“But surely Mr. Brooke doesn’t countenance anything so frivolous as dancing?” remarked Lady Cynthia. “After the lecture he has just given me on my personal deportment the idea is out of the question.”
“Nevertheless I propose to come, Lady Cynthia,” said Brooke quietly. “You must forgive me if I have allowed my feelings to run away with me to-day. And perhaps to-morrow you will allow me to find out if the new image is correct—or a pose also.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl, puzzled.
“ ‘Lady Cynthia Stockdale—possibly the best dancer in London,’ ” he quoted mockingly; “I forget which of the many papers I saw it in.”
“Do you propose to pass judgment on my dancing?” she asked.
“If you will be good enough to give me a dance.”
For a moment words failed her. The cool, the sublime impertinence of this man literally choked her. Then she nodded briefly.
“I’ll give you a dance if you’re there in time. And then you can test for yourself, if you’re capable of testing.”
He bowed without a word, and stood watching them as they walked down the lane.
“I think, Ada, that he’s the most detestable man I’ve ever met,” remarked Lady Cynthia furiously, as they turned into the main road.
And Ada Laverton said nothing, but wondered the more.
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 herdistraiteand 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 evertriesto 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’tthinkI’ve found it—IknowI 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.
“It’sas 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 hisfiancéewas 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!”
“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 donotthink. 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 Britishhabituésof 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-oldTatlerin 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.”