look of that arm, Quillier, I’ll say you’re no
stranger to war.”
“Sit down, old Puce, and have a drink,” laughed Kerr-Anderson. Always
gay, was Kerr-Anderson.
But the gentleman from America seemed, as he stood there, uncertain. He
glanced down the way he had come. Quillier, watching him, saw that he
was fagged out. Eleven years had made a great difference to Mr. Puce. He
looked old, worn, a wreck of the hearty giant who was once Howard
Cornelius Puce.
“Come, sit down, Puce,” he said kindly, and quite briskly, for him. “Do
you realise, man, that it’s eleven years since that idiotic night? What
are you doing? Taking a walking-tour?”
Mr. Puce sat down on the stained bench beside them. His massive
presence, his massive smile, seemed to fill the whole air about the two
men.
“Walking-tour? That is so, more or less,” smiled Mr. Puce; and, with a
flash of his old humour: “I want to tell you boys that I am the daughter
of the King of Egypt, but I am dressed as a man because I am travelling
_incognito_. Eleven years is it, since we met? A whale of a time, eleven
years!”
“Why, there’s been quite a war since then,” chuckled Kerr-Anderson. “But
still that night seems like last night. I _am_ glad to see you again,
old Puce! But, by Heaven, we owe you one for giving us the scare of our
lives! Don’t we, Quillier?”
“That’s right, Puce,” smiled Quillier. “We owe you one all right. But I
am heartily glad that it was only a shock you had, and that you were
quite yourself after all. And so here we are gathered together again by
blind chance, eleven years older, eleven years wiser. Have a drink,
Puce?”
The gentleman from America was looking from one to the other of the two.
The smile on the massive face seemed one of utter bewilderment. Quillier
was shocked at the ravages of a mere eleven years on the man’s face.
“I gave you two a scare!” echoed Mr. Puce. “Aw, put it to music, boys!
What the hell! How the blazes did I give you two a scare?”
Kerr-Anderson was quite delighted to explain. The scare of eleven years
ago was part of the fun of to-day. Many a time he had told the tale to
while away the boredom of Flanders and Mesopotamia, and had often wanted
to let old Puce in on it to enjoy the joke on Quillier and himself but
had never had the chance to get hold of him.
They had thought, that night, that Puce was dead. Quillier, naked from
the waist up, had rushed down to Kerr-Anderson, waiting in the dark
porch, and had told him that Puce had kicked the bucket. Quillier had
sworn like nothing on earth as he dashed on his clothes. Awkward, Puce’s
corpse, for Quillier and Kerr-Anderson. Quillier, thank Heaven, had had
the sense not to leave the empty revolver on the bed. They shoved back
all the ghost properties into a bag. And as, of course, the house wasn’t
Kerr-Anderson’s aunt’s house at all, but Johnny Paramour’s, who was
away, they couldn’t so easily be traced. Still, awkward for them, very.
They cleared the country that night. Quillier swearing all the way about
the weak hearts of giants. And it wasn’t until the Orient Express had
pitched them out at Vienna that they saw in the Continental _Daily Mail_
that an American of the name of Puce had been found by the caretaker in
the bedroom of a house in Grosvenor Square, suffering from shock and
nervous breakdown. Poor old Puce! Good old Puce! But he’d had the laugh
on them all right....
And heartily enough the gentleman from America appeared to enjoy the
joke on Quillier and Kerr-Anderson.
“That’s good!” he laughed. “That’s very good!”
“Of course,” said Quillier in his tired, deprecating way, “we took the
stake, this boy and I. For if you hadn’t collapsed you would certainly
have run out of that room like a Mussulman from a ham-sandwich.”
“That’s all right,” laughed Mr. Puce. “But what I want to know,
Quillier, is how you got me so scared?”
Kerr-Anderson says now that Puce was looking at Quillier quite amiably.
Full in the face, and very close to him, but quite amiably. Quillier
smiled, in his deprecating way.
“Oh, an old trick, Puce! A black rag over the head, a couple of yards of
stuffed cloth for arms....”
“Aw, steady!” said Mr. Puce. But quite amiably. “Say, listen, I shot at
you! Nine times. How about that?”
“Dear, oh, dear!” laughed Kerr-Anderson. But that was the last time he
laughed that day.
“My dear Puce,” said Quillier gently, slightly waving his one arm. “That
is the oldest trick of all. I was in a panic all the time that you would
think of it and chuck the gun at my head. Those bullets in your
automatic were blanks.”
Kerr-Anderson isn’t at all sure what exactly happened then. All he
remembers is that Puce’s huge face had suddenly gone crimson, which made
his hair stand out shockingly white; and that Puce had Quillier’s
fragile throat between his hands; and that Puce was roaring and spitting
into Quillier’s blackening face.
“Say, listen, you Quillier! You’d scare me like that, would you! You’d
scare me with a chicken’s trick like that, would you! And you’d strangle
me, eh? You swine, you _Sir_ Cyril Quillier you, right here’s where the
strangling comes in, and it’s me that’s going to do it----”
Kerr-Anderson hit out and yelled. Quillier was helpless with his one
arm, the giant’s grip on his throat. The woman who kept the inn had
hysterics. Puce roared blasphemies. Quillier was doubled back over the
small table, Puce on top of him, tightening his death-hold.
Kerr-Anderson hit, kicked, bit, yelled.
Suddenly there were shouts from all around.
“For God’s sake, quick!” sobbed Kerr-Anderson. “He’s almost killed him.”
“Aw, what the hell!” roared Puce.
The men in dark uniforms had all they could do to drag him away from
that little, lean, blackened, unconscious thing. Then they manacled
Puce. Puce looked sheepish, and grinned at Kerr-Anderson.
Two of the six men in dark uniforms helped to revive Quillier.
“Drinks,” gasped Kerr-Anderson to the woman who kept the inn.
“Say, give me one,” begged the gentleman from America. Huge, helpless,
manacled, he stood sheepishly among his uniformed captors. Kerr-Anderson
stared at them. Quillier was reviving.
“Gets like that,” said the head warder indifferently. “Gave us the slip
this morning. Certain death for someone. Homicidal maniac, that’s ’im.
And he’s the devil to hold. Been like that eleven years. Got a shock, I
fancy. Keeps on talking about a sister of his called Julia who was
murdered and how he’ll be revenged for it....”
Kerr-Anderson had turned away. Quillier sobbed: “God have mercy on us!”
The gentleman from America suddenly roared with laughter.
“Can’t be helped,” said the head warder. “Sorry you were put to trouble,
sir. Good-day, gentlemen. Glad it was no worse.”