Читать книгу Beau Geste - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 9

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Bathed, full-fed, and at peace with a noisy world, in so far as choking dust, grilling heat, and the weariness of three days’ close confinement in a stuffy carriage allowed, the two compagnons de voyage lay and smoked the cheroot of digestion in a brief silence. Brief, because it was not in the power of the impulsive and eloquent beau sabreur, of the Spahis, to keep silence for long upon the subject uppermost in his active and ardent mind.

“Georges, mon vieux,” he broke silence, “do you believe in spirits, ghosts, devils?”

“I firmly believe in whiskey, the ghost of a salary, and a devil of a thin time. Seen ’em myself,” was the reply.

“Because the only solution that my Sergeant-Major could offer was just that....

‘Spirits! Ghosts! Devils!’ he whispered, when he realised that the sous-officier had been murdered apparently by a corpse, and that the trumpeter had absolutely vanished into thin air, leaving not a trace of himself, and effecting the evaporation of his rifle as well as of his trumpet and everything else.

This was not very helpful, strongly as I was tempted to endorse it.

‘Sergeant-Major Dufour,’ said I, ‘I am going to propound theories and you are going to find the weak points in them. The absurdities and idiocies in them.

Post vedettes far out, all round the place, and let the men fall out and water their beasts in the oasis. Sergeant Lebaudy will be in command. Tell him that fires may be lighted and soupe made, but that in an hour’s time all are to be on grave-digging fatigue. He is to report immediately when mule-scouts from Lieutenant St. André’s advance Senegalese arrive from Tokotu, or if anything happens meanwhile. If a vedette gives the alarm, all are to enter the fort immediately—otherwise no one is to set foot inside. Put a sentry at the gate.... You and I will look into this affaire while Achmet makes us some coffee’—and I gave the good fellow a cake of chocolate and a measure of cognac from my flask. We were both glad of that cognac.

While he was gone on this business I remained on the roof. I preferred the sunlight while I was alone. I freely admit it. I do not object to Arabs, but I dislike ‘spirits, ghosts, and devils’—that commit murders and abductions. Perhaps I was not quite myself. But what would you? I had been enjoying fever; I had ridden all night; I was perilously near cafard myself; and the presence of those dead Watchers to whom I had spoken, the finding of that incredibly murdered man, the not finding of that more incredibly vanished trumpeter—had shaken me a little.

As I awaited the return of the Sergeant-Major I gazed at the corpse of the sous-officier. I stared and stared at the face of the dead man—not too pleasant a sight, George—contorted with rage, and pain, and hate—dead for some hours and it was getting hot on that roof—and there were flies ... flies....

I stared, I say, as though I would drag the truth from him, compel the secret of this mystery from his dead lips, hypnotise those dead eyes to turn to mine and—but no, it was he that hypnotised and compelled, until I was fain to look away.

As I did so, I noticed the man who was lying near. Yes, undoubtedly someone had carefully and reverently laid him out. His eyes had been closed, his head propped up on a pouch, and his hands folded upon his chest. Why had he received such different treatment from that meted out to the others? ...

And then that bareheaded man. It was he—a very handsome fellow too—who had given me my first shock and brought it home to my wondering mind that the men who watched me were all dead.

You see, all but he had their faces in the deep shade of the big peaks of their képis—whilst he, bareheaded and shot through the centre of the forehead, was dead obviously—even to shortsighted me, looking up from below against the strong sunlight; even to me, deceived at first by his lifelike attitude.

And, as I glanced at their two képis lying there, I noticed something peculiar.

One had been wrenched and torn from within. The lining, newly ripped, was protruding, and the inner leather band was turned down and outward. It was as though something had recently been torn violently out of the cap—something concealed in the lining perhaps? ...

No, it was not the freak of a ricochetting bullet. The standing man had been hit just above the nose and under the cap, the recumbent man was hit in the chest.

‘Now what is this?’ thought I. ‘A man shot through the brain does not remove his cap and tear the lining out. He gives a galvanic start, possibly spins round, and quietly he falls backwards. His limbs stretch once and quiver, and he is still for ever. His tight-fitting cap may, or may not, fall off as he goes down—but there is no tearing out of the lining, no turning down of the leather band.’

Bullets play funny tricks, I know, but not upon things they do not touch. This bullet had been fired, I should say, from a palm tree, and almost on a level with the roof; anyhow, it had entered the head below the cap. There was no hole in that whatsoever. To which of these two men did the cap belong? ...

Had all been normal in that terrible place, all lying dead as they had fallen, I might never have noticed this torn cap. As it was—where everything was extraordinary, and the mind of the beholder filled with suspicion and a thousand questions, it was most interesting and remarkable. It became portentous. It was one more phenomenon in that focus of phenomena!

And from that cap and its recently torn and still protruding lining—oh yes, most obviously torn quite recently, with its edging of unsoiled threads, frayed but clean—from that cap, I looked quite instinctively at the paper crushed in the left hand of the dead officer. I know not why I connected these two things in my mind. They connected themselves perhaps—and I was about to take the paper from the rigid fist, when I thought, ‘No! Everything shall be done in order and with correctness. I will touch nothing, do nothing, until the Sergeant-Major returns and I have a witness.’

If I was to be procureur, juge d’instruction, judge and jury, coroner, and perhaps, avenger—everything should be done in due form—and my report upon the impossible affair be of some value, too.

But without touching the paper, I could see, and I saw with surprise—though the bon Dieu knows I had not much capacity for surprise left in my stunned mind—that the writing was in English!

Why should that be added to my conundrums? ... A paper with English writing on it, in the hand of a dead French officer in a block-house in the heart of the Territoire Militaire of the Sahara!”

“Perhaps the bloke was English,” suggested Lawrence. “I have heard that there are some in the Legion.”

“No,” was the immediate reply. “That he most certainly was not. A typical Frenchman of the Midi—a stoutish, florid, blue-jowled fellow of full habit. Perhaps a Provençal—thousands like him in Marseilles, Arles, Nimes, Avignon, Carcassonne, Tarascon. Might have been the good Tartarin himself. Conceivably a Belgian; possibly a Spaniard or Italian, but most certainly not an Englishman.... Still less was the standing man, an olive-cheeked Italian or Sicilian.”

“And the recumbent bareheaded chap?” said Lawrence.

“Ah—quite another affair, that! He might very well have been English. In fact, had I been asked to guess at his nationality, I should have said, ‘A Northerner certainly, English most probably.’ He would have been well in the picture in the Officers’ Mess of one of your regiments. Just the type turned out by your Public Schools and Universities by the thousand.

What you are thinking is exactly what occurred to me. English writing on the paper; an English-looking legionary; his cap lying near the man who held the paper crushed in his hand; the lining just torn out of the cap! ... Ha! Here was a little glimmer of light, a possible clue. I was just reconstructing the scene when I heard the Sergeant-Major ascending the stair....

Had this Englishman killed the sous-officier while the latter tore some document from the lining of the man’s cap? Obviously not. The poor fellow’s bayonet was in its sheath at his side, and if he had done it—how had he got himself put into position?”

“Might have been shot afterwards,” said Lawrence.

“No. He was arranged, I tell you,” was the reply, “and he most assuredly had not arranged himself. Besides, he was bareheaded. Does a man go about bareheaded in the afternoon sun of the Sahara? But to my mind the question doesn’t arise—in view of the fact of that inexplicable bayonet.

One bayonet more than there were soldiers and rifles!

No—I ceased reconstructing the scene with that one as the slayer, and I had no reason to select anyone else for the rôle.... Then I heard the bull voice of Sergeant Lebaudy, down in the oasis, roar ‘Formez les faisceaux’ and ‘Sac à terre,’ and came back to facts as the Sergeant-Major approached and saluted.

‘All in order, mon Commandant,’ reported he, and fell to eyeing the corpses.

‘Even to half-smoked cigarettes in their mouths!’ he whispered. ‘The fallen who were not allowed to fall—the dead forbidden to die.’ Then—‘But where in the name of God is Jean the Trumpeter?’

‘Tell me that, Chef, and I will fill your képi with twenty-franc pieces—and give you the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour,’ said I.

The Sergeant-Major blasphemed, crossed himself, and then said, ‘Let us get out of here while we can.’

‘Are you a Sergeant-Major or a young lady?’ I enquired—and as one does, in such circumstances, rated him soundly for feeling exactly as I did myself; and the more I said, the more angry and unreasonable I grew. You know how one’s head and one’s nerves get, in that accursed desert, George.”

“I know, old son,” agreed Lawrence. “I have found myself half-ready to murder a piccin, for dropping a plate.”

“Yes—the best of us get really insane at times, in that hellish heat and unnatural life.... But I got a hold upon myself and felt ashamed—for the good fellow took it well.

‘Did Your Excellency make a thorough search?’ he asked, rebukingly polite.

‘But, my dear Chef, what need to make a thorough search for a living man, a hale and hearty, healthy soldier, in a small place into which he had been sent to open a gate? Mon Dieu! he has legs! He has a tongue in his head! If he were here, wouldn’t he be here?’ I asked.

‘Murdered perhaps,’ was the reply.

‘By whom? Beetles? Lizards?’ I sneered.

He shrugged his shoulders, and pointed to the sous-officier with a dramatic gesture.

That one had not been murdered by beetles or lizards!

‘Yes,’ said I. ‘Now we’ll reconstruct this crime, first reading what is on this paper,’ and I opened the stiffened fingers and took it. There was a dirty crumpled torn envelope there, too. Now Georges, mon vieux, prepare yourself. You are going to show a little emotion, my frozen Englishman!”

Lawrence smiled faintly.

“It was a most extraordinary document,” continued de Beaujolais. “I’ll show it to you when we get on board the ship. It was something like this: On the envelope was, ‘To the Chief of Police of Scotland Yard and all whom it may concern.’ And on the paper, ‘Confession. Important. Urgent. Please publish.

For fear that any innocent person may be suspected, I hereby fully and freely confess that it was I, and I alone, who stole the great sapphire known as ‘Blue Water.’” ...

“What!” shouted George Lawrence, jumping up. “What? What are you saying, de Beaujolais?”

“Aha! my little George,” smiled the Frenchman, gloating. “And where is the phlegme Britannique now, may I ask? That made you sit up, quite literally, didn’t it? We do not yawn now, my little George, do we?”

George Lawrence stared at his friend, incredulous, open-mouthed.

“But that is Lady Brandon’s jewel! ... What on earth ...” stammered Lawrence, sitting down heavily. “Are you romancing, de Beaujolais? Being funny?”

“I am telling you what was written on this paper—which I will show you when I can get at my dispatch-case, my friend,” was the reply.

“Good God, man! Lady Brandon! ... Do you mean to say that the ‘Blue Water’ has been pinched—and that the thief took refuge in the Foreign Legion, or drifted there somehow?” asked Lawrence, lying back on his roll of bedding.

“I don’t mean to say anything—except to tell my little tale, the dull little tale that has bored you so, my George,” replied de Beaujolais, with a malicious grin.

George Lawrence swung his feet to the ground and stood up again. Never had his friend seen this reserved, taciturn, and unemotional man so affected.

“I don’t get you. I don’t take it in,” he said. “Lady Brandon’s stone! Our Lady Brandon? The ‘Blue Water’ that we used to be allowed to look at sometimes? Stolen! ... And you have found it?” ...

“I have found nothing, my friend, but a crumpled and bloodstained piece of paper in a dead man’s hand,” was the reply.

“With Lady Brandon’s name on it! It’s absurd, man.... In the middle of the Sahara! And you found it.... With her name on it! ... Well, I’m absolutely damned!” ejaculated Lawrence.

“Yes, 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.