Complete works of a e w.., p.818
Complete Works of a E W Mason, page 818
Swaine turned back towards the American, who was regarding him with the oddest look.
“The fact is,” Swaine explained, “I expected someone to-night, a missionary, and if he doesn’t come I shall miss him altogether. For I am leaving early to-morrow.”
Even whilst he made the explanation, he had a feeling that he was tempting God to send the missionary to him, as an answer and retort to the regret he had tried to force into his voice. But though his eyes searched the darkness, there was not a movement, not a flicker.
“It was my fancy,” he said, sinking down again into his chair.
“A touch of liver, I should think,” returned the American, and he resumed his discourse.
But Swaine was no longer in the mood to listen. His confidence had gone for good with the flitting of that shadow across the open doorway. Apparently he listened, but — in his mind he saw as on a board written up in fiery letters —
“It makes murder worth while. To-night take care!”
After all, he had got the best part of his life in front of him. He was only thirty-seven and he had progressed so far already that all the rewards were in his reach. It wouldn’t do for him to die in Anuradhapura to satisfy the insane jealousy of a Cingalee. He relit his cigar and stood up.
“It’s hot in here. Shall we go outside?”
“That’s a fine idea,” said his companion sympathetically. “I am from the Santa Fe valley and I expect I feel the heat less than you do.”
Swaine was very glad to have a companion with him and the two men paced the drive together for an hour. No one passed them. On the top of the porch which made a big common balcony for the guests of the hotel, some of the visitors were sitting. Swaine’s room was next to the porch, and as he looked up to its shuttered window, he drew some relief from the contiguity of those visitors.
“Well, I shall go to bed. Good night, sir,” said the American.
“I am coming too,” replied Swaine quickly, and he threw the butt of his cigar away. He would have someone with him as he went up the stairs, and there would still be his door and — made sure that it was a shadow which had flitted across his vision — a shadow of his own disordered thoughts. None the less he flung his door open violently and held it pressed back with all the force of his right arm whilst he groped for the switch of the electric light with his left hand. It seemed ages before he found it.
He left the door open after he had entered. The room was bare and clean as befitted the climate. A strip of carpet on the boards beside the bed, a chest of drawers, a chair and an arm-chair, a washing stand, a dressing-table, and a wardrobe with a glass door, a high bed without valance or flounce, shrouded in its mosquito curtain — that was all the furniture which the room contained. Swaine crossed the room and jerked open the door of the wardrobe — it was empty and it was the only place in the room where a man could hide. The windows stood open, their white flimsy curtains were drawn apart, the shutters were barred. There was no cupboard in the walls. The space beneath the bed was bare. Satisfied that his room harboured no assailant, Swaine at last closed the door. There was a key in the lock, and below the lock a strong bolt. He turned the key and shot the bolt. He was safe till daylight came, as safe as in a fortress.
But he made up his mind to leave the light burning. If anyone thought of getting in, in spite of the lock and the bolt and the shutter-bars, he would see under the sill of the door or through the slats of the shutters that the light was on, that Swaine was still awake. He undressed, slipped under his mosquito curtain and nestled down in his bed. But at once he became uneasy. The light was outside the mosquito curtain. He could not see the room any longer as clearly as he wanted to see, as clearly as he ought to see. The white veil of the curtain hindered his vision. On the other hand, he lying inside the net was visible. That would not do. That would not do at all. He raised the mosquito curtain on both sides and flung it up to lie in a bundle on the top of the high bed frame. That was very much better. He leaned up on his elbow. He could see the whole room now — every inch and corner of it, and above all the door of that wardrobe, empty though it was — empty though it undoubtedly was.
The tiny “ping” of a mosquito close to his face determined him to smoke a pipe of tobacco. He had a copy of Great Expectations on the table by his bed. Swaine had always cherished a fondness for that book because of its title. When in due course he had a title, Great Expectations was to be his motto. He filled his pipe, once more swinging back to a mood of ease. In the company of Pip and Joe Gargery and Miss Haversham, he could pass the hours very pleasantly till morning came.
He struck a match and as the flame spurted, the electric light went out. The management of the hotel had principles of economy which were not shared by David Swaine. It was time for all good people to be asleep. Swaine held the lighted match until the flame burnt his fingers — his mouth open, his eyes set and staring like a man who has had a stroke. There was no candle in the room, and only some half a dozen matches left in the box. Those he must nurse; but so many voices whispered in his ear “Take care to-night,” so many stealthy footsteps approached his bed, that every one of them had been used before half the night was over. Then after all, the door of the wardrobe creaked, and he heard the hinges whine as it swung slowly open. He lay now in a stark panic, a bead of sweat trickled suddenly down his cheek, he could hear nothing for the throbbing of his heart, loud as a drum to which soldiers march.
And some time or another, from sheer exhaustion he fell asleep. For he heard a loud knocking upon his door and, starting up, saw the daylight filtering through the lattices of the shutters. He had actually been asleep, he realized with amazement.
“Who’s there?” he cried, and the voice of his bearer replied to him;
“Time, sir. Motor-car coming soon.”
Swaine sprang out of bed and flung back the shutters. The little park was spread out before him, the coolness of the morning bathed and refreshed him. He unlocked the door and drew the bolt back.
“Get me my bath,” he said; and looking at his servant with his long hair fixed with a great tortoise-shell comb on the top of his head and the curious femininity of his bust which he had remarked in so many of the Cingalese, he was astounded that he should ever have been afraid.
“Bath all ready, eh? And water very hot?” he asked jovially.
“Water very hot, sir,” said the bearer, as he put the bath slippers by the bed and arranged the dressing-gown over the foot. Swaine slipped on the dressing-gown and thrust his feet into the slippers.
“Get the chota-hazri, John, and then finish packing,” said Swaine. “We’ll get off as soon as we can.”
He took up his big sponge on the palm of one hand and his cake of soap in the other, and went down the passage to the bathroom, where a great tub full of steaming water awaited him. He set the sponge and the soap down by the side of the bath, and stripped. A great earthenware ewer filled with cold water stood by the side of the bath. Swaine, with a sense of luxury dipped his sponge into it, raised the sponge high above his head and with an “Ah!” of anticipation squeezed and squeezed hard. Then he screamed and flung the sponge from him.
It fell into the steaming bath and suddenly came to life. It bubbled and sank and rose again. It spun and twisted in frantic convulsions, and rocked on the water like a boat in a storm. Swaine watched it stupidly, with a face the colour of putty, whilst his left hand gripped his right forearm like a vice. Then out of the sponge a little snake of greenish-yellow colour, with a startling black band across its back, darted like a bullet and lashed the water in its agony like a whipcord. Once more Swaine screamed and then tumbled with a crash on to the floor of the bathroom.
“A curious thing,” said the doctor afterwards to Mr. Septimus Gordon — the Commissioner. “It was a snake from the Gulf of Manar. Deadly enough of course. No doubt the bite would have killed him. But it didn’t. I saw his face. He died of fear.”
The Commissioner nodded.
“He didn’t know the rule of the East — to throw your sponge into the bath before you use it. A snake from the Gulf of Manar. There’s a snake-charmer giving performances at that hotel. I’ll round him up.”
He sat for a little time in thought, and his thoughts went straight to the Reverend Bernard Simmons, M.A., Oxon., B.D.
“I wonder,” he said, less to the doctor than to himself.
A FLAW IN THE ORGANIZATION
ORGANIZATION WAS THE long suit of Julian Clere, the eminent solicitor. Not probity, nor affection, but organization. Years and years ago when he had been defending in the Police Courts, prisoners little poorer than himself, one of his failures, not so indignant at the severity of his sentence as bewildered that he should have been sentenced at all, said:
“I saw a pigeon and I plucked ’im. Ain’t that right, Mister?”
To Julian Clere that was very, very right. What was wrong was that the prisoner had not organized what he would doubtless have called his get-away. Mr. Clere meant to make no such mistake himself and through the years, as he rose, one might say, from pigeon to pigeon, he tucked a comfortable little fortune away in a bank at Stockholm, under the name of Hiram T. Clegg, of Cleveland, Ohio. He had made the acquaintance of the Bank Manager in Stockholm and through him had bought a small island with a comfortable house upon it on the lovely stretch of river between the city and the sea. All the links in the long and devious chain which stretched from his office in Waterloo Place, S.W.1, to his island had been regularly tested and he felt pleasantly safe.
He had need of that feeling now. Up till this year, by paying incomes out of capital, and some fortunate speculations made at critical moments, he had been able to meet all the clients whose affairs he had mis-managed, with an unclouded brow. But the American slump had caught him in the fall of last year and the recovery was too slow. It was now the month of May, he was fifty-one years old, a widower with a daughter of nineteen, and his time had come. Young Charlie Heseltine would come of age on Friday morning and to-day was Monday. Mr. Julian Clere had the sensation of pride a great general might feel who launches a campaign of which every detail has been planned and tested through a long succession of years.
Yet suddenly there appeared a crack in the organization. A clerk knocked upon and opened the door of his private office and before he could announce Mr. Heseltine, Mr. Heseltine with his boyish faith that everyone was his friend and delighted to see him, pushed by into the room.
“How do you do, Mr. Clere?” he cried. “I was passing. I thought that I’d run in;” and he shook his trustee and solicitor warmly by the hand.
Julian Clere rose hastily. He was aware of an odd sinking in the pit of his stomach. “Panicky! That won’t do,” he said to himself. But none of the panic showed in his face.
“Of course, of course,” he replied heartily, and turning to his clerk, “Put a chair for Mr. Heseltine, Willis.”
Whilst Willis placed the chair in position by the table Mr. Clere opened a drawer and slipped into it the little map on which he had been marking a neat little star in red ink. It was a map of the Cruising Club, giving the contours and the depths of some lonely inlets in the south-western corner of Ireland. “Did Heseltine notice it?” he asked himself.
But Charlie Heseltine gave no sign that he had noticed anything at all.
“I am really not going to take up your time, Mr. Clere,” he said. “What I ran in to say was that I am crossing to Ireland to-night for three days of fishing.”
“Where?” Julian Clere asked.
“The Shannon. But I shall be back on Friday for the meeting. It’s fixed for ten in the morning, isn’t it? Well, I might be a little late. Does that matter?”
“Not a bit,” said Mr. Clere, speaking the truth. “I shall have all the securities and papers ready for you,” he added, telling a lie. “Any time on Friday morning will do.”
Obviously Charlie Heseltine had never noticed the map. Even if he had, what could he have made of it, except that a hard-worked solicitor was planning out his summer holiday? Mr. Clere breathed more easily. But he realized with a little shock of astonishment that he had been afraid. For fear had not entered at all into any of his possibilities. His organization was a thing of cast-iron solidity. There could not be the shadow of a reason for fear. Yet...yet...absurdly he had been in a veritable panic. Another shock awaited him. For as Charlie Heseltine edged towards the door, he said with some embarrassment:
“You know, perhaps, Mr. Clere, that I have been meeting your daughter a good deal lately, at luncheons, and dances, and that sort of thing.”
Mr. Clere sat very still, but with his usual cordial smile upon his face.
“No, Marjorie hasn’t mentioned it. But nowadays young people manage their own affairs, don’t they? We’re lucky if we’re consulted at all.”
“Well, I’m consulting you now, sir,” said Heseltine, gathering his courage. He returned into the room and sat down again in the chair. “I know that I only come of age on Friday, but I can tell you,” and with his face reddening he blurted out, “Marjorie means all the world to me.”
Julian Clere nodded his head, once or twice. Then he asked:
“Have you said anything of this to Marjorie?”
“Not a word.”
Once more fear had gripped Mr. Clere and once more it relaxed its hold. He hardly listened to Heseltine’s explanation.
“I thought you ought to know. I mean to ask Marjorie to marry me in any case. I want to be frank about that. But I hope you won’t see any objection.”
Mr. Clere raised his eyebrows and laughed genially.
“You are both of you rather young for matrimony, aren’t you?” he said.
“I don’t think so,” Heseltine urged. “After all, I’ve taken my degree. I’m down from Oxford. And I shall be very well off, shan’t I?”
The solicitor looked sharply at the young man.
“Very well off of course,” he said.
“And I don’t intend to waste my life doing nothing,” Heseltine continued. “I’m going to work. I took a First, you know, in History.”
Julian Clere patted the young man’s arm.
“I know your record, my dear boy. It’s clean and good, as good as any father could wish for his daughter. But you see, Marjorie is my daughter and — I’ve no one else.” Nothing could have been better than his simple unaffected statement. He was the man of affairs quizzing himself because across his busy life a great love shone. “I would hate Marjorie to run into unhappiness because she had mistaken the depth of her feelings. Or because you had mistaken the depth of yours.”
“I haven’t,” Heseltine insisted.
“I wonder how many young men have said that and learnt within the year that they were wrong,” Mr. Clere rejoined. “You must remember,” he added whimsically, “that I am a solicitor and come across a good many unhappy marriages. It’s natural that I should be cautious. However, that’s all that I am — cautious. I want you to think over the thing very carefully, whilst you are away.”
He saw Charlie Heseltine’s face brighten.
“I want you really to examine yourself whilst you are in Ireland. I am not a fisherman myself, but I understand that even with the best of you there are opportunities for a good deal of reflection.” He laughed and Heseltine joined in his laughter. “Well, then, if when you come back you are still certain that you have made your choice for good and all, you shall have my blessing.”
Young Heseltine wrung the solicitor’s hand until he winced.
“Thank you very much, sir,” he said.
Mr. Clere accompanied him to the door.
“But meanwhile,” he said, “you have promised me, haven’t you, not to hold any communication with Marjorie.”
Heseltine had made no such promise, but he was not for the moment aware of it. The kindness of his father-in-law to be filled him with enthusiasm. He was ready to make him any reasonable promise, so long as it brought him nearer to Marjorie.
“I agree to that,” he said.
“You are leaving for Ireland to-night,” Mr. Clere insisted. “Mind, not even a telephone message before you go.”
“I agree,” Heseltine repeated. “But on Friday, after I’m definitely my own master, I’m going to try to get Marjorie to lunch with me.”
“And in my turn I agree,” said Julian Clere, with all the goodwill in the world. “You shall telephone to her through this instrument,” and he touched the telephone upon his table.
But as soon as he was once more alone in his office his uneasiness returned. Heseltine’s proposal, however, had no share in it at all. Marry Marjorie, would he! The idea was grotesque. Marjorie was a link in the organization though she was as yet unaware of it. She had her work to do. Besides, when he reached his island in the Baltic, Hiram T. Clegg would need a companion. Marjorie’s marriage did not produce a single wrinkle in his forehead.
But — for a moment he had been afraid; and the sensation left an unpleasant savour in his mouth. Fear had not occurred to him as a possibility when he was creating his organization. Therefore he had not organized against it — as no doubt he might have done. He had a shadowy vision of himself living upon his lovely island in an unending palpitation of terror; starting to run if a launch swept up to his landing-stage; shivering at a knock upon the door. Mr. Clere looked about his office, frowning. He hated the room in which fear had first come to him.
It was six o’clock. He rang for his clerk and ran over the list of his appointments for the morning. He wrapped his map round a little wooden roller and sealed it and placed it in his pocket. Then putting on his hat and taking his stick he sauntered a hundred yards or so to his Club in Pall Mall and played a couple of rubbers of Bridge, just as he had done on most days of his working months during the last fifteen years. The rubbers reassured him. His judgment was as cool, his calls as acute as they always had been. When bathed, and comfortable in his dinner-jacket he sat down at his table in his house in Charles Street, Mayfair, to dine with his daughter, he felt ready to press the button and set the organization in action.
