The Times Red Cross Story Book by Famous Novelists Serving in His Majesty's Forces. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
not. Dimoussi might return to compare his pistol with Arden’s, and to establish its superiority. Arden waited all the evening in a strong suspense; and at ten o’clock, when he was alone, Dimoussi stepped noiselessly into the shelter, and laid his brass-barrelled pistol on the ground in the light of the lamp.
“It is better than yours. It comes from Agadhir, in the Sus country, where the best pistols are made. See, those letters prove it.”
Arden had no doubt that he had now Challoner’s murderer sitting at his side. But he looked at the letters on the pistol-barrel to which Dimoussi pointed. The letters were in English, and made up the name “Bennett.” There was also engraved upon the brass of the barrel “London.” The pistol was an old horse-pistol of English make. Even its period was clear to Arden. For above the lion and the crown was the letter C. Arden pointed to those marks.
“What do they mean?”
“They are charms to prevent it missing.”
Arden said nothing. His thoughts were busy on other matters. This pistol was a pistol of the time of Charles II, of the time of the Tangier siege.
“How long have you had it?” he asked.
“My father owned it before me.”
“And his father before him?”
“Very likely. I do not know.”
Arden’s excitement was increasing. He began to see dim, strange possibilities. Suppose, he reasoned, that this pistol had travelled up to Mequinez in the possession of an English prisoner. Suppose that by some chance the prisoner had escaped and wandered; and suddenly he saw something which caught his breath away. He bent down and examined the brass covering to the heel of the butt. Upon that plate there was an engraved crest. Yes! and the crest was Challoner’s!
Arden kept his face bent over the pistol. Questions raced through his mind. Had that pistol belonged to Luke Challoner, who had turned renegade two hundred years ago? Had he married in his captivity? Had his descendants married again, until all trace of their origin was lost except this pistol and five words of English, and the name “Englishwoman”? Ah! but if so, who was the Frenchwoman?
It was quite intelligible to Arden why Dimoussi had slain Challoner. Fanaticism was sufficient reason. But supposing Dimoussi were a descendant of Luke! It was all very strange. Challoner was the last of his family, the last of his name. Had the family name been extinguished by a Challoner?
Arden returned to Mequinez the next day, and, making search, through the help of the Bashaw, who was his friend, amongst documents which existed, he at last came upon the explanation.
The renegades, who were made up not merely of English prisoners of Tangier, but of captives of many nationalities taken by the Salee pirates, had, about the year 1700, become numerous enough to threaten Mequinez. Consequently the Sultan had one fine morning turned them all out of the town through the Renegade’s Gate and bidden them go south and found a city for themselves.
They had founded Agurai, they had been attacked by the Beni M’tir; with diminishing numbers they had held their own; they had intermarried with the natives; and now, two hundred years later, all that remained of them were the Frenchwoman, Dimoussi, and his mother.
There could be no doubt that Challoner had been murdered because he was a European, by one of his own race.
There could be no doubt that the real owner of the Challoner property, which went to a distant relation on the female side, was a Moorish youth living at the village of Agurai.
But Arden kept silence for a long while.
The Woman
By A. A. Milne Royal Warwick Regiment
I
It was April, and in his little bedroom in the Muswell Hill boarding-house, where Mrs. Morrison (assisted, as you found out later, by Miss Gertie Morrison) took in a few select paying guests, George Crosby was packing. Spring came in softly through his open window; it whispered to him tales of green hedges and misty woods and close-cropped rolling grass. “Collars,” said George, trying to shut his ears to it, “handkerchiefs, ties—I knew I’d forgotten something: ties.” He pulled open a drawer. “Ties, shirts—where’s my list?—shirts, ties.” He wandered to the window and looked out. Muswell Hill was below him, but he hardly saw it. “Three weeks,” he murmured. “Heaven for three weeks, and it hasn’t even begun yet.” There was the splendour of it. It hadn’t begun; it didn’t begin till to-morrow. He went back in a dream to his packing. “Collars,” he said, “shirts, ties—ties——”
Miss Gertie Morrison had not offered to help him this year. She had not forgotten that she had put herself forward the year before, when George had stammered and blushed (he found blushing very easy in the Muswell Hill boarding-house), and Algy Traill, the humorist of the establishment, had winked and said, “George, old boy, you’re in luck; Gertie never packs for me.” Algy had continued the joke by smacking his left hand with his right, and saying in an undertone, “Naughty boy, how dare you call her Gertie?” and then in a falsetto voice: “Oh, Mr. Crosby, I’m sure I never meant to put myself forward!” Then Mrs. Morrison from her end of the table called out——
But I can see that I shall have to explain the Muswell Hill ménage to you. I can do it quite easily while George is finishing his packing. He is looking for his stockings now, and that always takes him a long time, because he hasn’t worn them since last April, and they are probably under the bed.
Well, Mrs. Morrison sits at one end of the table and carves. Suppose it is Tuesday evening. “Cold beef or hash, Mr. Traill?” she asks, and Algy probably says “Yes, please,” which makes two of the boarders laugh. These are two pale brothers called Fossett, younger than you who read this have ever been, and enthusiastic admirers of Algy Traill. Their great ambition is to paint the town red one Saturday night. They have often announced their intention of doing this, but so far they do not seem to have left their mark on London to any extent. Very different is it with their hero and mentor. On Boat-race night four years ago Algy Traill was actually locked up—and dismissed next morning with a caution. Since then he has often talked as if he were a Cambridge man; the presence of an Emmanuel lacrosse blue in the adjoining cell having decided him in the choice of a university.
Meanwhile his hash is getting cold. Let us follow it quickly. It is carried by the servant to Miss Gertie Morrison at the other end of the table, who slaps in a helping of potatoes and cabbage. “What, asparagus again?” says Algy, seeing the cabbage. “We are in luck.” Mrs. Morrison throws up her eyes at Mr. Ransom on her right, as much as to say, “Was there ever such a boy?” and Miss Gertie threatens him with the potato spoon, and tells him not to be silly. Mr. Ransom looks approvingly across the table at Traill. He has a feeling that the Navy, the Empire, and the Old Country are in some way linked up with men of the world such as Algy, or that (to put it in another way) a Radical Nonconformist would strongly disapprove of him. It comes to the same thing; you can’t help liking the fellow. Mr. Ransom is wearing an M.C.C. tie; partly because the bright colours make him look younger, partly because unless he changes something for dinner he never feels quite clean, you know. In his own house he would dress every night. He is fifty; tall, dark, red-faced, black-moustached, growing stout; an insurance agent. It is his great sorrow that the country is going to the dogs, and he dislikes the setting of class against class. The proper thing to do is to shoot them down.
Opposite him, and looking always as if he had slept in his clothes, is Mr. Owen-Jones—called Mr. Joen-Owns by Algy. He argues politics fiercely across Mrs. Morrison. “My dear fellow,” he cries to Ransom, “you’re nothing but a reactionary!”—to