Forging the Blades Part 31

"Rum thing this murder down in the Makanya, isn't it?"

"I don't know enough about it to say. But I suppose there's no doubt about it being a murder?"

"Not a particle. d.i.c.kinson has worked the thing up in first-rate style.

There's hardly a link missing from the chain."

"Not, eh? There's a saying, though, that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link; but if the link is not merely weak but missing altogether, what's the use of that chain?"

"The link can be supplied," said Stride meaningly. "d.i.c.kinson could put his hand on the right man at any minute."

"Then why the devil doesn't he?"

The straightness of this query rather nonplussed Stride. But he remembered that men in desperate straits had many a time been known to save the situation by consummate bluff.

"Perhaps he isn't quite sure where he is at this moment," he answered.

"I could help him."

"Then why the devil don't you?"

"Look here. Let's quit beating around the bush," said the other, speaking quickly. "Will you take a piece of advice?"

"Can't say until I hear it. But I'll promise to consider its burden when I do."

Denham was getting rather sick of all this mysterious hinting. He was also getting a bit "short."

"I'll give it you in one word, then," was the answer. "Skip."

"Don't see the joke. Explain."

"Don't see it, eh?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Well, bluff's a good dog sometimes," sneered the other, who thought he would enjoy a different situation directly. "Still, you take my tip and skip, with the smallest loss of time you can manage. I don't suppose they'll bother to follow up the thing very keenly once you're clean out of the country. And if you're wise you mighty soon will be. Get out through Swaziland and into German territory if you can, or at any rate keep dark. Halse will be able to help you."

All this while Denham had been looking at the speaker with a kind of amused curiosity. At the close of the above remark he said--

"What's the matter with you?"

"What d'you mean?" snarled Stride, who was fast losing his temper.

"Mean? Why, that I'm wondering why you asked me to come out with you to listen to all the nonsense you have just been talking. You're not drunk, any fool can see that, and yet you fire off some yarn about some Jew found drowned, or murdered, or something, down in the Makanya; and talk about chains and missing links and all sorts of foolishness, and on the strength of it all invite _me_ to 'skip.' Really the joke strikes me as an uncommonly thin one."

"It'll take the form of an uncommonly thick one," snarled the other, "and that a rope, dangling over a certain trap-door in Ezulwini gaol.

Well, I thought to do you a good turn, came up here mostly to do it, and that's how you take it. Well, you may swing, and be d.a.m.ned to you."

Denham lit a fresh cigar. He offered his case to his companion, but it was promptly refused.

"Now let's p.r.i.c.k this bubble," he said, looking the other fair and straight in the eyes. "From a remark you made in the club the other evening I gathered you wanted to insinuate that I had murdered some one.

That, of course, I didn't take seriously."

"There may have been others who did, though," interrupted Stride.

"No matter. Then you roll up here, and suggest that I am wanted as the murderer of some unknown Jew, whose top end appears to have been found in the Makanya bush. You know, if I were less good-natured, you might get into serious trouble over such a thing as that. You insinuated it in the presence of the Halses, too."

"Meaning an action for slander, I suppose. Go ahead. I defy you to bring it. Do you hear? I defy you to bring it."

"It isn't worth while. Still, if you go on spreading these stories all over the country I may be compelled to. It's one thing to make accusations, but quite another to prove them. To prove them," he repeated emphatically, with his eyes full upon the other's, and a sudden hard ring coming into his tone with the last words.

Inwardly Stride was conscious of his first misgiving in the matter. He was as certain in his own mind that the man before him had, for some reason or other, killed the one, part of whose remains had been found, as that the sun shone. But between certainty and proof was a far cry.

He was not lawyer enough to know that in such a case as this any evidence that could be got together would be of the circ.u.mstantial kind, and not necessarily conclusive, and he had come here with the express object of frightening Denham out of the country altogether. Instead he had found that Denham was not the sort of man to be frightened at all.

"Oh, the proof'll come right enough," he answered, with an easiness that was more than half affected. Then seriously, "Look here, you know I've no reason exactly to belove you?"

Instantly Denham's tone softened.

"I think I can guess," he said, "and cannot but be sorry. But that is all in the fair chances of life. How can I help it?"

"Help it? d.a.m.n 'helping it,'" was the furious reply. "But now, look here. I--with others--am going to make it the business of life to bring this thing home to you. We shall hunt up every sc.r.a.p and particle of evidence of your movements since you first landed, your every movement.

There's one chance for you and it the last. Clear out--now, at once."

"Now, really, you make me laugh. Is it in the least likely?"

"What is in the least likely?"

Both started. Verna had come up behind them, but though she had coughed more than once, in the tension of their discussion they had failed to hear her. She had foreseen a quarrel when she saw them go off alone together, and had made up her mind as to the best means of preventing it. And it was perhaps just as well that she had.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

REVELATION.

A curious change had come over Denham soon after Harry Stride's visit.

He seemed to have grown grave and rather silent. Even his interest in collecting seemed to flag. If Ben Halse noticed it he held his tongue.

Verna noticed it, and resolved not to hold hers.

Her opportunity came. They had climbed to the resting-place which had been the goal of their ride that first day: that great natural window in the rock tooth which overlooked such a magnificent sweep of wilderness; in fact, this point had become rather a favourite objective in their many expeditions _a deux_. Here was her chance, here alone, beyond every possibility of interruption; here, alone together, the world far away. But before she could begin he said--

"I have something to tell you."

The girl's face went white, and something like a gasp escaped her. Like lightning there flashed through her brain the one and only possible thought. He was going to tell her he had made a mistake, or that there was some impediment and they must part. Her love for him had reached such a height of pa.s.sionate adoration that where he was concerned she had no pride left.

He gazed at her in blank amazement. Then she was clasped tight in his embrace.

"For G.o.d's sake don't look like that," he said. "My darling one, what is it?"

"Are you going to tell me there is something that must part us?" she managed to gasp out.