She saw him as soon as she got into the ballroom. It was the last day
but one of the local cricket week, and the room was crowded. A large
number of the men she knew—men she had danced with in London who had
come down to play—and within half a minute she was surrounded. It was a
chance of getting a dance with her which was not to be missed; in London
she generally danced with one or at the most two men for the whole
evening—men who were absolutely perfect performers. For dancing was a
part of Lady Cynthia’s life—and a big part.
The humour of the situation had struck her that day. For this
dog-breeding crank to presume to judge her powers of dancing seemed too
sublimely funny for annoyance. But he deserved to be taught a very
considerable lesson. And she proposed to teach him. After that she
proposed to dismiss him completely from her mind.
She gave him a cool nod as he came up, and frowned slightly as she
noticed the faint glint of laughter in his eyes. Really Mr. Desmond
Brooke was a little above himself. So much the worse for him.
“I don’t know whether you’ll find one or not,” she remarked carelessly,
handing him her programme.
He glanced at it without a word, and quietly erased someone’s name.
“I’ve made special arrangements with the band for Number 9, Lady
Cynthia,” he remarked coolly. “A lot of people will be in at supper
then, so we ought to have the floor more to ourselves.”
The next instant he had bowed and disappeared, leaving her staring
speechlessly at her programme.
“A breezy customer,” murmured a man beside her. “Who is he?”
“A gentleman who is going to have the biggest lesson of his life,” she
answered ominously, and the man laughed. He knew Lady Cynthia—and he
knew Lady Cynthia’s temper when it was roused. But for once he was wrong
in his diagnosis; the outward and visible were there all right—the
inward and mental state of affairs in keeping with them was not. For the
first time in her life Lady Cynthia felt at a loss. Her partners found
her _distraite_ and silent; as a matter of fact she was barely conscious
of their existence. And the more she lashed at herself mentally, the
more confused did she get.
It was preposterous, impossible. Why should she cut Tubby Dawlish to
dance with a crank who kept dogs? A crank, moreover, who openly avowed
that his object was to see if she could dance. Every now and then she
saw him lounging by the door watching her. She knew he was watching her,
though she gave no sign of being aware of his existence. And all the
while Number 9 grew inexorably nearer.
Dance indeed! She would show him how she could dance. And as a result
she fell into the deadly fault of trying. No perfect dancer ever _tries_
to dance; they just dance. And Lady Cynthia knew that better than most
people. Which made her fury rise still more against the man standing
just outside the door smoking a cigarette. A thousand times—no; she
would not cut Tubby.
And then she realised that people were moving in to supper; that the 8
was being taken down from the band platform—that 9 was being put up.
And she realised that Desmond Brooke the Hermit was crossing the room
towards her; was standing by her side while Tubby—like an outraged
terrier—was glaring at him across her.
“This is mine, old thing,” spluttered Tubby. “Number 9.”
“I think not,” said the Hermit quietly. “I fixed Number 9 especially
with Lady Cynthia yesterday.”
She hesitated—and was lost.
“I’m sorry, Tubby,” she said a little weakly. “I forgot.”
Not a trace of triumph showed on the Hermit’s face, as he gravely
watched the indignant back of his rival retreating towards the door: not
a trace of expression showed on his face as he turned to the girl.
“You’ve been trying to-night, Lady Cynthia,” he said gravely. “Please
don’t—this time. It’s a wonderful tune this—half waltz, half tango. It
was lucky finding Lopez conducting: he has played for me before. And I
want you just to forget everything except the smell of the passion
flowers coming in through the open windows, and the thrumming of the
guitars played by the natives under the palm-trees.” His eyes were
looking into hers, and suddenly she drew a deep breath. Things had got
beyond her.
It was marked as a fox-trot on the programme, and several of the more
enthusiastic performers were waiting to get off on the stroke of time.
But as the first haunting notes of the dance wailed out—they paused and
hesitated. This was no fox-trot; this was—but what matter what it was?
For after the first bar no one moved in the room: they stood motionless
watching one couple—Lady Cynthia Stockdale and an unknown man.
“Why, it’s the fellow who breeds dogs,” muttered someone to his partner,
but there was no reply. She was too engrossed in watching.
And as for Lady Cynthia, from the moment she felt Desmond Brooke’s arm
round her, the world had become merely movement—such movement as she
had never thought of before. To say that he was a perfect dancer would
be idle: he was dancing itself. And the band, playing as men possessed,
played for them and them only. Everything was forgotten: nothing in the
world mattered save that they should go on and on and on—dancing. She
was utterly unconscious of the crowd of onlookers: she didn’t know that
people had left the supper-room and were thronging in at the door: she
knew nothing save that she had never danced before. Dimly she realised
at last that the music had stopped: dimly she heard a great roar of
applause—but only dimly. It seemed to come from far away—the shouts of
“Encore” seemed hazy and dream-like. They had left the ballroom, though
she was hardly conscious of where he was taking her, and when he turned
to her and said, “Get a wrap or something: I want to talk to you out in
God’s fresh air,” she obeyed him without a word. He was waiting for her
when she returned, standing motionless where she had left him. And still
in silence he led the way to his car which had been left apart from all
the others, almost as if he had expected to want it before the end. For
a moment she hesitated, for Lady Cynthia, though utterly unconventional,
was no fool.
“Will you come with me?” he said gravely.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Up to the cliffs beyond my house. It will take ten minutes—and I want
to talk to you with the sound of the sea below us.”
“You had the car in readiness?” she said quietly.
“For both of us—or for me alone,” he answered. “If you won’t come, then
I go home. Will you come with me?” he repeated.
“Yes; I will come.”
He helped her into the car and wrapped a rug round her; then he climbed
in beside her. And as they swung out of the little square, the strains
of the next dance followed them from the open windows of the Town Hall.
He drove as he danced—perfectly; and in the dim light the girl watched
his clear-cut profile as he stared ahead into the glare of the
headlights. Away to the right his farm flashed by, the last house before
they reached the top of the cliffs. And gradually, above the thrumming
of the engine, she heard the lazy boom of the big Atlantic swell on the
rocks ahead. At last he stopped where the road ran parallel to the top
of the cliff, and switched off the lights.
“Well,” she said, a little mockingly, “is the new image correct or a
pose?”
“You dance divinely,” he answered gravely. “More divinely than any woman
I have ever danced with, and I have danced with those who are reputed to
be the show dancers of the world. But I didn’t ask you to come here to
talk about dancing; I asked you to come here in order that I might first
apologise, and then say Good-bye.”
The girl gave a little start, but said nothing.
“I talked a good deal of rot to you yesterday,” he went on, after a
moment. “You were justified in calling me a ranting tub-thumper. But I
was angry with myself, and when one is angry with oneself one does
foolish things. I know as well as you do just how little society
photographs mean: that was only a peg to hang my inexcusable tirade on.
You see, when one has fallen in love with an ideal—as I fell in love
with that picture of you, all in white in the garden at your father’s
place—and you treasure that ideal for three years, it jolts one to find
that the ideal is different to what you thought. I fell in love with a
girl in white, and sometimes in the wilds I’ve seen visions and dreamed
dreams. And then I found her a lovely being in Paquin’s most expensive
frocks; a social celebrity: a household name. And then I met her, and
knew my girl in white had gone. What matter that it was the inexorable
rule of Nature that she must go: what matter that she had changed into
an incredibly lovely woman? She had gone: my dream girl had vanished. In
her place stood Lady Cynthia Stockdale—the well-known society beauty.
Reality had come—and I was angry with you for having killed my
dream—angry with myself for having to wake up.
“Such is my apology,” he continued gravely. “Perhaps you will
understand: I think you will understand. And just because I was angry
with you, I made you dance with me to-night. I said to myself: ‘I will
show Lady Cynthia Stockdale that the man who loved the girl in white can
meet her successor on her own ground.’ That’s the idea I started with,
but things went wrong half-way through the dance. The anger died; in its
place there came something else. Even my love for the girl in white
seemed to become a bit hazy; I found that the successor had supplanted
her more completely than I realised. And since the successor has the
world at her feet—why, the breeder of dogs will efface himself, for his
own peace of mind. So, good-bye, Lady Cynthia—and the very best of
luck. If it won’t bore you I may say that I’m not really a breeder of
dogs by profession. This is just an interlude; a bit of rest spent with
the most wonderful pals in the world. I’m getting back to harness soon:
voluntary harness, I’m glad to say, as the shekels don’t matter. But
anything one can do towards greasing the wheels, and helping those
priceless fellows who gave everything without a murmur during the war,
and who are up against it now—is worth doing.”
And still she said nothing, while he backed the car on to the grass
beside the road, and turned it the way they had come. A jumble of
strange thoughts were in her mind; a jumble out of which there stuck one
dominant thing—the brown tanned face of the man beside her. And when he
stopped the car by his own farm and left her without a word of apology,
she sat quite motionless staring at the white streak of road in front.
At last she heard his footsteps coming back along the drive, and
suddenly a warm wriggling bundle was placed in her lap—a bundle which
slobbered joyfully and then fell on the floor with an indignant yelp.
“The puppy,” he said quietly. “Please take him.” And very softly under
his breath he added: “The best to the best.”
But she heard him, and even as she stooped to lift the puppy on to her
knees, her heart began to beat madly. She knew: at last, she knew.
“I’ll take you back to the dance,” he was saying, “and afterwards I’ll
deposit that young rascal at Mrs. Laverton’s house.”
And then for the first time she spoke.
“Please go to Ada’s house first. Afterwards we’ll see about the dance.”
He bowed and swung the car left-handed through the lodge gates.
“Will you wait for me?” she said, as he pulled up at the front door.
“As long as you like,” he answered courteously.
“Because I may be some time,” she continued a little unevenly. “And
don’t wait for me here: wait for me where the drive runs through that
little copse, half-way down to the lodge.”
The next instant she had disappeared into the house, with the puppy in
her arms. Why by the little copse? wondered the man as he slowly drove
the car down the drive. The butler had seen them already, so what did it
matter? He pulled up the car in the shadow of a big oak tree, and lit a
cigarette. Then, with his arms resting on the steering wheel, he sat
staring in front of him. He had done a mad thing, and she’d taken it
wonderfully well. He always had done mad things all his life; he was
made that way. But this was the maddest he had ever done. With a grim
smile he pictured her infuriated partners, waiting in serried rows by
the door, cursing him by all their gods. And then the smile faded, and
he sighed, while his knuckles gleamed white on the wheel. If only she
wasn’t so gloriously pretty; if only she wasn’t so utterly alive and
wonderful. Well—it was the penalty of playing with fire; and it had
been worth it. Yes; it had been worth it—even if the wound never quite
healed.
“_A fool there was, and he made his prayer. . . ._”
He pitched his cigarette away, and suddenly he stiffened and sat
motionless, while something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him,
and the blood hammered hotly at his temples. A girl in white was
standing not five feet from him on the fringe of the little wood: a girl
holding a puppy in her arms. And then he heard her speaking.
“It’s not the same frock—but it’s the nearest I can do.”
She came up to the car, and once again over the head of the puppy their
eyes met.
“I’ve been looking,” she said steadily, “for the real thing. I don’t
_think_ I’ve found it—I _know_ I have.”
“My dear!” he stammered hoarsely. “Oh! my dear dream girl.”
“Take me back to the cliff, Desmond,” she whispered. “Take me back to
our cliff.”
And an outraged puppy, bouncing off the running-board on to a stray
fir-cone, viewed the proceedings of the next five minutes with silent
displeasure.
_XI_ _A Glass of Whisky_
“IT’S as easy as shelling peas to be a detective in fiction,” grunted
the Barrister. “He’s merely the author of the yarn disguised as a
character, and he knows the solution before he starts.”
“But the reader doesn’t, if the story is told well,” objected the
Doctor. “And that’s all that matters.”
“Oh! I grant you that,” said the Barrister, lighting a cigar. “I’m not
inveighing against the detective story—I love ’em. All I’m saying is
that in life a detective’s job is a very different matter to—well, take
the illustrious example—to that of Sherlock Holmes. He’s got to make
the crime fit to the clues, not the clues fit into the crime. It’s not
so terribly difficult to reconstruct the murder of the Prime Minister
from a piece of charred paper discovered in the railway refreshment-room
at Bath—in fiction; it’s altogether a different matter in reality.”
The Soldier thoughtfully filled his pipe.
“And yet there have been many cases when the reconstruction has been
made on some clue almost equally ‘flimsy,’” he murmured.
“A few,” conceded the Barrister. “But nine out of ten are built up with
laborious care. The structure does not rest on any one fact—but on a
whole lot of apparently unimportant and trivial ones. Of course it’s
more spectacular to bring a man to the gallows because half a brick was
found lying on the front door-step, but in practice it doesn’t happen.”
“It does—sometimes,” remarked a quiet, sandy-haired man who was helping
himself to a whisky-and-soda. “It does sometimes, you man of law. Your
remarks coupled with my present occupation remind me of just such a
case.”
“Your present occupation appears to be drinking whisky,” said the
Doctor, curiously.
“Precisely,” returned the other. “Almost as prosaic a thing as our legal
luminary’s half-brick.” He settled himself comfortably in a chair, and
the others leaned forward expectantly. “And yet on that very ordinary
pastime hinged an extremely interesting case: one in which I was lucky
enough to play a principal part.”
“The night is yet young, old man,” said the Barrister. “It’s up to you
to prove your words, and duly confound me.”
The sandy-haired man took a sip of his drink: then he put the glass on
the table beside him and began.
“Well, if it won’t bore you, I’m agreeable. I’ll tell you the whole
thing exactly as it took place, only altering the names of the people
involved. It happened before the war—in that hot summer of 1911, to be
exact. I’d been working pretty hard in London, and about the end of July
I got an invitation to go down and stop with some people in Devonshire.
I will call them the Marleys, and they lived just outside a small
village on the north coast. The family consisted of old Marley, who was
a man rising sixty, and his two daughters, Joan and Hilda. There was
also Jack Fairfax, through whom, as a matter of fact, I had first got to
know them.
“Jack was about my own age—thirty odd, and we’d been up at Cambridge
together. He was no relation to old Marley, but he was an orphan, and
Marley was his guardian, or had been when Jack was a youngster. And from
the very first Jack and the old man had not got on.
“Marley was not everybody’s meat, by a long way—rather a
queer-tempered, secretive blighter; and Jack Fairfax had the devil of a
temper at times. When he was a boy he had no alternative except to do as
his guardian told him, but even in those early days, as I gathered
subsequently, there had been frequent storms. And when he came down from
Cambridge there were two or three most unholy rows which culminated in
Jack leaving the house for good.
“It was apparently this severance from the two girls, whom he had more
or less regarded as sisters, which caused the next bust-up. And this
one, according to Jack, was in the nature of a volcanic eruption. The
two girls had come up to London to go through the season with some aunt,
and Jack had seen a good deal of them with the net result that he and
Joan had fallen in love with each other. Then the fat was in the fire.
Jack straightway had gone down to Devonshire to ask old Marley’s
consent: old Marley had replied in terms which, judging from Jack’s
account of the interview, had contained a positive profusion of
un-Parliamentary epithets. Jack had lost his temper properly—and, well,
you know, the usual thing. At any rate, the long and the short of it was
that old Marley had recalled both his daughters from London, and had
sworn that if he ever saw Jack near the house again he’d pepper him with
a shot-gun. To which Jack had replied that only his grey hairs and his
gout saved Mr. Marley from the biggest hiding he’d ever had in his
life—even if not the biggest he deserved. With which genial exchange of
playful badinage I gathered the interview ended. And that was how
matters stood when I went down in July, 1911.
“For some peculiar reason the old man liked me, even though I was a
friend of Jack’s. And in many ways I quite liked him, though there was
always something about him which defeated me. Of course, he had a foul
temper—but it wasn’t altogether that. He seemed to me at times to be in
fear of something or somebody; and yet, though I say that now, I don’t
know that I went as far as thinking so at the time. It was an almost
indefinable impression—vague and yet very real.
“The two girls were perfectly charming, though they were both a little
afraid of their father. How long it would have taken Joan to overcome
this timidity, and go to Jack without her father’s consent, I don’t
know. And incidentally, as our legislators say, the question did not
arise. Fate held the ace of trumps, and proceeded to deal it during my
visit.”
The sandy-haired man leant back in his chair and crossed his legs
deliberately.
“I think it was about the fourth day after I arrived (he went on, after
a while) that the tragedy happened. We were sitting in the drawing-room
after dinner—a couple of men whose names I forget, and a girl friend of
Hilda’s. Hilda herself was there, and Joan, who seemed very preoccupied,
had come in about a quarter of an hour previously. I had noticed that
Hilda had looked at her sister inquiringly as she entered, and that Joan
had shrugged her shoulders. But nothing had been said, and naturally I
asked no questions with the others there, though from the air of
suppressed excitement on Joan’s face I knew there was something in the
wind.
“Old Marley himself was not with us: he was in his study at the other
end of the house. The fact was not at all unusual: he frequently retired
to his own den after dinner, sometimes joining the rest of the party for
a few minutes before going to bed, more often not appearing again till
the following morning. And so we all sat there talking idly, with the
windows wide open and the light shining out on to the lawn. It must have
been somewhere about ten to a quarter past when suddenly Hilda gave a
little scream.
“‘What do you want?’ she cried. ‘Who are you?’
“I swung round in my chair, to find a man standing on the lawn outside,
in the centre of the light. He was facing us, and as we stared at him he
came nearer till he was almost in the room. And the first thing that
struck me was that he looked a little agitated.
“‘You will excuse me appearing like this,’ he said, ‘but——’ He broke
off and looked at me. ‘Might I have a word with you alone, sir?’
“I glanced at the others: obviously he was a stranger. No trace of
recognition appeared on anyone’s face, and I began to feel a little
suspicious.
“‘What is it?’ I cried. ‘What can you possibly want to speak to me about
that you can’t say now?’
“He shrugged his shoulders slightly. ‘As you will,’ he answered. ‘My
idea was to avoid frightening the ladies. In the room at the other end
of the house a man has been murdered.’
“For a moment everyone was too thunderstruck to reply; then Hilda gave a
choking cry.
“‘What sort of a man?’ she said, breathlessly.
“‘An elderly man of, I should think, about sixty,’ returned the other,
gravely, and Hilda buried her face in her hands.
“‘I will come with, you at once, sir,’ I said, hurriedly, and the two
other men rose. Instinctively, I think, we all knew it must be old
Marley: there was no one else it could be. But the sudden shock of it
had dazed us all. I glanced at Joan. She was staring at the man like a
girl bereft of her senses, and I put my hand reassuringly on her
shoulder. And then she looked up at me, and the expression in her eyes
pulled me together. It was like a cold douche, and it acted
instantaneously. Because it wasn’t horror or dazed stupefaction that I
read on her face: it was terror—agonised terror. And suddenly I
remembered her air of suppressed excitement earlier in the evening.”
Once again the sandy-haired man paused while the others waited in
silence for him to continue.
“It was old Marley right enough (he went on quietly). We walked round
the front of the house until we came to the window of his study, and
there instinctively we paused. The window was open, and he was sitting
at his desk quite motionless. His head had fallen forward, and on his
face was a look of dreadful fear.
“For a while none of us moved. Then, with an effort, I threw my leg over
the window-sill and entered.
“‘He’s quite dead,’ I said, and I felt my voice was shaking. ‘We’d
better send for the police.’
“The others nodded, and in silence I picked up the telephone.
“‘Mr. Marley’s been killed,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Will you send
someone up at once?’
“And then for the first time I noticed the poker lying beside the chair,
and saw the back of the old man’s head. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and
one of the other men staying in the house—a youngster—turned very
white, and went to the window.
“‘Pretty obvious how it was done,’ said the stranger, quietly. ‘Well,
gentlemen, nothing ought to be touched in this room until the police
arrive. I suggest that we should draw the curtains and go somewhere else
to wait for them.’
“I don’t think any of us were sorry to fall in with his suggestion. I
also don’t think I’ve ever drunk such a large whisky-and-soda as I did a
few minutes later. Discovering the body had been bad enough: breaking
the news to the two girls was going to be worse.
“It was Joan who met me in the hall—and we stared at one another in
silence. Then I nodded my head stupidly.
“‘It’s father,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, my God!’
“I put out my hand to steady her, and she was looking at me with a fixed
stare.
“‘Don’t you understand?’ she muttered, hoarsely, and swallowing all the
time. ‘Don’t you understand? Jack has been here to-night.’
“‘Jack!’ I looked at her foolishly. ‘Jack!’
“And then her full meaning struck me.
“‘How did that man find out?’ she whispered. ‘And who is he?’
“‘I don’t know. I’ll go and ask him.’ I was still trying to adjust this
new development—and her next words seemed to come from a great
distance.
“‘Do something. For God’s sake—do something.’
“Then she turned and left me, and I watched her go up the stairs,
walking stiffly and clinging to the banisters.
“So Jack had been there! And old Marley was dead! Murdered! Hit on the
head with a poker. And Jack had been there. It’s only in romantic
fiction that the reader is expected to assume the impossibility of the
hero committing a crime, owing to the extreme beauty of his nature. And
this wasn’t romantic fiction. It was hard, brutal reality. The two facts
stood there, side by side, in all their dazzling simplicity. Jack’s
nature was not supremely beautiful. He was an ordinary man, with the
devil of a temper when it was roused.
“Mechanically I started to walk back to the room where I had left the
other three men. They were sitting in silence when I entered, and after
a while the stranger got up.
“‘A dreadful thing to happen,’ he said, gravely.
“‘May I ask, sir,’ I began, ‘how you came to discover it?’
“‘Very simply,’ he answered. ‘I was strolling along the road, going back
to the village inn where I have been stopping for two or three nights,
when I saw the window of the room through the trees. The light was
shining out, and I could see someone sitting at the desk. More out of
idle curiosity than anything else, I paused for a moment or two, and
then something began to arouse my suspicions. The man at the desk seemed
so motionless. I thought perhaps he had fainted, or was ill, and after a
little hesitation I went in at the gate and looked through the window.
To my horror I saw he was dead—and I at once came round to the other
room from which the light was shining, and where I found you.’
“‘There is a point which may have some bearing on the crime,’ he
continued, after a pause. ‘On my way up from the inn a man passed me. He
was coming from this direction, and seemed to me to be in a very excited
condition. It was his obvious agitation that made me notice him at the
time, though in the dim light I couldn’t see his face very clearly. But
he was swinging his stick in the air, and muttering to himself. At the
moment I didn’t think much about it. But now——’ He shrugged his
shoulders slightly. ‘Of course, I may be completely wrong, but I think
it is a thing worth mentioning to the police.’
“‘Would you know the man again?’ I asked, trying to speak quite
normally.
“‘Well, he was tall—six feet at least—and broad. And he was
clean-shaven.’ He spoke thoughtfully, weighing his words. ‘I might know
him again—but I wouldn’t swear to it. One has to be doubly careful if a
man’s life is at stake.’
“I turned away abruptly. Jack was tall and broad and clean-shaven.
Strive as I would, the deadly suspicion was beginning to grip me that
Jack, in a fit of ungovernable passion, had killed the old man. And at
such moments, whatever may be the legal aspect of the matter, one’s main
idea is how best to help a pal. If Jack had indeed done it, what was the
best thing to do?
“I rang the bell, and told the scared-looking maid to bring the whisky
and some glasses. Then, with a muttered apology, I left the room. I felt
I wanted to talk to Joan about it. I found her dry-eyed and quite
composed, though she was evidently holding herself under control with a
great effort. And briefly I told her what the stranger had said.
“She heard me out in silence: then she spoke with a quiet assurance that
surprised me.
“‘If Jack did it,’ she said, ‘he doesn’t know he’s done it. He doesn’t
know he’s killed—father.’ She faltered a bit over the last word, and I
didn’t interrupt. ‘What I mean is this,’ she went on after a moment. ‘I
know Jack—better than anyone else. I know those rages of his—when he
sees red. But they’re over in a minute. He’s capable of anything for a
second or two, but if he’d done it, Hugh, if he’d hit father—and killed
him—his remorse would have been dreadful. He wouldn’t have run away:
I’m certain of that. That’s why I say that if Jack did it he doesn’t
know—he killed him.’
“I said nothing: there was no good telling her that it wasn’t one blow,
nor yet two or three, that had been used. There was no good telling her
that it was no accidental thing done unwittingly in the heat of the
moment—that it was an absolute impossibility for the man who had done
it to be in ignorance of the fact. And yet, though I realised all that,
her simple conviction put new hope into me. Illogical, I admit, but I
went downstairs feeling more confident.
“I found that the local police had arrived—a sergeant and an ordinary
constable—and had already begun their investigations. The principal
evidence, of course, came from the stranger, and he repeated to them
what he had already told me. His name apparently was Lenham—Victor
Lenham—and the police knew he had been stopping at the local inn.
“‘You saw the body through the window, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘and
then went round to the drawing-room?’
“‘That is so, sergeant.’
“‘You didn’t go into the room?’
“‘Not until later—with these gentlemen. You see,’ he added, ‘I’ve seen
death too often not to recognise it. And as, in a way, you will
understand, it was no concern of mine, I thought it advisable to have
some member of the house itself with me before entering the room.’
“‘Quite, sir, quite.’ The sergeant nodded portentously. ‘Is there
anything else you can tell us?’
“‘Well,’ said Lenham, ‘there is a point, which I have already mentioned
to this gentleman.’ He glanced at me, and then, turning back to the
sergeant, he told him about the man he had passed on the road. And it
was when he came to the description that suddenly the constable gave a
whistle of excitement. The sergeant frowned on him angrily, but the
worthy P.C., whose only experience of crime up-to-date had been
assisting inebriated villagers home, had quite lost his head.
“‘Mr. Fairfax, sergeant,’ he exploded. ‘’E was down here to-night.
Caught the last train, ’e did. Jenkins at the station told me—sure
thing.’
“‘Good heavens, sergeant!’ I said angrily, ‘what the devil is the man
talking about? He surely doesn’t suppose that Mr. Fairfax had anything
to do with it?’
“But the mischief was done. The sergeant formally told off his
indiscreet subordinate, but it was obvious that it was merely an
official rebuke. In a village like that everybody knows everybody else’s
private affairs, and the strained relations between the dead man and
Jack Fairfax were common property. I could see at a glance that the
sergeant regarded the matter as solved already.
“‘Would you recognise this man again, sir?’ he demanded, and Lenham gave
him the same guarded reply as he had already given to me. He might—but
he wouldn’t swear to it. It was impossible to be too careful in such a
case, he repeated, and it was practically dark when he had passed the
man.
“It was all duly noted down, and then we adjourned to the room of the
tragedy. The constable—a ruddy-faced young man—turned pale when he saw
the body; then he pulled himself together and assisted the sergeant in
his formal examination. I didn’t blame him—we were all feeling the
strain, somewhat naturally. Lenham seemed the least concerned, but it
wasn’t a personal matter with him as it was with us, especially with me.
All the time I was fidgeting round the room, subconsciously watching the
stolid sergeant making notes, but with only one thought dominating my
brain—how best to help Jack. Not that I had definitely made up my mind
that he’d done it, but even at that stage of the proceedings I realised
that appearances were against him. And Joan’s words were ringing in my
head—‘For God’s sake—do something.’
“After a while I crossed the room to a small table on which a tantalus
of whisky and two glasses were standing. I looked at the tray with
unseeing eyes—an Indian silver one, which old Marley had been very
proud of. And then mechanically I picked up the glasses. I don’t know
why I did so; the action was, as I say, mechanical. They had been
used—both of them: they had been used for whisky—one could tell that
by the smell. And when I put the glasses down again on the tray, the
sergeant was approaching with his note-book.”
The sandy-haired man paused, with a reminiscent smile.
“Ever noticed how extraordinarily dense you can be at times, even with a
plain fact staring you straight in the face? There was one staring at me
for ten minutes that night before my grey matter began to stir.”
“Just hold on a minute,” interrupted the Barrister. “Is this plain fact
staring us in the face now?”
“No, it isn’t,” conceded the narrator. “At the moment you are in the
position of the other people in that room. Mind you, I’ve left out
nothing in order to mystify you; the story, as I have given it to you,
is a plain unvarnished account of what took place. But I’m out to
disprove your half-brick theory, lawyer-man, and to do so with such
little story-telling ability as I happen to possess.
“Now, I won’t weary you with what happened during the next week, beyond
saying that an inquest and a burglary took place. And the latter, at any
rate, was very successful. The former moved along obvious lines, and
resulted in Jack Fairfax being arrested for the wilful murder of his
guardian, Roger Marley. The evidence was purely circumstantial, but it
was about as damning as it could be. Jack admitted to having had an
interview with Marley that night; he admitted that they had had an
appalling quarrel. What was even worse was that he admitted to having
struck the old man in a furious fit of rage, but beyond that he denied
everything. He absolutely swore that the blow he struck Marley could not
have killed him; further, that he had never handled the poker. And then,
a finger-print expert proved that he had. That was the worst shock of
the lot, and his explanation given afterwards that, now he came to think
of it, he had picked up the poker to ram the tobacco down in his pipe
convinced no one. He indignantly denied that his action in going up to
London by the last train was in any sense running away; he had intended
all along to go up by that train. And his reason for leaving the house
after the interview without attempting to see his _fiancée_ was that he
was in such a rage with her father that he couldn’t trust himself to
speak to her for fear of what he might say.
“So much for Jack Fairfax’s case—pretty black, as you will agree. In
fact, I don’t think I should be exaggerating if I said that there were
only two people in England convinced of his innocence. And he was one of
them. Even Joan’s faith was shaken, a little.
“It was on the tenth day after the inquest that I rang up the inspector
who had come over from Exeter to look into the case, with a request that
he would come up to the house. I told him that I had certain information
which might interest him and suggested that he might care to hear it. I
also rang up Lenham at the inn, and asked him if he would mind coming
along at the same time. I told him I’d discovered the burglar. By the
way, I didn’t tell you that it was his room that had been burgled.
“In about half an hour they arrived, and the local sergeant as well.
“‘What’s this about my burglar?’ laughed Lenham. ‘A funny
fellow—because as far as I can see he didn’t take anything.’
“‘All in good time,’ I answered, smiling. ‘I’ve found out a lot of
strange things in town.’
“Lenham looked at me quickly. ‘Oh! have you been to London?’ he
inquired.
“‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘for two days. Most entertaining.’
“And then the inspector chipped in, impatiently:
“‘Well, sir, what is it you want to say to me?’ He looked at his watch
suggestively.
“‘First of all, inspector,’ I said, quietly, ‘I want to ask you a
question. Have you ever heard the legal maxim, _Falsus in uno, falsus in
omne_?’
“I could see that he hadn’t the faintest idea what I was driving at. I
could also see that Lenham’s eyes had suddenly become strained.
“‘It means,’ I went on, ‘that if a witness—let us say—is proved to
have told one lie, there is strong presumptive evidence that he has told
several. At any rate, the value of his statement is greatly diminished.
Do you agree?’
“‘Certainly,’ he answered. ‘But I don’t see——’
“‘You will shortly, inspector,’ I remarked. ‘Now who would you consider
the principal witness against Mr. Fairfax?’
“‘Mr. Fairfax himself,’ said the inspector, promptly.
“‘And leaving him out?’ I asked.
“‘Well—I suppose—this gentleman here.’ He nodded towards Lenham, who
was sitting quite motionless, watching me.
“‘Precisely,’ I murmured. ‘Then why was it necessary for Mr. Lenham to
state that his name was Lenham, and further to swear that he had never
seen Mr. Marley before—when both those statements were lies?’
“‘What the devil do you mean?’ snarled Lenham, rising from his chair.
‘What do you mean by saying my name is not Lenham?’
“‘You wanted to know about the burglar who took nothing, didn’t you?’ I
said, grimly. ‘Well—I was the burglar, and I took something very
valuable—an address.’
“‘What on earth——’ began the inspector, and then he glanced at Lenham.
‘I think you’d better sit still, Mr. Lenham,’ he said, quietly, ‘until
we have heard what this gentleman has to say.’
“Lenham sat back in his chair with a venomous look at me. Then he
laughed harshly.
“‘By all means, inspector,’ he remarked. ‘Only it is a little
disconcerting to be cross-examined suddenly by a man who admits he is a
thief.’
“As a matter of fact the man didn’t know how much I knew—or how little;
and between ourselves it was deuced little. But, watching him closely, I
knew I was right, and my only hope was to bluff him into some admission.
“‘Shall we endeavour to reconstruct the events of the night when Mr.
Marley was murdered, Mr. Lenardi?’ I began, quietly. ‘That is your name,
is it not?—and you are a Corsican.’
“‘Well,’ he said, ‘what if I am? I had a very good reason for changing
my name.’
“‘Doubtless,’ I agreed. ‘Let us hope your reason will prove satisfactory
to the inspector. May I suggest, however, unless you can supply a better
one, that your reason was to avoid the notoriety which would inevitably
arise if a foreigner came to stay in a small village like this? And you
were particularly anxious to avoid any possibility of Mr. Marley knowing
that a Corsican was in the neighbourhood.’
“He laughed sarcastically. ‘I think that I have already stated that I
have never even seen Mr. Marley,’ he sneered.
“‘Oh!’ I remarked. ‘Then might I ask you, inspector, to have a look at
this photograph? It is old and faded, but the faces are still clear.’
“I handed the photograph to the inspector, and with a sudden curse the
Corsican whipped out a knife and sprang at me. He realised even then
that the game was up, and his one thought was to revenge himself on me.
But I’d been expecting some such move, and I’d got a revolver handy.
Incidentally, revolver shooting is one of the few things I can do, and I
plugged him through the forearm before he could do any damage.
“He stood there glaring at me sullenly, and then the inspector took a
hand.
“‘Stand by that window, sergeant. Now, Mr. whatever-your-name-is, no
monkey tricks. Do you still deny that you knew Mr. Marley?”
“‘I refuse to answer,’ snarled the man.
“‘Because this photograph is of you and Marley and a woman. Taken abroad
somewhere.’
“‘Naples, to be exact, inspector,’ I said. ‘I found it in his rooms in
Berners Street, the address of which I got as the result of my burglary
here.’
“The Corsican stood there like a beast at bay, and the inspector’s face
was stern.
“‘What explanation have you got to give?’ he rapped out. ‘Why did you
lie in evidence?’
“‘I refuse to answer,’ repeated the man.
“‘Since he is so uncommunicative,’ I remarked, ‘perhaps you will allow
me to reconstruct the crime. Much of it, of necessity, is guess-work.
For instance, Lenardi, what was your motive in murdering Mr. Marley?’ I
rapped the question out at him, and though he’d have killed me willingly
if he could have got at me he didn’t deny it.
“‘Well,’ I continued, ‘it doesn’t matter. Let us assume it was the girl
in that photograph. You tracked Marley to earth here—in this
village—that is all that concerns us. And having tracked him, you bided
your time. Vengeance is the sweeter for delay. Each evening you walked
up here, watching him through the window—gloating over what was to
come. And then one night you found another man with him—Jack
Fairfax—and they were quarrelling. At once you saw that this was your
opportunity. However skilfully you hid your traces under ordinary
circumstances, there was always a grave risk; but here, ready to hand,
was a marvellous stroke of luck. Perhaps you crept nearer the window in
the darkness, secure in the fact that the room was in a remote part of
the house. You saw Jack Fairfax leave, blind with rage, and then,
skulking out of the night, you entered the room yourself.’
“‘It’s a lie!’ shouted the Corsican, but his lips were white.
“‘And then old Marley saw you, and the rage on his face was replaced by
a dreadful terror. He knew what you had come for. I don’t think you
wasted much time, Lenardi. You picked up the poker with a gloved
hand—oh! you were taking no chances—and you battered his head in. And
then, Lenardi—and then you drank a whisky-and-soda. You drank a
whisky-and-soda, and then you decided on a very bold move: you came and
alarmed the rest of the house. It was clever of you, but——’”
The sandy-haired man smiled thoughtfully.
“We sprang forward together—the inspector and I; but we were too late.
The Corsican had swallowed poison before we could stop him. He was dead
in half a minute and he never spoke again. So I can only assume that my
imagination was not far off the rails.”
“Yes, but hang it, man,” said the Barrister, peevishly, “the whole thing
was a pure fluke on your part.”
“I’ve never laid any claim to being a detective,” murmured the
sandy-haired man, mildly, rising and helping himself to some more
whisky. “All that I said was that there are times when you can build an
entire case from your half-brick or its equivalent. And when you find
two glasses both smelling strongly of whisky in a room, you assume that
two people have drunk whisky. Which was where the Corsican tripped up.
You see, he distinctly swore he hadn’t entered the room till he came in
with us.”
The Barrister raised protesting hands to the ceiling.
“The man is indubitably mad,” he remarked to no one in particular. “Was
not Fairfax in the room most of the evening?”
The sandy-haired man looked even more mild.
“I think that perhaps I ought to have mentioned one fact sooner, but I
was afraid it would spoil the story. The cat has an aversion to water;
the fish have an aversion to dry land. But both these aversions pale
into total insignificance when compared to Jack Fairfax’s aversion to
whisky.”
He gazed thoughtfully at his glass.
“A strange flaw in an otherwise fine character. Thank heavens the
symptom is not common!”
_XII_ _The Man Who Could Not Get Drunk_
“YES; she’s a beautiful woman. There’s no doubt about that. What did you
say her name was?”
“I haven’t mentioned her name,” I returned. “But there’s no secret about
it. She is Lady Sylvia Clavering.”
“Ah! Sylvia. Of course, I remember now.”
He drained his glass of brandy and sat back in his chair, while his eyes
followed one of the most beautiful women in London as she threaded her
way through the tables towards the entrance of the restaurant. An
obsequious head-waiter bent almost double as she passed; her exit, as
usual, befitted one of the most be-photographed women of Society. And it
was not until the doors had swung to behind her and her escort that the
man I had been dining with spoke again.
“I guess that little bow she gave as she passed here was yours, not
mine,” he said, with the suspicion of a smile.
“Presumably,” I answered a little curtly. “Unless you happen to know
her. I have that privilege.”
His smile grew a trifle more pronounced though his eyes were set and
steady. “Know her?” He beckoned to the waiter for more brandy. “No, I
can’t say I know her. In fact, my sole claim to acquaintanceship is that
I carried her for three miles in the dark one night, slung over my
shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But I don’t know her.”
“You did what?” I cried, staring at him in amazement.
“Sounds a bit over the odds, I admit.” He was carefully cutting the end
off his cigar. “Nevertheless it stands.”
Now when any man states that he has carried a woman for three miles,
whether it be in the dark or not, and has followed up such an
introduction so indifferently that the woman fails even to recognise him
afterwards, there would seem to be the promise of a story. But when the
woman is one of the Lady Sylvia Claverings of this world, and the man is
of the type of my dinner companion, the promise resolves itself into a
certainty.
Merton was one of those indefinable characters who defy placing. You
felt that if you landed in Yokohama, and he was with you, you would
instinctively rely on him for information as to the best thing to do and
the best way to do it. There seemed to be no part of the globe, from the
South Sea Islands going westward to Alaska, with which he was not as
well acquainted as the ordinary man is with his native village. At the
time I did not know him well. The dinner was only our third meeting, and
during the meal we confined ourselves to the business which had been the
original cause of our running across one another at all. But even in
that short time I had realised that Billy Merton was a white man. And
not only was he straight, but he was essentially a useful person to have
at one’s side in a tight corner.
“Are you disposed to elaborate your somewhat amazing statement?” I
asked, after a pause.
For a moment or two he hesitated, and his eyes became thoughtful.
“I don’t suppose there’s any reason why I shouldn’t,” he answered
slowly. “It’s ancient history now—ten years or so.”
“That was just about the time she was married,” I remarked.
He nodded. “She was on her honeymoon when it happened. Well, if you want
to hear the yarn, come round to my club.”
“Why, certainly,” I said, beckoning for the bill. “Let’s get on at once;
I’m curious.”
“Do you know Africa at all?” he asked me, as we pulled our chairs up to
the fire. We had the room almost to ourselves; a gentle snoring from the
other fireplace betokened the only other occupant.
“Egypt,” I answered. “Parts of South Africa. The usual thing: nothing
out of the ordinary.”
He nodded. “It was up the West Coast that it happened,” he began, after
his pipe was going to his satisfaction. “And though I’ve been in many
God-forsaken spots in my life, I’ve never yet struck anything to compare
with that place. Nwambi it was called—just a few shacks stretching in
from the sea along a straggling, dusty street—one so-called shop and a
bar. It called itself an hotel, but Lord help the person who tried to
put up there. It was a bar pure and simple, though no one could call the
liquor that. Lukewarm gin, some vile substitute for whisky, the usual
short drinks, and some local poisons formed the stock; I ought to
know—I was the bartender.
“For about three miles inland there stretched a belt of stinking
swamp—one vast malaria hot-bed—and over this belt the straggling
street meandered towards the low foot-hills beyond. At times it almost
lost itself: but if you didn’t give up hope, or expire from the stench,
and cast about you’d generally find it again leading you on to where you
felt you might get a breath of God’s fresh air in the hills. As a matter
of fact you didn’t; the utmost one can say is that it wasn’t quite so
appalling as in the swamp itself. Mosquitoes! Heavens! they had to be
seen to be believed. I’ve watched ’em there literally like a grey
cloud.”
Merton smiled reminiscently.
“That—and the eternal boom of the sea on the bar half a mile out, made
up Nwambi. How any white man ever got through alive if he had to stop
there any length of time is beyond me; to be accurate, very few did. It
was a grave, that place, and only the down-and-outers went there. At the
time I was one myself.
“The sole reason for its existence at all was that the water alongside
the quay was deep enough for good-sized boats to come in, and most of
the native produce from the district inland found its way down to Nwambi
for shipment. Once over the belt of swamp and a few miles into the hills
the climate was much better, and half a dozen traders in a biggish way
had bungalows there. They were Dagos most of them—it wasn’t a British
part of the West Coast—and I frankly admit that my love for the Dago
has never been very great. But there was one Scotchman, McAndrew,
amongst them—and he was the first fellow who came into the bar after
I’d taken over the job. He was down for the night about some question of
freight.
“‘You’re new,’ he remarked, leaning against the counter. ‘What’s
happened to the other fellow? Is he dead?’
“‘Probably,’ I returned. ‘What do you want?’
“‘Gin—double tot. What’s your name?’
“I told him, and he pondered the matter while he finished his drink.
“‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘I warned your predecessor, and I’ll warn
you. Don’t fall foul of my manager down here. Name of Mainwaring—I do
_not_ think. Don’t give him advice about keeping off the drink, or he’ll
kill you. He’s killing himself, but that’s his business. I’m tough—you
look tough, but he’s got us beat to a frazzle. And take cover if he ever
gets mixed up with any of the Dagos—the place isn’t healthy.’
“It was just at that moment that the door swung open and a tall, lean
fellow lounged in. He’d got an eyeglass screwed into one eye, and a pair
of perfectly-fitting polo boots with some immaculate white breeches
encased his legs. His shirt was silk, his sun-helmet spotless; in fact,
he looked like the typical English dude of fiction.
“‘My manager, Mainwaring,’ said McAndrew, by way of introduction.
“Mainwaring stared at me for a moment or two—then he shrugged his
shoulders.
“‘You look sane; however, if you come here you can’t be. Double gin—and
one for yourself.’
“He spoke with a faint, almost affected drawl, and as I poured out the
drinks I watched him covertly. When he first came in I had thought him a
young man; now I wasn’t so sure. It was his eyes that made one wonder as
to his age—they were so utterly tired. If he was indeed drinking
himself to death, there were no traces of it as yet on his face, and his
hand as he lifted his glass was perfectly steady. But those eyes of
his—I can see them now. The cynical bitterness, the concentrated
weariness of all Hell was in them. And it’s not good for any man to look
like that; certainly not a man of thirty-five, as I afterwards
discovered his age to be.”
Merton paused and sipped his whisky-and-soda, while from the other side
of the room came indications that the sleeper still slept.
“I never found out what his real name was,” he continued, thoughtfully.
“Incidentally, it doesn’t much matter. We knew him as Mainwaring, and
the J. which preceded it in his signature was assumed to stand for James
or Jimmy. Anyway, he answered to it, which was the main point. As far as
I know, he never received a letter and he never read a paper, and I
guess I got to know him better than anyone else in that hole. Every
morning, punctual to the second at eleven o’clock, he’d stroll into the
bar and have three double-gins. Sometimes he’d talk in his faint, rather
pleasant drawl; more often he’d sit silently at one of the rickety
tables, staring out to sea, with his long legs stretched out in front of
him. But whichever he did—whatever morning it was—you could always see
your face in his boots.
“I remember once, after I’d been there about a month, I started to pull
his leg about those boots of his.
“‘Take the devil of a long time cleaning them in the morning, don’t you,
Jimmy?’ I said, as he lounged up to the bar for his third gin.
“‘Yes,’ he answered, leaning over the counter so that his face was close
to mine. ‘Got anything further to say about my appearance?’
“‘Jimmy,’ I replied, ‘your appearance doesn’t signify one continental
damn to me. But as the only two regular British _habitués_ of this
first-class American bar, don’t let’s quarrel.’
“He grinned—a sort of slow, lazy grin.
“‘Think not?’ he said. ‘Might amuse one. However, perhaps you’re right.’
“And so it went on—one sweltering day after another, until one could
have gone mad with the hideous boredom of it. I used to stand behind the
bar there sometimes and curse weakly and foolishly like a child, but I
never heard Mainwaring do it. What happened during those steamy nights
in the privacy of his own room, when he—like the rest of us—was
fighting for sleep, is another matter. During the day he never varied.
Cold, cynical, immaculate, he seemed a being apart—above our little
worries and utterly contemptuous of them. Maybe he was right—maybe the
thing that had downed him was too big for foolish cursing. Knowing what
I do now, a good many things are clear which one didn’t realise at the
time.
“Only once, I think, did I ever get in the slightest degree intimate
with him. It was latish one evening, and the bar was empty save for us
two. I’d been railing against the fate that had landed me penniless in
such an accursed spot, and after a while he chipped in, in his lazy
drawl:
“‘Would a thousand be any good to you?’
“I looked at him speechless. ‘A thousand pounds?’ I stammered.
“‘Yes; I think I can raise that for you.’ He was staring in front of him
as he spoke. ‘And yet I don’t know. I’ve got more or less used to you
and you’ll have to stop a bit longer. Then we’ll see about it.’
“‘But, good heavens! man,’ I almost shouted, ‘do you mean to say that
you stop here when you can lay your hand on a thousand pounds?’
“‘It appears so, doesn’t it?’ He rose and stalked over to the bar. ‘It
doesn’t much matter where you stop, Merton, when you can’t be in the one
place where you’d sell your hopes of Heaven to be. And it’s best,
perhaps, to choose a place where the end will come quickly.’
“With that he turned on his heel, and I watched him with a sort of dazed
amazement as he sauntered down the dusty road, white in the tropical
moon, towards his own shack. A thousand pounds! The thought of it rang
in my head all through the night. A thousand pounds! A fortune! And
because, out in death-spots like that, men are apt to think strange
thoughts—thoughts that look ugly by the light of day—I found myself
wondering how long he could last at the rate he was going.
Two—sometimes three—bottles of gin a day: it couldn’t be long. And
then—who knew? It would be quick, the break-up; all the quicker because
there was not a trace of it now. And perhaps when it came he’d remember
about that thousand. Or I could remind him.”
Merton laughed grimly.
“Yes, we’re pretty average swine, even the best of us, when we’re up
against it, and I lay no claims to be a plaster saint. But Fate had
decreed that Jimmy Mainwaring was to find the end which he craved for
quicker than he had anticipated. Moreover—and that’s what I’ve always
been glad about—it had decreed that he was to find it before drink had
rotted that iron constitution of his; while his boots still shone and
his silk shirts remained spotless. It had decreed that he was to find it
in the way of all others that he would have chosen, had such a wild
improbability ever suggested itself. Which is going ahead a bit fast
with the yarn—but no matter.
“It was after I’d been there about three months that the incident
happened which was destined to be the indirect cause of his death. I
told you, didn’t I, that there were several Dago traders who lived up in
the foot-hills, and on the night in question three of them had come down
to Nwambi on business of some sort—amongst them one Pedro Salvas, who
was as unpleasant a specimen of humanity as I have ever met. A crafty,
orange-skinned brute, who indulged, according to common knowledge, in
every known form of vice, and a good many unknown ones too. The three of
them were sitting at a table near the door when Mainwaring lounged
in—and McAndrew’s words came back to me. The Dagos had been drinking;
Jimmy looked in his most uncompromising mood. He paused at the door, and
stared at each of them in turn through his eyeglass; then he turned his
back on them and came over to me.
“I glanced over his shoulder at the three men, and realised there was
trouble coming. They’d been whispering and muttering together the whole
evening, though at the time I had paid no attention. But now Pedro
Salvas, with an ugly flush on his ugly face, had risen and was coming
towards the bar.
“‘If one so utterly unworthy as I,’ he snarled, ‘may venture to speak to
the so very exclusive Englishman, I would suggest that he does not throw
pictures of his lady-loves about the streets.’
“He was holding something in his hand, and Jimmy swung round like a
panther. His hand went to his breast pocket; then I saw what the Dago
was holding out. It was the miniature of a girl. And after that I didn’t
see much more; I didn’t even have time to take cover. It seemed to me
that the lightning movement of Jimmy’s left hand as he grabbed the
miniature, and the terrific upper-cut with his right, were simultaneous.
Anyway, the next second he was putting the picture back in his breast
pocket, and the Dago, snarling like a mad dog, was picking himself out
of a medley of broken bottles. That was phase one. Phase two was equally
rapid, and left me blinking. There was the crack of a revolver, and at
the same moment a knife stuck out quivering in the wall behind my head.
Then there was a silence, and I collected my scattered wits.
“The revolver, still smoking, was in Jimmy’s hand: Salvas, his right arm
dripping with blood, was standing by the door, while his two pals were
crouching behind the table, looking for all the world like wild beasts
waiting to spring.
“‘Next time,’ said Jimmy, ‘I shoot to kill.’
“And he meant it. He was a bit white round the nostrils, which is a
darned dangerous sign in a man, especially if he’s got a gun and you’re
looking down the business end of it. And no one knew it better than
those three Dagos. They went on snarling, but not one of them moved an
eyelid.
“‘Put your knives on that table, you scum,’ ordered Jimmy.
“The other two obeyed, and he laughed contemptuously.
“‘Now clear out. You pollute the air.’
“For a moment or two they hesitated: then Salvas, with a prodigious
effort, regained his self-control.
“‘You are brave, Señor Mainwaring, when you have a revolver and we are
unarmed,’ he said, with a sneer.
“In two strides Jimmy was at the table where the knives were lying. He
picked one up, threw me his gun, and pointed to the other knife.
“‘I’ll fight you now, Salvas,’ he answered, quietly. ‘Knife to knife,
and to a finish.’
“But the Dago wasn’t taking any, and ’pon my soul I hardly blamed him.
For if ever a man was mad, Jimmy Mainwaring was mad that night: mad with
the madness that knows no fear and is absolutely blind to consequences.
“‘I do not brawl in bars with drunken Englishmen,’ remarked Salvas,
turning on his heel.
“A magnificent utterance, but ill-advised with Jimmy as he was. He gave
a short laugh and took a running kick, and Don Pedro Salvas disappeared
abruptly into the night. And the other two followed with celerity.
“‘You’ll be getting into trouble, old man,’ I said, as he came back to
the bar, ‘if you start that sort of game with the Dagos.’
“‘The bigger the trouble the more I’ll like it,’ he answered, shortly.
‘Give me another drink. Don’t you understand yet, Merton, that I’m
beyond caring?’
“And thinking it over since, I’ve come to the conclusion that he spoke
the literal truth. It’s a phrase often used, and very rarely meant; in
his case it was the plain, unvarnished truth. Rightly or wrongly he had
got into such a condition that he cared not one fig whether he lived or
died; if anything he preferred the latter. And falling foul of the Dago
colony was a better way than most of obtaining his preference.
“Of course, the episode that night had shown me one thing: it was a
woman who was at the bottom of it all. I didn’t ask any questions; he
wasn’t a man who took kindly to cross-examination. But I realised pretty
forcibly that if the mere handling of her picture by a Dago had produced
such a result, the matter must be serious. Who she was I hadn’t any
idea, or what was the trouble between them—and, as I say, I didn’t ask.
“And then one day a few weeks later I got the answer to the first
question. Someone left a month-old _Tatler_ in the bar, and I was
glancing through it when Mainwaring came in. I reached up for the gin
bottle to give him his usual drink, and when I turned round to hand it
to him he was staring at one of the pictures with the look of a dead man
on his face. I can see him now with his knuckles gleaming white through
the sunburn of his hands, and his great powerful chest showing under his
shirt. He stood like that maybe for five minutes—motionless; then,
without a word, he swung round and left the bar. And I picked up the
paper.”
Merton paused and drained his glass.
“Lady Sylvia’s wedding?” I asked, unnecessarily, and he nodded.
“So the first part of the riddle was solved,” he continued, quietly.
“And when two days passed by without a sign of Mainwaring, I began to be
afraid that he had solved his own riddle in his own way. But he hadn’t;
he came into the bar at ten o’clock at night, and leaned up against the
counter in his usual way.
“‘What have you been doing with yourself?’ I said, lightly.
“‘I’ve been trying to get drunk,’ he answered slowly, letting one of his
hands fall on my arm with a grip like steel. ‘And, dear God! I can’t.’
“It doesn’t sound much—told like this in the smoking-room of a London
club. But though I’ve seen and heard many things in my life that have
impressed me—horrible, dreadful things that I shall never forget—the
moment of all others that is most indelibly stamped on my brain is that
moment when, leaning across the bar, I looked into the depths of the
soul of the man who called himself Jimmy Mainwaring—the man who could
not get drunk.”
Once again he paused, and this time I did not interrupt him. He was back
in that steaming night, with the smell of stale spirits in his nostrils
and the sight of strange things in his eyes. And I felt that I, too,
could visualise that tall, immaculate Englishman leaning against the
counter—the man who was beyond caring.
“But I must get on with it,” continued Merton, after a while. “The club
will be filling up soon and I’ve only got the finish to tell you now.
And by one of those extraordinary coincidences which happen far more
frequently in life than people will allow, the finish proved a worthy
one.
“It was about two days later. I was in the bar polishing the glasses
when the door swung open and two men came in. They were obviously
English, and both of them were dressed as if they were going to a
garden-party.
“‘Thank heavens! Tommy, here’s a bar, at any rate,’ said one of them. ‘I
say, barman, what have you got?’
“Well, I had a bit of a liver, and I disliked being called barman.
“‘Several bottles of poison,’ I answered, ‘and the hell of a temper.’
“The second one laughed, and after a moment or two the other joined in.
“‘I don’t wonder at the latter commodity,’ he said. ‘This is a ghastly
hole.’
“‘I wouldn’t deny it,’ I answered. ‘What, if I may ask, has brought you
here?’
“‘Oh, we’ve had a small breakdown, and the skipper came in here to
repair it. We’ve just come ashore to have a look round.’
“I glanced through the window, and noticed for the first time that a
steam yacht was lying off the shore. She was a real beauty—looked about
a thousand tons—and I gave a sigh of envy.
“‘You’re not in want of a barman, by any chance, are you?’ I said. ‘If
so, I’ll swim out and chance the sharks.’
“‘’Fraid we’ve got everything in that line,’ he answered. ‘But select
the least deadly of your poisons, and join us.’
“And it was as I was pulling down the gin and vermouth that Jimmy
Mainwaring came into the bar. He got about half-way across the floor,
and then he stopped dead in his tracks. And I guess during the next two
seconds you could have heard a pin drop.
“‘So this is where you’ve hidden yourself,’ said the smaller of the two
men—the one who had done most of the talking. ‘I don’t think we’ll
trouble you for those drinks, barman.’
“Without another word he walked out of the place—and after a moment or
two the other man started to follow him. He hesitated as he got abreast
of Jimmy, and then for the first time Mainwaring spoke:
“‘Is she here?’
“‘Yes,’ answered the other. ‘On board the yacht. There’s a whole party
of us.’
“And with that he stepped into the street and joined his pal. With a
perfectly inscrutable look on his face Jimmy watched them as they walked
through the glaring sun and got into the small motor-boat that was
waiting alongside the quay. Then he came up to the bar.
“‘An artistic touch, doubtless, on the part of Fate,’ he remarked,
quietly. ‘But a little unnecessary.’
“And I guess I metaphorically took off my hat to him at that moment.
What he’d done, why he was there, I neither knew nor cared; all that
mattered to me was the way he took that last rotten twist of the
surgeon’s knife. Not by the quiver of an eyelid would you have known
that anything unusual had happened: he drank his three double-gins at
exactly the same rate as every other morning. And then he too swung out
of the bar, and went back to his office in McAndrew’s warehouse, leaving
me to lie down on my bed and sweat under the mosquito curtains, while I
wondered at the inscrutable working out of things. Was it blind, the
Fate that moved the pieces; or was there some definite pattern beyond
our ken? At the moment it seemed pretty blind and senseless; later
on—well, you’ll be able to form your own opinion.
“You know how quickly darkness falls in those latitudes. And it was just
before sunset that I saw a boat shoot away from the side of the yacht
and come full speed for the shore. I remember I wondered casually who
was the mug who would leave a comfortable yacht for Nwambi, especially
after the report of it that must have been given by our two morning
visitors. And then it struck me that, whoever it might be, he was
evidently in the deuce of a hurry. Almost before the boat came alongside
a man sprang out and scrambled up the steps. Then at a rapid double he
came sprinting towards me as I stood at the door of the bar. It was the
smaller of the two men who had been ashore that morning, and something
was evidently very much amiss.
“‘Where is she?’ he shouted, as soon as he came within earshot. ‘Where’s
my wife, you damned scoundrel?’
“Seeing that he was quite beside himself with worry and alarm, I let the
remark go by.
“‘Steady!’ I said, as he came gasping up to me. ‘I haven’t got your
wife; I haven’t even seen her.’
“‘It’s that card-sharper!’ he cried. ‘By God! I’ll shoot him like a dog,
if he’s tried any monkey-tricks!’
“‘Dry up, and pull yourself together,’ I said angrily. ‘If you’re
alluding to Jimmy Mainwaring——’
“And at that moment Jimmy himself stepped out of his office and strolled
across the road.
“‘You swine, you cursed card-cheat—where’s Sylvia?’
“‘What the devil are you talking about?’ said Jimmy, and his voice was
tense.
“‘She came ashore this afternoon, saying she would return in an hour,’
said the other man. ‘I didn’t know it at the time, Mr.—er—Mainwaring,
I believe you call yourself. The boat came back for her, and she was not
there. That was four hours ago. Where is she?’
“He was covering Jimmy with his revolver as he spoke.
“‘Four hours ago, Clavering! Good heavens! man—put down your gun. This
isn’t a time for amateur theatricals.’ He brushed past him as if he was
non-existent and came up to me. ‘Did you see Lady Clavering?’
“‘Not a trace,’ I answered, and the same fear was in both of us.
“‘Did she say what she was coming on shore for?’ He swung round on the
husband.
“‘To have a look round,’ answered Clavering, and his voice had altered.
No longer was he the outraged husband; he was a frightened man relying
instinctively on a bigger personality than himself.
“‘If she’s not about here, she must have gone inland,’ said Jimmy,
staring at me. ‘And it’ll be dark in five minutes.’
“‘My God!’ cried Clavering, ‘what are we to do? She can’t be left alone
for the night. Lost—in this cursed country! She may have hurt
herself—sprained her ankle.’
“For a moment neither of us answered him. Even more than he did we
realise the hideous danger of a white woman alone in the bush inland.
There were worse dangers than snakes and wild animals to be feared. And
it was as we were standing there staring at one another, and afraid to
voice our thoughts, that one of McAndrew’s native boys came down the
street. He was running and out of breath; and the instant he saw Jimmy
he rushed up to him and started gabbling in the local patois. He spoke
too fast for me to follow him, and Clavering, of course, couldn’t
understand a word. But we both guessed instinctively what he was talking
about and we both watched Jimmy’s face. And as we watched it I heard
Clavering catch his breath sharply.
“At last the boy finished, and Jimmy turned and looked at me. On his
face was a look of such cold malignant fury that the question which was
trembling on my lips died away, and I stared at him speechlessly.
“‘The Dagos have got her,’ he said, very softly. ‘Don Pedro Salvas is, I
fear, a foolish man.’
“Clavering gave a sort of hoarse cry, and Jimmy’s face softened.
“‘Poor devil,’ he said. ‘Your job is going to be harder than mine. Go
back to your yacht—get all your men on shore that you can spare—and if
I’m not back in four hours, wait for dawn and then strike inland over
the swamp. Find Pedro Salvas’s house—and hang him on the highest tree
you can find.’
“Without another word he swung on his heel and went up the street at a
long, steady lope. Twice Clavering called after him, but he never turned
his head or altered his stride—and then he started to follow himself.
It was I who stopped him, and he cursed me like a child—almost weeping.
“‘Do what he told you,’ I said. ‘You’d never find your way; you’d be
worse than useless. I’ll go with him: you get back and bring your men
ashore.’
“And with that I followed Jimmy. At times I could see him, a faint white
figure in the darkness, as he dodged through that fever-laden swamp; at
times I found myself marvelling at the condition of the man, bearing in
mind his method of living. Steadily, tirelessly, he forged ahead, and
when he came to the foot-hills I hadn’t gained a yard on him.
“And then I began wondering what was going to happen when he reached
Salvas’s bungalow, and by what strange mischance the girl had met the
owner. That it was revenge I was certain; he had recognised her from the
picture, and I remember thinking how bitter must have been his hatred of
Mainwaring to have induced him to run such an appalling risk. For the
risk was appalling, even in that country of strange happenings.
“I don’t think that Jimmy troubled his head over any such speculations.
In his mind there was room for only one thought—an all-sufficient
thought—to get his hands on Pedro Salvas. I don’t think he even knew
that I was behind him, until after it was over and the curtain was
falling on the play. And then he had no time for me.”
Merton gave a short laugh that had in it a touch of sadness.
“A good curtain it was, too,” he continued, quietly. “I remember I made
a frantic endeavour to overtake him as he raced up to the house, and
then, because I just couldn’t help myself, I stopped and
watched—fascinated. The window of the big living-room was open, and the
light blazed out. I suppose they had never anticipated pursuit that
night. Leaning up against the wall was the girl, with a look of frozen
horror on her face, while seated at the table were Pedro Salvas and
three of his pals. And they were drinking.
“It all happened very quickly. For one second I saw Jimmy Mainwaring
framed in the window—then he began shooting. I don’t think I’ve
mentioned that he could shoot the pip out of the ace of diamonds nine
times out of ten at twenty yards, and his madness did not interfere with
his aim. And that night he was stark, staring mad. I heard three
shots—so close together that only an artist could have fired them out
of the same revolver and taken aim; I saw the three friends of Pedro
Salvas collapse limply in their chairs. And then there was a pause; I
think Jimmy wanted to get at _him_ with his hands.
“But it was not to be. Just for a moment the owner of the bungalow had
been so stupefied at the sudden appearance of the man he hated that he
had simply sat still, staring; but only for a moment. The movement of
his arm was so quick that I hardly saw it; I only noticed what seemed to
be a streak of light which shot across the room. And then I heard
Jimmy’s revolver again—the tenth, the hundredth of a second too late.
He’d drilled Pedro Salvas through the heart all right—I watched the
swine crumple and fall with the snarl still on his face—but this time
the knife wasn’t sticking in the wall.
“She got to him first,” went on Merton, thoughtfully. “His knees were
sagging just as I got to the window, and she was trying to hold him up
in her arms. And then between us we laid him down, and I saw that the
end was very near. There was nothing I could do; the knife was clean
into his chest. The finish of the journey had come to the man who could
not get drunk. And so I left them together, while I mounted guard by the
window with a gun in each hand. It wasn’t a house to take risks in.
“He lived, I think, for five minutes, and of those five minutes I would
rather not speak. There are things which a man may tell, and things
which he may not. Sufficient be it to say that he may have cheated at
cards or he may not—she loved him. If, indeed, he had committed the
unforgivable sin amongst gentlemen all the world over, he atoned for it.
And she loved him. Let us leave it at that.
“And when it was over, and the strange, bitter spirit of the man who
called himself Jimmy Mainwaring had gone out on the unknown road, I
touched her on the shoulder. She rose blindly and stumbled out into the
darkness at my side. I don’t think I spoke a word to her, beyond telling
her to take my arm. And after a while she grew heavier and heavier on
it, until at last she slipped down—a little unconscious heap of sobbing
girlhood.”
Merton paused and lit a cigarette with a smile.
“So that is how it was ordained that I should carry the Lady Sylvia
Clavering, slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, for three
miles. I remember staggering into the village to find myself surrounded
by men from the yacht. I handed her over to her distracted husband, and
then I rather think I fainted myself. I know I found myself in my own
bar, with people pouring whisky down my throat. And after a while they
cleared off, leaving Clavering alone with me. He began to stammer out
his thanks, and I cut him short.
“‘No thanks are due to me,’ I said. ‘They’re due to another man whom you
called a card-cheat—but who was a bigger man than either you or I are
ever likely to be.’
“‘Was?’ he said, staring at me.
“‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘He’s dead.’
“He stood there silently for a moment or two; then with a queer look on
his face he took off his hat.
“‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘He was a bigger man than me.’”
Merton got up and pressed the bell.
“I’ve never seen him from that day to this,” he said, thoughtfully. “I
never saw his wife again until to-night. And I’ve never filled in the
gaps in the story. Moreover, I don’t know that I want to.”
A waiter came over to his chair.
“You’ll join me? Two whiskies-and-sodas, please, waiter—large ones.”
_Made and Printed in Great Britain._
_Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._