CHAPTER XXVII
Belinda saw no more of her cousins that day. Indeed, she felt that she never wished to see them again.
And yet—Belinda was forced to confess it—the quarrel between Carl and Paul had arisen because of her. She had brought their boyish bickerings to this desperate pass.
This burden of anxiety in addition to all her other troubles broke down even Belinda Melnotte's calm. She scarcely dared go near Sanderson for more than a moment at a time during this day for fear he would apprehend trouble from the expression of her countenance.
In her present state of mind, too, she began to chide herself for imaginary faults and a lapse of morals which, at another time, she would have been bold enough to ignore.
Were not these anxieties that so burdened her mind and humbled her spirit the punishment, the logical and natural outcome of her wrong doing? Had she not committed a sin against her higher nature in so fully giving herself mentally at least to Frank Sanderson and in allowing him to lavish his affection upon her when there was a barrier between them which neither the laws of God nor man could ignore?
The memory of "Stella" and "the kiddies" which she had put aside so determinedly arose again like a wraith in her secret thoughts.
The apparent cheerfulness of the American aviator seemed a mockery to Belinda, knowing what she did. With Doctor Herschall in possession of Sanderson's canteen, its inscription perfectly readable to anybody with the knowledge the Prussian surgeon already had, the nurse expected the blow to fall at any moment.
All that seemed to trouble the aviator, however, was the return of Ernest Spiegel. "There is something behind that," he whispered to Belinda. "The wretched boy thinks he knows something. Has he been put back here to spy?"
The visiting physician seemed in no way suspicious of Sanderson. He talked hopefully of the aviator's shoulder coming out of the plaster soon. He had been patient and that virtue was to be rewarded, the doctor said.
Evening came at length. At the calling of the roll Erard was supposed to report at the guardhouse. But there was still much to do about the ward and the orderly who was to take charge for the night had not appeared.
With verbal permission from a passing officer, the harelipped man remained to complete his duties and to help Belinda. But he went out ahead of her.
It was already dark—a raw, cloudy spring night. There was a lull in the booming of the guns and the horizon to the east, west and south was streaked only intermittently with the glare of the flare-bombs and rockets.
For forty-eight hours the battle seemed to have stood still. The two armies, like two stags, had locked horns and neither seemed to be able to push the other aside.
The raw wind that swept across the hospital yard had driven everybody but the sentinels indoors. And none of them was stationed near the door of Ward Three. The night orderly came in yawning. As there were no serious cases at present in this hut there was no regular night nurse assigned.
"That fellow will be asleep and snoring in half an hour," Belinda thought. "However, there is Jacob, who may be awakened."
She stepped out and was about to hurry to the nurses' quarters when something moving in the shadow of the hut startled her. Was it the outline of a human figure, or——
"Erard!" she called in a low voice.
"Oui, Mademoiselle!" responded theinfirmier.
"What is that?" she demanded. "What did you roll under the porch?"
"Sst! Mademoiselle will forget?" he begged, coming closer. "It is perhaps the blanket-roll you mean—and it may yet be of use——"
An approaching step was heard.
"Good-night, Mademoiselle," Erard said clearly. "I am due at the guardhouse—and a plank bed. Good-night."
He started away through the gloom, dragging his twisted foot. Belinda hesitated a moment only. She did not wish to be questioned. And there was possibly nothing wrong. Yet—"Trust not Rabbit-mouth too far." Renaud's written warning returned to her mind with insistence as she went her way.
Nor was all the nurse's fear unfounded. The lout of an orderly was indeed asleep and snoring within half an hour of her departure. Ward Three lay wrapped in gloom, for there was but a single shaded light on the table at the head of the room. Sighs—a few low moans—then the stertorous breathing of most of the occupants of the cots proclaimed the fact that the orderly was not alone asleep. The rest of these wounded and broken men were perhaps uneasy, for their dreams could not be happy ones.
Separated from their families, from all they loved and held dear; led by their overlords like sheep to the shambles; then, broken and suffering, brought from the trenches to this makeshift hospital, here to be made over into further food for the thundering cannon. Could men, under such conditions, sleep peacefully?
Sighing, turning, sometimes crying out in the nightmare of a remembrance of their wounds, the early hours of the night dragged by. If they woke it was to groan, seek to turn to a more restful position and then to sink back into troubled dreams again.
The swinging door of the ward was pushed quietly open. A figure crept in—a hoop-shouldered, apparently emaciated figure. With dragging step it shuffled down the ward past the sleeping orderly, who lay back in his chair with his mouth wide open, choking and snorting in his heavy sleep.
Dragging, dragging the step went down the aisle. It was a familiar sound to any who might be awake.
At the bed of the aviator it halted. Sanderson was already awake.
"Erard!"
A sharp hiss closed Sanderson's mouth. Ernest, across the aisle, raised cautiously from his pillow. He needed the use of both ears, for it was too dark for his eyes to be of much value to him.
The boy lay thus listening to catch the murmured words. They were neither German nor French phrases he overheard. He dared not betray a more active interest in the secret conference.
Then the dragging step up the ward again. The retreating figure appeared for a moment between the window and the gaze of the watching boy. Did it seem larger—taller—than Erard's?
At the end of the room it stood for a moment in the dim glow of the hooded lamp. The orderly sat up with a start and at a most inopportune moment.
The marauder seemed suddenly to tower above him. The orderly's lips opened to utter a cry of fear. The deadly weapon descended with awful force while the marauder's left hand seized the loose shirt collar of the stricken man to ease him back into the chair so that the body should not fall to the floor.
From a distance the orderly seemed still to be sleeping. In a moment the marauder glided through the door. Ernest, gasping, stifling his sobs in his pillow, cowered on his cot.
When Belinda arrived at her ward in the morning the first excitement was passed. Jacob had discovered the dead orderly in his chair, with the terrible wound in his head and the blood congealed upon the floor.
Then Erard had arrived and he had called to a passing soldier. The body was removed and Erard had wiped up the stains as well as he could. When the nurse came she had to exercise all her authority to quiet the patients. Only Ernest Spiegel, strangely enough, said not a word.
The mystery of the killing of the orderly had already been well canvassed. Was he known to have an enemy who had crept in during the night and had done the deed? For surely nobody within the ward could have accomplished this murder.
Later Belinda served Frank Sanderson his breakfast. His look assured her that he knew something about the mystery unrevealed to the other patients.
Jacob called for Ernest to get up and lend him a hand about some of his duties. The boy obeyed grumblingly. Erard was serving breakfasts at the other end of the room.
"What is it, Frank?" the nurse whispered.
"Renaud."
She repeated the name of the spy wonderingly. "He was nothere? He did not kill that man?"
"Listen," Sanderson explained as she cracked his egg. "I thought it was Erard when he came creeping down the ward. Ah! a wonderful man is that Renaud. If the other wounded heard him they would not mind Erard. You see?"
"And he dared come here?"
"Yes. Good fellow! He means to bring about our escape. He is already assured of his own through the German lines to-day. We talked it all over. Even the day and hour is set. I shall then be able to walk about with my arm in a sling.
"I know the rendezvous. We shall escape together, Belinda—you and I," and he smiled upon her lovingly.
"Ah! but shall we?" she murmured, yet did not dare to put into words her fear of Doctor Herschall.
The effect of the mysterious happening of the night upon Erard was to make him for the first time since Belinda had known him quite silent. And he kept away from Sanderson's end of the ward.
This was an occurrence—the death of the orderly—that must be investigated by both the regimental commander and Doctor Herschall. But the black-browed surgeon came into the ward alone.
He said not a word when he entered. His eyes glittered. His air seemed more threatening as he passed down the aisle between the cots than it had ever before seemed to Belinda.
The nurse, startled and afraid, stood suddenly beside Sanderson's bed. It was as though she were attempting to shield the aviator from the surgeon's baleful look.
With a stern hand Doctor Herschall put her aside, so that he might have an unobstructed view of Sanderson's countenance.
"We are about to relieve you, Herr Lieutenant, of that uncomfortable cast you wear," the surgeon said harshly. "Sit up."
The aviator, not at all prepared for what was to follow, obeyed the order. Swiftly Doctor Herschall unbuttoned the loose shirt Frank wore and stripped bare the young man's muscular shoulder. But it was the left shoulder he uncovered!
Belinda sprang forward with a muffled cry. The Herr Doktor's long digit was planted firmly upon the puckered, red scar on the aviator's bared shoulder—the mark of the wound treated in the hospital in New York eight months and more before.
"Ach!" Doctor Herschall said. "So I thought." He turned and looked at Ernest, who had come back to his cot and sat there, watching the surgeon with frightened eyes.
"Well!" the Herr Doktor exploded, "what is it? What happened here last night? What do you know of this murder?"
"He—he," stammered Ernest, pointing to the aviator. "A man came into the ward when all were asleep. He came to Thirty-four and woke him. They talked."
"In German?"
"No, Herr Doktor. Nor in French. In that strange talk they say isAmerikanisch."
"Hum!" ejaculated the surgeon, working his fingers spasmodically. "What more?"
"The—the man went back up the ward. The orderly awoke before the man could escape. He sprang at the orderly and struck him down with something in his hand, Excellency."
"Hum! Is that all?"
"All I heard and saw, Excellency."
"Could you see the murderer clearly? Would you know him again? Describe him," commanded Doctor Herschall, while the intake of breath on the part of the listeners was audible.
"I—I could not see the man clearly. But I know him," whispered Ernest.
"How do you know him? Are you positive?"
"Absolutely, Herr Doktor," said the boy with more confidence. "By his step. I heard him clearly—it is not to be mistaken."
"Ah!" It was a chorused murmur from all over the ward.
Erard had come down the aisle. He stood in full view of the frightened Ernest.
"That is the man!" shrilled the boy suddenly. "He drags his foot. He it was who came here, and who killed the orderly to make his escape."
Belinda, recovering her speech; cried aloud:
"Wicked boy! It could not be Erard. He was in the guardhouse."
The little Frenchman raised his hand in salute as he stepped forward a single pace, dragging that twisted foot, to face the scowling Herr Doktor. He smiled at Belinda, saying:
"It is quite true, Mademoiselle. They are asleep, thoseBochesat the guardhouse. It was I who came here in the night. I knew the Herr Lieutenant had money under his pillow and I tried to steal it. The boy misunderstood the nature of our conversation. The Herr Lieutenant, in his generosity, let me go; but I was observed by the orderly, and—so——"
"Never!" gasped Belinda.
The Herr Doktor pounded upon the floor with his cane. A file of soldiers entered with Corporal Baum at their head.
"Take this man to the cage, Corporal," commanded Doctor Herschall, pointing with his stick to Erard. "And leave two men to escort the Herr Lieutenant Gessler"—he lingered over the name in a sinister way—"to the military court as soon as he is dressed."
Erard, smiling still, was close to Belinda as he turned to go with the soldiers. His twisted lip writhed with the almost inaudible phrase:
"For France!"