The officers' mess of the Guards--the billiard-room. Dinner was over, coffee was being drunk while the diners played a game of snooker pool, that is, some of them. There had been something in the atmosphere during the meal which was hardly genial. It is essential that all the members of a regimental mess should be as a band of brothers, as it were, a big and perfectly happy family. Unless they are on the best of terms with each other, that easy atmosphere is absent, and things become impossible; there must not be even a suspicion of a rift in the lute, if that complete harmony is to reign without which the position becomes unbearable.
In the officers' mess of a British regiment, as a rule, the conditions which make for comfort are not to seek; in that famous regiment, in the whole history of its mess, they never had been to seek until quite recently. Now something had crept in which jarred. First there had been the deplorable business of Sydney Beaton. They were just beginning to recover from that when there came the peculiar conduct of Jackie Tickell, his own version of which we have heard Major Reith tell Miss Forster. Mr. Tickel's action had had an even more deplorable effect upon the morals of the mess than the major had cared to admit. This had been to a large extent owing to the position taken up by Anthony Dodwell. He had declared that what Mr. Tickell had done was a slur upon himself, and had gone so far as to demand that the whole affair should be referred to a court of honour.
Than that sort of thing nothing could have been more foreign to the regimental traditions. It had always been regarded as a matter of course that among the officers of the Guards there should be no differences of opinion; if there were, they were certainly not to make themselves heard in public. The regiment never had been concerned in any such inquiry as that which Dodwell suggested. If his suggestion was acted upon, all sorts of unpleasant consequences would follow. Not only would the whole disreputable business have to be made officially public, but outsiders would have to be called in to adjudicate in what after all was a family quarrel; which, in effect, would mean that other regiments would sit in judgment on the Guards. In the eyes of authority, than that a more inconceivable state of affairs there could scarcely be.
What was to be done to restore the harmony that had heretofore reigned it was not easy to see; a single jarring note is so apt to keep on ringing in the ears. Sydney Beaton had gone--where, no one, not even his nearest and dearest, seemed to know. He had been one of the most popular persons in the regiment, not only with his brother officers, but with the rank and file; his own company adored him. Not only was the one hideous scandal still fresh in men's memories, but now still worse stories were being whispered about it.
It was difficult to say how they had first gained currency. Someone must have been the first to whisper something, but who that someone was no one seemed to know. Two stories had gone right through the regiment; one, that Sydney Beaton had turned professional thief; the other, that he had murdered Noel Draycott.
Why Mr. Tickell had chosen the moment when these stories filled all the air to take up the position he had done, his friends and acquaintances were quite at a loss to determine. The thing was over and done with; Beaton had admitted his guilt by running away; what on earth possessed Tickell, they demanded, that he should want to start muddying the water all over again? If he had had any doubts on the matter, he might have kept them to himself; it was too late to declare them in public now; he ought to have done it ages ago; the thing was all settled and done with. Then there was the absence of Draycott. If Draycott had been about, and he had said what he had said, Mr. Tickell would soon have been disposed of; Draycott would have agreed with Dodwell, there would have been two to one, Tickell would have been compelled to bow to the weight of evidence. As things were, the case against Beaton rested on one man's word only--Anthony Dodwell's. Tickell had not directly impugned it; but he had done almost as bad. He had stood up to Dodwell in a quite unexpected fashion. Jackie Tickell was an easy-going, good-natured youngster, who in general preferred to do anything rather than come to an open rupture with anyone; yet he had stood up to Dodwell; and all the regiment knew that there was no more unpleasant man to quarrel with. He had said to him in the hearing of them all:
"You know, Dodwell, I'm not saying for a moment that you didn't see what you thought you saw."
Dodwell interposed.
"It's not a question of what I thought I saw; I should not have made an accusation of that sort had I not been certain. Just as you see me strike this match"--he struck one to illustrate his words--"as certainly I saw Beaton cheat."
"I'm not denying that in the least, but, you see, I didn't."
"What has that to do with the matter? If I tell you that I did strike this match, are you to be at liberty to doubt it merely because you didn't happen to see me do it?"
"The things ain't the same; you can't compare them. Because you're satisfied that you saw Sydney Beaton cheat, it doesn't follow that I am; and until I am I'm not going to keep the money which was his if he played fair."
"You seem to be altogether forgetting," put in Frank Clifford, "that Dodwell wasn't the only person who saw. What about Draycott? And look at the way in which Beaton did a bunk!"
"I'm not so sure, if I'd been treated as we treated him, that I shouldn't have acted as Beaton did; we had all of us had as much as was good for us to drink--and that's where it was. As for Draycott, I had a chat or two with him, and it isn't so clear to me as it might be, that he wasn't rather sorry that he spoke."
Anthony Dodwell had looked very black, and he then and there publicly announced that if that was the way in which Tickell chose to look at it, he would insist on having the whole business referred to arbitrators, who would act as members of a court of honour.
So far Dodwell had not gone any farther; that is, he had not brought the matter before his official superiors in a form which would render it impossible for them to continue to ignore it. It is possible that he had been given the hint not to, and that words had been spoken both to him and to Mr. Tickell which had been meant to be not only words of healing, but also of warning.
That night, at the mess dinner, Dodwell had seemed to be in a curious frame of mind; nor, when they were in the billiard-room, did his mood seem to have sweetened. He had what is apt to be a very unpopular possession--a biting tongue; under the guise of a smiling exterior he could, when he liked, set a whole room by the ears. Jackie Tickell not only never said willingly a thing which could wound either the present or the absent, but there were not infrequent occasions when it was only with difficulty that he said anything at all; his tongue was certainly not the readiest part of him, a fact of which Dodwell, apparently relying on his notorious good temper, had more than once taken advantage. Dodwell played all games well; the different varieties of billiards he played almost as well as a professional. Tickell played very few games well; at billiards he was a notorious duffer; why he ever played snooker--which, for a poor performer, in good company, at anything like points, is apt to be an expensive amusement--he alone could tell. What amusement he derived from it was a mystery; at the end of a game he was almost invariably the one player who had to pay all the others. Yet there never was a game of snooker from which he was willingly left out.
That evening he was, if possible, playing worse than usual, missing easy shots, leaving certainties for the man who followed--who happened to be Dodwell. Thanks partly to his own skill, and almost as much to Jackie's generosity, Anthony Dodwell was piling up a huge score, and nearly every time he put a ball down he returned sarcastic thanks to Jackie. As a bad player of snooker pool not only loses himself, but is the cause of loss to others, Jackie's misdemeanours gratified no one but Dodwell.
"Really, Jackie," declared Cyril Harding, when on one occasion he had managed to leave a white ball over one pocket and, in some mysterious fashion, the black over another, "you might be doing it on purpose. I wonder how many that is you've given Dodwell?"
"I do seem to be making rather a mess of it tonight," admitted Jackie.
"I sometimes wonder," persisted Payne, "if it ever occurs to you that you are not the only person who has to pay. If there's anything to which I personally object, it is to seeing Dodwell get that assistance that he does not stand in need of; as if he couldn't put the lot of us in the cart without help from anyone."
Dodwell, putting down both the white and the black, proceeded to make a break, for which he professed himself grateful to Jackie at the end.
"Thank you, Tickell; these gifts which you persist in making me are really rather overwhelming. Every time I come to the table I find that you have left me everything you possibly can; I hope the victims of your unnatural generosity will not think that we are in collusion. Do you know, I myself am almost moved to wonder if you are doing it on purpose?"
Mr. Tickell looked unhappy, but he said nothing; his tongue, as was its wont, seemed to be tied in a knot. He moved away from Dodwell's neighbourhood; but the other's sarcasm followed him.
"I'm in rather a difficult position; if I don't take advantage of your leaves they'll think that I'm not trying; and if I do, since they are so regular, they'll wonder."
As the victim continued silent, and something in the bearing of the others more than hinted that in their opinion he was going too far, some contrary spirit seemed to push Dodwell farther still.
"At bridge, I've heard it maintained that a bad player ought to pay his partner's losses; if that was the rule at snooker, Tickell, it would be awkward for you; you might have to break in on that little pot of money of which we have heard so much, and which you so chivalrously refused to put into your pocket because, as I understand the matter, some friend of yours put Noel Draycott away."
At this Major Reith, who was the senior officer present, interposed.
"Dodwell, you have no right to say that sort of thing."
"In your opinion? Thank you for its expression."
Jackie Tickell came towards the speaker.
"I didn't quite catch what you said, Dodwell--at least, I hope I didn't. Did I understand you to say that a friend of mine had put Noel Draycott away?"
"It would at least appear--I won't say at a convenient moment for you--that someone has--would you prefer that I should use another form of words, and say--murdered Noel Draycott?"
"Who says that someone has murdered Noel Draycott?"
The words did not come from one of the previous speakers; they were uttered by someone who had just come into the room; in a voice which was startlingly familiar to all those who heard it. With one accord each man in the room turned round to stare in the direction from which the words had come. Just standing inside the doorway was the man who had first been spoken of as having been put out of the way, and then as having been murdered--Noel Draycott.
It was probably some moments before the occupants of the billiard-room realised what had happened; it was certainly some little time before they even dimly perceived what the advent of the new-comer must mean.
It was George Payne's turn to play; he was just about to make his stroke when the door had opened. Leaning over the table, his cue in position, he stared at the man who had just come in at the door. The other players, each with his cue in his hand, stared too.
Noel Draycott was something to stare at. He seemed to have grown thinner since they had seen him last; he looked as if he had been ill. There was a recently healed scar on his forehead, another right across his left cheek. His hair had been cut very close to his head, a strip of plaster came from the back to the front. The fact was unmistakable that he must have been pretty considerably in the wars. He had on a dinner-jacket. In his right hand was an ebony cane with a crook handle, on which he seemed to lean as if in need of its support.
He stood looking round the room as if searching for individual faces. His eyes rested first on one and then on another with a glance as of pleased recognition. When they reached Dodwell they rested on him rather longer than on any of the others, with, this time, something in them which was hardly pleasure.
It was he who broke the silence which had followed his appearance with a question:
"Playing snooker? Don't let me interrupt you. Go on playing. You look as though you had got an easy one. How's the family--all all right?"
As he came farther into the room they broke into speech; they came crowding round him.
"Noel, old man!" exclaimed Clifford, "is this a little game which you've been playing? To spring a surprise on us like this when we were all thinking---- Why, on my word, I was very nearly on the point of going into mourning. I'd sooner see you--I don't know that there is anything I'd rather see."
A hearty chorus of welcome greeted him from all sides.
"Draycott," declared Major Reith, "you may laugh at me, but as I look at you I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. Do you know that when last I saw you I would have been willing to swear before a jury of medical men that you were dead? My dear, dear man, if you only knew how glad I am to see you--what a weight you are lifting off my mind. You're sure you're not a ghost?"
Draycott's smile was a little pale and wan, as if the major's suggestion was hardly as much of a joke as he would have liked it to be.
"I've always understood that ghosts are unsubstantial things. If you'll have a prod at me with your cue, you'll find that I'm solid enough; only go easy--I'm not yet as firm on my pins as I mean to be soon."
"But, my dear fellow, where on earth have you been hiding all this time? Do you know that all the papers are full of what they call the mysterious disappearance of Captain Draycott? All sorts of theories have been started, but none of them has ever come to anything. People were beginning to wonder if you had been snatched up by a flying machine, and carried above the clouds; and now you drop in in this unexpected fashion as if we'd only seen you half an hour ago! Do you realise the fact that you'll have to give a realistic account of what you've been up to, and why you've been keeping the readers of the halfpenny papers all gaping with wonder?"
"As it happens, I do recognise that some sort of explanation is required; and it is to give it, after a fashion, that I've come. Captain Dodwell, may I trouble you not to leave the room?"
Anthony Dodwell had not been among those who had crowded round to bid the new-comer welcome. His demeanour had been singular. The major had spoken of Draycott as a possible ghost. Captain Dodwell was regarding him not only as if he were an actual ghost, but almost, as it seemed, with the unreasonable terror with which people are supposed to regard spectral visitants in tales and legends. At the sound of Draycott's voice he had started as if someone had struck him a heavy blow; when, turning, he saw him standing in the flesh, he gazed at him as if he were the most horrible sight he had ever seen. So far from showing any inclination to join the others in their cries of welcome, he had drawn himself farther and farther away from the object of so much attention, until, having at last reached the neighbourhood of the door, he seemed inclined to take himself through it.
It was this disposition which Noel Draycott's words were intended to check. Their immediate result was to divert general attention to Captain Dodwell. To judge from the look which came upon the different men's faces, the peculiarity of his bearing seemed to occasion them almost as much surprise as Draycott's original unexpected appearance. There was no cooler person in the regiment than Anthony Dodwell. In a community in which sangfroid had been raised to the dignity of a fetish, his calmness had become a byword. That you could never take Anthony Dodwell by surprise; that under no conceivable conditions would he ever turn a hair; that he would continue wholly at his ease under all sorts of unpromising conditions; that he would meet difficulty, danger, death, with a smile--these were axioms among those who knew him.
How far removed from fact these judgments of his friends were, it needed at that moment only one glance at Anthony Dodwell to show. Something, stirring him to the very sources of his being, had upset his equilibrium so entirely that it almost seemed to them as if they looked upon a stranger. When Draycott uttered his quietly spoken request that he would not leave the room, he stood for a second motionless; then, as he glanced at the speaker over his shoulder, they could see that his face had been transfigured by some violent emotion which was beyond their comprehension. It was with an effort which was obvious to all of them that at last he managed to speak.
"Why shouldn't I leave the room?"
It was an instant or two before Draycott, looking steadily at him, answered question with question.
"Do you require me to tell you?"
There was something in the quietly uttered words which made Dodwell wince as if they had pricked him. He seemed in doubt how to treat the challenge which they conveyed; that they did convey a challenge was plain; his reply, when it came, was both sullen and undignified.
"If I want to go I shall go, and you shan't stop me."
Draycott's rejoinder was so curt as to be contemptuous.
"You know better than that."
"Why should I know better? I have taught you one lesson already. Shall I teach you another? I'll be hanged if I'll stay in a room in which you are."
"Dodwell!"
The sharp utterance of his name conveyed both a command and a threat, as the other seemed to perceive. He had made a half-movement towards the door, and had already stretched out his hand to open it--the tone in which Draycott pronounced his name seemed all at once to check him.
"Are you speaking to me," he demanded with what was almost a snarl, "or to a dog? Hang your impudence! Do you suppose I'm going to allow you to dictate to me whether I am to go or stay?"
Ignoring the speaker, Noel Draycott turned to the others.
"Will you men be so good as to see that Captain Dodwell doesn't leave the room until I've given the explanation which I am going to give? I am not very fit at present; in fact, it's against the doctor's orders that I'm here at all; but, as matters were going, I felt I had to come. If I were fit, I shouldn't trouble you; I should make it my own particular business to see that Captain Dodwell didn't leave the room until I'd finished; as it is, I'm afraid I must."
Clifford voiced the general feeling by the question which he put.
"Why do you want to go, Dodwell--what's up?"
Anthony Dodwell made an unsuccessful effort to treat the speaker with the air of insolence which they knew so well.
"Really, Mr. Clifford, I have yet to learn that I am to be called to account for my goings and comings by you."
"All the same, there's no reason why you shouldn't answer my question. Here's Noel come back out of the grave, as it were. It's pretty plain that he's been in the wars, and you know well enough what a pother there's been; especially when he asks you, why can't you stop and hear whatever he has to say?"
"Because I'd sooner go. If that doesn't appear to be a sufficient reason, I'm sorry."
"One moment, Captain Dodwell, if you please."
The interpolation came from Major Reith. Dodwell already had the door partly open.
"Well, major, what can I do for you--with your one moment?"
"To begin with, you can shut that door."
Striding forward with unexpected rapidity, the major, wresting the door from his grasp, shut it sharply.
"Reith! Do you imagine that I am going to take my orders, in such a manner, from you?"
"Only the other day you were throwing out some very uncomfortable hints about Draycott here; I'm not going to recur to them now, but you know very well what they were, but here is Draycott to answer for himself. In view of those hints which you threw out, I'm going to make it my business to see that you stay and hear what his answer is."
Confronted by the major, Anthony Dodwell drew himself up; there had been something hang-dog in his attitude just now. "By force?" he asked.
"Yes, if necessary, by force. You were one of those who resorted to force on an occasion which it is not necessary for me to recall to your memory, and in this very room. I may tell you that there is something in your attitude which makes me wonder if, in this business, you have not been guilty of conduct which is not altogether to your credit. If I am wrong, the fault is yours; I can conceive of no creditable reason why it should be necessary to resort to force to compel you to listen, in the very remarkable circumstances, to what Noel Draycott has to say."
"I may tell you, Dodwell, that I quite agree with Reith."
This remark came from Payne; it was more than echoed by Jackie Tickell. Mr. Tickell went bursting towards the pair at the door, still with his cue in his hand; he trailed it after him as if unconscious that he still had it.
"Considering how you've been throwing out hints about my taking advantage of Draycott's absence to doubt if Syd Beaton cheated as you say he did, it seems jolly rummy now Draycott has turned up to give me the dressing-down which only half an hour ago you seemed to think I needed, that instead of calling on him to do it, you want to what looks like take to your heels and run."
Dodwell looked at him very much as a bad-tempered big dog is apt to regard a courageous little one.
"If you're not very careful I shall whip you, Jackie Tickell; I don't intend to stand more than a certain amount of impertinence, even from an ass."
Instead of showing signs of trepidation, the little man seemed to grow more heated.
"We'll see what you will or won't do when we've heard what Draycott has to say. Until he has said it, you'll do nothing; you won't even run away. Draycott, do you remember that poker business? I've been thinking a lot about it since; I'd have had a jaw with you about it if you'd been here----"
Noel Draycott cut him short.
"That's all right, Tickell, you can have all the jaw with me you like a little later on, if you want to talk to me at all after what I am going to say; but in the meanwhile, if you don't mind, I'd rather get off my chest what's on it, in my own way."
Major Reith was standing with his back to the door. In front of him on one side was Anthony Dodwell, on the other Jackie Tickell.
"Hullo!" he suddenly exclaimed, "there's someone outside who wants to come in; who's there?"
The door had been opened by someone without sufficiently far to come into contact with his broad back, which acted as an effectual buffer.
As he moved it was open wide enough to admit one of the orderlies of the evening, Private Henry Barnes.
"Well, Barnes," inquired the major, "what is it you want?"
"If you please, sir--a lady."
Holding the door open at its widest the orderly ushered in--Miss Forster.
Had the billiard-table taken to itself wings and commenced to waltz about the room, those present could scarcely have been more amazed. That a lady could be introduced in that haphazard, unlooked-for, bewildering fashion by one of their own servants, who knew the written and unwritten rules as well as anyone living--it was a crime almost equivalent to high treason. It was all done before they had really time to recover their breath--the lady was in, the orderly had gone, the door was closed; there they were, gaping at her, and she was looking at them. They seemed to have lost their presence of mind, to say nothing of their manners.
Presently her attention became centred on Noel Draycott.
"You!"
The monosyllable seemed to burst from her in the fullness of her surprise. Plainly he was as much of a ghost to her as he had been to his colleagues of the mess. Major Reith stammeringly took upon himself the task of endeavouring to make it clear to her that the position was unusual.
"Miss Forster, I--I'm afraid it's rather contrary to regimental custom to receive ladies in this apartment. Some mistake has been made. Let me take you to where you will feel more at home."
A surprising interruption came from Noel Draycott.
"No mistake has been made. It is by my instructions that Miss Forster has been shown in here. She has a right to be present at what I am about to say; you will see that, Reith, yourself, before I have finished."
It was said with an air of authority which caused the others to look at him askance. Miss Forster turned to Major Reith, holding out something in her hand.
"I received," she said, "this card." She read out what was written on it: "'If Miss Forster will present herself at the main entrance to the officers' mess to-night about ten o'clock, and will hand this card to the orderly whom she will find in attendance, she will learn the whole truth about Sydney Beaton.'"
"May I look at that card?" inquired the major. She gave it to him. "This is the most extraordinary thing to receive. May I ask how it reached you?"
"I found it awaiting me on my return home this afternoon. I was told that a man had brought it who said that there was no answer."
Captain Draycott carried the lady's explanation several stages farther.
"That card came from me; I wrote it. I gave Barnes directions to show Miss Forster in here directly she arrived. As Miss Forster is at least as much interested in Sydney Beaton as any of us, and has heard one story, I consider that the least we can do is to give her the first opportunity which offers to become acquainted with the truth."
The major still seemed uncomfortably conscious of the irregularity of the position.
"Really I hardly know what to say; but if it is the general wish that this lady shall remain----"
Mr. Tickell took upon himself to answer before the sentence was concluded.
"Of course it's the general wish; we are only too glad to have Miss Forster among us. Miss Forster, won't you have a chair?"
The lady declined; she said she would rather stand. One person declared himself to be in disagreement with Mr. Tickell--Anthony Dodwell.
"Without intending the least discourtesy, I cannot admit that Draycott is entitled to introduce his lady friends where no ladies are allowed, even if the intruder is Miss Forster."
"Then in that case you are one against all the rest of us, so you don't count. Now, Noel, what is it all about? Cut it as short as you can, old man, and then, as Reith puts it, if Miss Forster will allow us, we will take her somewhere where she will feel more at home."
Thus urged, Mr. Draycott prefaced his story with a few outspoken, candid words; every eye was fixed upon him, and all was still.
"The story which I am about to tell you is not very much to my credit, nor to that of others; I don't propose to try to excuse myself in any way whatever; I'll just say my say straight out."
He paused for a second as if to get his words into proper sequence.
"I can tell you the first part in half a dozen sentences; in fact, in one: That night when Sydney Beaton was accused of cheating, he never did cheat, and we behaved as we did to an innocent man."
Mr. Tickell broke out the moment the words were uttered.
"If I haven't felt it in my bones; the very next morning in bed I began to feel it; I've not been easy in my mind ever since. Now, Dodwell, what do you say to that?"
"I say that, for reasons of his own, Draycott says the thing which is not; you all heard what he said that night."
"What I said then was a lie; one for which I deserve all that I am likely to get. I behaved all through like a blackguard--that's what I want to tell you."
"You may put it either way you like," sneered Anthony Dodwell; "it is plain to the meanest intelligence that you behaved like a blackguard whichever way you put it. Either you were lying then, or you're lying now; from neither predicament do you come out nicely."
Draycott ignored the other's words.
"Dodwell owed Beaton a grudge, and I owed Dodwell money, or at least, he said I did."
"You're a pretty bounder--I said you did!"
"He said I did. As a matter of fact, I don't believe that I owed him a farthing; but he made out that I owed him a lot, more than I could pay without going to the Jews, which I had promised my father I never would do. I didn't want to have a row, or a scandal; I've seen since what a fool I was, but it seemed to me then that he had got me under his thumb. He had, as I said, a grudge against Beaton; that was about some money which he said Beaton owed him and which Beaton wouldn't pay."
"If I had posted Mr. Beaton, as I ought to have done, that would have brought him to his senses, and then Mr. Draycott wouldn't have been standing there, stuffed with the lies he's going to tell."
Still Draycott continued to ignore the other's words; he went on with his story as if Dodwell was not persistently interrupting.
"Dodwell said to me that if I would help him to get even with Beaton, he would say no more about the money which he made out I owed him, and as I was tired of his perpetual dunning, I was cad enough to listen."
"You were a cad first, last, and altogether, Mr. Draycott."
"Then that night we played poker, and Dodwell said that he had seen Beaton cheating; then he looked at me, and he winked; I knew what he meant, and I said that I had too--but I hadn't."
There arose an outcry from those who heard him; all the men began speaking at once. Major Reith called them to order.
"Gently, gentlemen, gently; let us know where we are standing."
"You are standing," cried Anthony Dodwell, "in the presence of an infamous animal whom only the fact that Miss Forster is here, prevents me from characterising as he deserves. I don't wish to assert that he took care that the lady was here before he began what he calls his story; but when the lady has gone he will receive from me the treatment from which her presence saves him."
"If you will take my advice," the excited gentleman was told by Major Reith, "you will let Draycott tell his story without comment or interruption; when he has finished you will be able, if you think it necessary, to tell yours; but you will not improve your case by doing your best to keep him from stating his. Draycott, do we understand you to say that you did not see Sydney Beaton cheat?"
"I did not."
"You did not see him exchange one card for another?"
"I did not."
"You did not see him do anything irregular, or indulge in malpractices of any kind?"
"Absolutely no; nor do I believe that he did. I did not believe it then; I believe it still less now. I believe he played as straight a game as anyone else, and Dodwell knew it."
Three or four men interposed to prevent Anthony Dodwell venting his wrath upon the speaker then and there.
"I'll break every bone there is in your body," he declared, "before I've done with you, you libellous hound."
Suffering his threat to go unheeded, Draycott looked him steadily in the face. Clifford, the biggest and most powerful man in the regiment, addressed himself to the infuriated Dodwell.
"Let me tell you something frankly. I've had doubts about you from the first; and I've not been the only doubter. I for one have regretted the part I played that night; I only hope that one day I shall be able to forget it. I'm not saying a word for Draycott, he's given himself away with every word he's said; but he'd better do that than continue to play the cur to Beaton in the way he owns he has done. Your case, Dodwell, is safer in our hands than in your own. After what has happened we'll sift his story to the bottom before we pronounce judgment on it either way; I'm afraid the time has gone by when his mere 'Yes' or 'No' would be accepted. But if you want to force us to the conclusion that you are the kind of person he says you are, you can't do better than continue your present behaviour. If you weren't afraid of what he has to say, you'd let him say it; that, to us, if not to you, is as plain as the nose upon your face. Draycott, I'm going to take the liberty of asking you one or two questions. Do you seriously wish us to understand that merely because Dodwell winked at you, you charged Beaton with being a cheat when you knew he wasn't?"
"That's what it comes to."
"Then it comes to a very ugly thing."
"That I realise. Dodwell said to me that if I helped him to get even with Beaton he'd say no more about that money. I took the wink to mean that that was the moment in which he wanted me to help him--and I did. The next day he gave me a quittance for the whole amount; I had not misunderstood him."
"Do you mean to tell us that the next day you talked Beaton over between you, and that each of you admitted to the other that he had lied?"
"The next morning Dodwell came to my room and told me that after all he had found out that he was wrong in supposing that I owed him money, and he gave me a sort of friendly note admitting it in so many words."
"So you got your price?"
"I did."
"Then what was said about the night before?"
"Very little--in words; but he knew I hadn't seen Beaton cheat, and I knew he hadn't."
"How did you know he hadn't?"
"Because Beaton hadn't cheated; I'd been watching him all the time, he was seated next to me, and I was sure of it."
"Dodwell charged him with substituting one card for another. There was a card upon the floor; Dodwell said he had dropped it and taken the other in its place."
"The card upon the floor was mine."
"Do you mean that you had dropped it intentionally?"
"I didn't know I had dropped it till it was picked up. I recognised it as mine when I saw it--it was a nine of spades. I had two pairs in my hand--nine high; the nine of spades was one of them."
"And you, knowing the nine of spades was yours, had allowed us to think that Beaton had dropped it from his hand to take another, and a better one, in its place; in fact, one which gave him a full. You allowed us to think that?"
"I did."
"You admit that you never for a moment supposed that Beaton had cheated, having sufficient reasons for knowing otherwise; but it's possible that Dodwell may have thought he did."
"He never thought it."
"What grounds have you for saying that? Now, Dodwell, don't you interfere; you shall have your turn presently, when you'll have every opportunity of making Draycott out even blacker than he has painted himself. Consider, Draycott, before you speak; it's a very queer story you're asking us to swallow, much queerer than your first. What grounds have you for saying that Dodwell never thought, even at the moment of making his accusation, that Beaton had cheated?"
"He told me so."
"Weren't you surprised at his making to you such a remarkable admission?"
Draycott paused before he answered.
"I was inclined to think at first that he might have made a mistake, though I couldn't see how he had done it; but before very long I knew he hadn't. That nine of spades was on the floor. I didn't know I'd dropped it, but as I threw down my hand he saw me brush it off the table with my elbow. He knew that it never had anything to do with Beaton."
"When did he make you these frank confessions?"
"That belongs to the part of the story that I haven't come to yet."
"Oh, there is a part of the story that you haven't come to? What part's that? You seem to have been bottling up a good deal inside yourself, Draycott."
"It's the story of what took place on the night of the Easter ball at Avonham."
So far the only sounds heard in the billiard-room had been the questions and the answers. The listeners had been so still; particularly had this seemed to be the case with Violet Forster. She gripped with her gloved hand the back of the chair as if from the very intensity of the grip she derived moral support. She stood very straight, with her lips tightly pressed together, and with a strained look on her white face, as if with her every faculty she was bent on following the words, without missing a syllable or an accent, and, if possible, reading any hidden meaning which might lie behind them. Her immobility was so continuous as to be almost unnatural.
But when Mr. Draycott made that reference to what had happened on the occasion of the Easter ball at Avonham her whole being seemed to undergo a sudden transformation. Her hands fell to her side; a faint flush came into her cheeks; her lips parted; she moved a little forward with an air of odd expectancy, as if she longed, and feared, to hear what was coming.
Before Draycott was allowed to continue there was an interposition from Anthony Dodwell, addressed directly to him.
"Let me warn you, Draycott, that for every lie you're going to utter--and I can see from the look of you that you're going to tell nothing else but lies--I'll call you to an account; and don't flatter yourself that, however your friends may try to cover you, you'll escape me."
As he answered, Draycott looked Anthony Dodwell very straight in the face.
"I shall never be afraid of you again--never! Don't you suppose it!"
"Don't you be so sure. You were afraid of me once; and, when you and I are again alone together, you'll be just as much afraid of me as you ever were. Gentlemen of your habits of body are only courageous when they know themselves to be in a position in which they are sure of being protected by their friends."
"I don't think I ever was afraid of you, Dodwell; but you were a mystery to me, I didn't understand you, and I was a fool. But now I do understand you; if you were holding a revolver to my throat I shouldn't be afraid of the kind of man you are. I know you."
Draycott turned to the girl.
"You remember, Miss Forster, that on the night of the Easter ball you said something to me about that poker business?"
"I remember quite well."
"I'd been ashamed of myself a long time before that; but what you said to me made my shame greater than I could bear. All along I had had a feeling that if Beaton had gone under because of what had happened, of what I had said, then I was directly responsible for his undoing; although he had never done me a bad turn--I had done that to him. I understood that nothing had been heard of him, that he had disappeared. He might have committed suicide; I was haunted by a feeling that he had. If so, his blood was on my head."
"From whom have you been learning all this fine language, Draycott?"
The question came from Dodwell; it went unanswered.
"I told myself, over and over again, that I would make a clean breast of it, that I would let everybody know that Beaton was a man of honour, and that I was not. But I had not found it easy, when it came to the point; in the first place, there was Dodwell; and then there was my--I suppose it was cowardice."
"In anything in which you were concerned one can always count on your playing the coward."
"But that night, after what you had said to me, I made up my mind that I could stand it no longer. I looked up Dodwell and I told him so. He laughed, as he always did; then when he saw I was in earnest----"
"I saw you were drunk."
"When he saw I was in earnest, he said that if I would turn up after the dance he would talk things over with me then."
"I warn you once more--look after that tongue of yours."
"I should advise you, Dodwell," struck in Clifford, "to begin by looking after your own. You keep on talking about Draycott's cowardice, while all the time you seem to be in mortal terror of what he is going to say."
Noel Draycott continued as if he had not been interrupted.
"When the others went upstairs I stayed behind."
"But where were you?"
The question, eagerly asked, came from Violet Forster.
"At first I was in the conservatory."
"But weren't the lights out?"
"They had been; I turned some of them on again. Dodwell came to me. We started quarrelling right away."
"You were quarrelling drunk." This was Dodwell.
"I told him that I meant to tell you, Miss Forster, the whole truth about that poker business in the morning; I knew you were interested in Beaton, and that you had a right to be the first to hear. Afterwards, I informed him, I should make it known in the regiment. When he saw that I meant what I said, he threatened me."
"You miserable animal--threatened you!"
"When, in spite of his threats, I made it clear that nothing would keep me from doing what I said, he got worse. He would not let me leave him. I didn't want to have a row with him; I knew there would be more than enough scandal anyhow; I was in a house in which I was a stranger. As you know, the whole lot of us were asked to the dance, and I had no acquaintance with either my host or hostess; but it was only after a sort of rough and tumble that I managed to slip away."
He paused, as if to enable himself to recall quite clearly what had occurred. Dodwell, seizing a billiard cue which rested against a chair, glared at him as if he would have liked to continue the quarrel where it had left off.
"He followed me; I don't know the geography of the house, but I know that we came to what seemed to be a sort of drawing-room in which there was a lot of gilded chairs and furniture."
"I know," said Miss Forster. She glanced at Major Reith. "You remember?"
"Perfectly--am I ever likely to forget?"
Draycott went on.
"In the scrimmage we had we knocked the things all over the place. We made such an awful din that I kept on wondering how it was that nobody heard us."
"Someone did hear you--I did. And Major Reith heard you also."
This again was Miss Forster.
"He wouldn't let me leave the room until I'd promised that I wouldn't say a word about what I said I would, and I wouldn't promise. I was no match for him; he's a bigger and a stronger man than I am; he hammered me a good deal, and I told him what I thought of him. There was a sort of a club lying on a table; he sent me flying against the table, the table went over, and I with it; the club fell on to the floor. I told him again what I thought of him as I was going over. I suppose that made him madder than ever. He picked up the club, and he struck at me with it. I put up my left arm to ward off the blow, and he broke it--just there."
Mr. Draycott held up his left arm, touching it between the wrist and the elbow.
"I heard the bone snap. I was trying to get up from the floor when he hit me a second time; that time I think it must have got me on the head--down I went again, for good. Yet I was conscious that he kept on hitting me as I lay motionless. What is still queerer--I can't explain it, but I had an extraordinary feeling that Sydney Beaton had come into the room, that he saw Dodwell raining blows down on me, that he said something, that Dodwell gave a yell at the sight of him, and ran away. That's all I can remember of what took place at Avonham."
"It seems to be a pretty good deal." This was Clifford. He turned to Dodwell. "What do you think?"
"It's a farrago of lies."
"Somehow, Dodwell, you don't look as if it were a farrago of lies. I don't want to prejudice the minds of the judge and jury before whom you will possibly be brought, but if I were betting I should be inclined to lay odds--against you. Do you deny that you did meet Draycott in the conservatory after the rest of us had gone to bed?"
"What right have you to ask me questions?"
"I see; that's the tone you take! What right has anyone to ask you questions? As I expected--you deny that you quarrelled with Draycott?"
"What have my private affairs to do with you?"
"Your private affairs? It has come to that! You call attempted murder your private affair? Do you deny that you did strike Draycott as he says?"
"I deny everything."
"I see--a general denial. You know, Dodwell, you should have started denying at the first. When you tacitly admit that you did meet Draycott, and that you did quarrel with him, you have already reached the point at which a general denial only tells against you. What I don't understand, Draycott, is, where have you been since that night? I don't know if you are aware that the British public has been taking a most lively interest in your private affairs, and that all sorts of more or less interested persons have been searching for you high and low. It's a good time ago, you know, since the Easter ball. The puzzle is, in what unfindable place have you been hidden all this while?"
"I've been with Beaton."
"You've been--where? Pardon me, Miss Forster, you were going to speak."
"I--I was only going to ask him what he meant by--by saying that he has been with Mr. Beaton."
"It is not altogether easy to explain; you will get a fuller explanation from someone else; I can only tell you what I know. The last thing I remembered at Avonham was, as I have told you, that Dodwell was beating me about the head with a club as I lay on the floor."
"You delightful person, Mr. Dodwell." The interruption came from Frank Clifford. "Mixed up with it was the feeling that Beaton was in the room. Then, I suppose, I lost consciousness. When I came to myself again I couldn't make out what had happened, or where I was. Then by degrees I began to understand that I was in bed, in a strange room, and that Beaton was leaning over me. 'Why, Syd!' I said--it wasn't a very brilliant remark to make, but I remember that I did make it. What he said I don't know, I fancy I must have slipped back into unconsciousness again. To make a long story short, when I did come really to myself again, I found that I was in Beaton's rooms."
"But how on earth did you get there?" demanded Major Reith. "When I last saw you I could have sworn that you were lying dead on the floor of that room at Avonham. Directly my back was turned, did you get up and walk to Beaton's rooms?"
"That's a part of the story with which I'm not very well posted. It wasn't only imagination when, while Dodwell was clubbing me, I felt that Beaton had come into the room; he had, and Dodwell had seen him--and he saw what Dodwell was doing to me. He will be able to bear witness to that part of my story, as Dodwell is probably aware."
Suddenly, it seemed, that Mr. Dodwell had decided to take up a new position as regarded the last part of Noel Draycott's story.
"I don't deny that I did strike him, I never have denied it, but what I did was only done in self-defence."
"While a man was lying on the floor you struck him, with a club, in self-defence?"
"He had been threatening me, and telling all sorts of lies, and I was half beside myself with rage, and I meant to give him the thrashing he deserved, and if I went a little too far it was because I had been drinking, as he had, and was mad with fury, and didn't know what I was doing--and there you are."
"And all this time the world has been wondering what became of Draycott, and you never so much as hinted that you knew."
"I didn't know; I was just as much in the dark as anyone--I wondered."
"You thought you had killed him?"
Dodwell was silent; Clifford went on. "You thought you had killed him, and that was why you never said a word."
"I knew I hadn't killed him."
"How did you know?"
"If I had he'd have been where I left him; he wouldn't have got up and walked away."
"It didn't occur to you that what you had done to him that night had anything to do with his disappearance?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"You didn't think it advisable, or necessary, to come forward and throw some sort of light on what seemed an insoluble mystery by telling your story of what took place that night?"
"I wished to avoid a scandal."
"What a thoughtful man you are, Mr. Dodwell! It did not occur to you, I suppose, that if you did tell your story you'd be in the hands of the police immediately after--that had nothing to do with your silence?"
Anthony Dodwell was silent. Clifford, who seemed to be taking on himself the office of examiner-in-chief, put a question to Draycott:
"How came Beaton to be at Avonham that night? Was he an invited guest?"
"That I cannot tell you; I only know it was lucky for me that he was there."
"You say he saw Dodwell clubbing you, and that when Dodwell saw him he ran away. Why didn't Beaton, knowing that crime had been committed--because you must have been in a pretty bad state, or Reith wouldn't have thought you dead----?"
"I believe I was; I believe that for ever so long nobody thought I should live; indeed, it's only by a miracle that I'm alive now, and owing to Beaton's care of me."
"Then, as I was saying, knowing that a crime had been committed, why ever didn't Beaton rouse the house?"
"That again I cannot tell you. I fancy that, as Dodwell put it, he also wished to avoid causing a scandal."
"From, however, I presume, a different motive; he couldn't have been afraid of the police. Then are we to understand that you have remained in Beaton's quarters all this time?"
"Exactly; he did everything for me; I owe everything to him--life, all."
"And what does he owe to you?"
"That's just it; what doesn't he owe to me? It's the consciousness of what he owes that's driven me here to-night; which made me feel that I must take the first chance that offered to clear him in the eyes of all you fellows--and that I must do it, too, in the presence of Miss Forster. That's why I arranged that she should be here; and now you fellows will see why I wanted her to stay. Only recently I recovered consciousness--what you could call consciousness--and since then I've been hanging between life and death; I know I couldn't lift a finger. I fancy that Dodwell must have hit me on some peculiar spot, because I believe the doctor fellows never thought I should regain my reason; I must have been a handful to Syd Beaton. I had done him the worst turn possible, and he knew what I'd done, but he treated me as if I'd been the best and truest friend that ever was. I'm convinced that if it hadn't been for him I shouldn't be here talking to you now. A better, a finer, a nobler fellow than he never lived--and that's what I want you fellows to know. You may do what you like to me; I deserve any punishment; but you ought to beg Sydney Beaton's pardon--and you've got to do it, too."
"Have we? You rush your fences. And, pray, where is Mr. Beaton, if, as you say, we have to beg his pardon?"
"I believe that, by now, he ought to be outside."