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my friend. And perhaps you begin to realise how 'absolutely damned' I was, when I read that paper--sticky with blood. But probably I was not as surprised as you are now. Even that could not have surprised me very much then, I think," said de Beaujolais.
Lawrence sat down.
"Go on, old chap," he begged. "I sincerely apologise for my recent manners. Please tell me everything, and then let us thrash it out. . . . Lady Brandon! . . . The 'Blue Water' stolen!" . . .
"No need for apologies, my dear George," smiled his friend. "If you seemed a little unimpressed and bored at times, it only gave me the greater zest for the dénouement, when you should hear your . . . our . . . friend's name come into this extraordinary story."
"You're a wily and patient old devil, Jolly," said the astounded Lawrence. "I salute you, Sir. A logical old cuss, too! Fancy keeping that back until now, and telling the yarn neatly, in proper sequence and due order, until the right point in the story was reached, and then . . ."
"Aha! the phlegme Britannique, eh, George!" chuckled de Beaujolais. "Wonderful how the volatile and impetuous Frenchman could do it, wasn't it? And there is something else to come, my friend. All in 'logical proper sequence and due order' there comes another little surprise."
"Then, for God's sake get on with it, old chap! . . . More about Lady Brandon, is it?" replied Lawrence, now all animation and interest.
"Indirectly, mon cher Georges. For that paper was signed--by whom?" asked the Frenchman, leaning forward, tapping his friend's knee, staring impressively with narrowed eyes into those of that bewildered gentleman.
And into the ensuing silence he slowly and deliberately dropped the words, "By Michael Geste!"
Lawrence raised himself on his elbow and stared at his friend incredulous.
"By Michael Geste! Her nephew! You don't mean to tell me that Michael Geste stole her sapphire and slunk off to the Legion? 'Beau' Geste! Get out . . ." he said, and fell back.
"I don't mean to tell you anything, my friend, except that the paper was signed 'Michael Geste.'"
"Was the bareheaded man he? Look here, are you pulling my leg?"
"I do not know who the man was, George. And I am not pulling your leg. I saw two or three boys and two so beautiful girls, once, at Brandon Abbas, years ago. This man might have been one of them. The age would be about right. And then, again, this man may have had nothing on earth to do with the paper. Nor any other man on that roof, except the sous-officier--and he most certainly was not Michael Geste. He was a man of forty or forty-five years, and as I have said, no Englishman."
"Michael would be about twenty or so," said Lawrence. "He was the oldest of the nephews. . . . But, my dear Jolly, the Gestes don't steal! They are her nephews. . . . I am going to put some ice on my head."
"I have wanted a lot of ice to the head, the last few weeks, George. What, too, of the murdered sous-officier and the utterly vanished trumpeter?"
"Oh, damn your trumpeter and sous-officier," was the explosive reply. "Michael Geste! . . . Lady Brandon. . . . Forgive me, old chap, and finish the story . . ." and George Lawrence lay back on his couch and stared at the roof of the carriage.
Lady Brandon! The only woman in the world.
§7.
And as the train rumbled on through the sweltering coastlands toward Lagos, Major de Beaujolais, highly pleased with the success of his neat and clever little coup, continued his story.
"Well, my George, figure me there, with this new astoundment, this extraordinary accompaniment to the sinister and bewildering mystery of an inexplicable murder and an inexplicable disappearance. . . .
And then, 'What is in the paper, might one respectfully enquire, mon Commandant,' asked the Sergeant-Major.
'The confession of a thief--that he stole a famous jewel,' I replied.
'Which was the thief?' said he.
'Oh, ask me some questions, my good imbecile!' said I. 'Ask me where the trumpeter is, and whose is this bayonet, and who disposed these dead men as defenders, and who fired two shots, and whether I am mad or dreaming,' I answered--and then pulled myself together. 'Now come with me,' I bade him. 'We will make one more search below, and then déjeuner, and a quiet, sensible, reasonable discussion of the facts, before we bury these brave fellows, detail an escouade of our men as garrison, and return to Tokotu. I shall leave you in command here until we get orders and reliefs.'
The Sergeant-Major looked distinctly dubious at this. 'Here--for weeks!' he said softly.
We made our tour below, and, as before, nothing unusual met the eye, and there was no sign of the trumpeter, alive or dead. We had seen him climb on to that parapet and apparently no living eye had beheld him again.
I was past wonder. I accepted things.
Very well, this was a place where Commandants are murdered by non-existent people; soldiers vanish like a whiff of smoke; and English letters concerning one's friends are found in the hands of dead Frenchmen. Very good. Be it so. We would 'carry on' as you say, and do our duty.
'Think hard--and be prepared to pick holes in the theories I shall propound an hour hence,' said I to the Sergeant-Major, as we passed out of the gate, and I proceeded to the oasis where my excellent Achmet had prepared my soup and coffee. . . .
You do not want to hear my theories, George, and there was no need for the Sergeant-Major to point out the impossibilities and absurdities in them. They leapt to the eye immediately.
It all came back to the bald facts that there must be a soldier of the garrison missing, that he must have taken his rifle and left his bayonet in the sous-officier, instead of shooting him and awaiting praise and reward; that my trumpeter had vanished; that the dead sous-officier had been in possession of a confession, real or bogus, to the effect that Michael Geste had stolen his aunt's famous sapphire.
There it was--and nothing but lunacy could result from theory-making about the sous-officier's murder, the trumpeter's disappearance, or Michael Geste's confession and how it got there.
No--you do not want to hear those perfectly futile theories--those explanations that explained nothing. But it may interest you to hear that I was faced that evening, on top of the rest of my little pleasures, with a military mutiny."
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Lawrence, turning to the speaker.
"Yes. At four o'clock I ordered the Sergeant-Major to fall the men in, and I would tell off the new garrison for Zinderneuf.
In a most unusual manner the Sergeant-Major hung fire, so to speak, instead of stepping smartly off about his duty.
'Well?' said I sharply.
'There is going to be trouble, mon Commandant,' he faltered.
'Mon Dieu, there is!' I snapped, 'and I am going to make it, if I have any nonsense. What do you mean?'
'Sergeant Lebaudy says that Corporal Brille says that the men say . . .'
'Name of the Name of the Name of Ten Thousand Thundering Tin Devils,' I shouted. . . . 'You say that he says that they say that she says,' I mocked. 'Va t'en, grand babbilard!' I roared at him. 'I'll be on parade outside those gates in ten seconds, and if you and your gibbering chatterboxes are not awaiting me there at attention . . .' and my poor Sergeant-Major fled.
I was the more angry at his news, for I had subconsciously expected something of the sort.
What else, with these ignorant, superstitious clods, who were the bravest of the brave against human foes? None like them. Every man a hero in battle. . . . But what of that House of Death with its Watchers? That place into which their comrade had boldly climbed--and never come forth again.
Rastignac had begun it. And they had