Grit Lawless Part 2

"In what way?"

"Oh! nothing actually against her that I know of. A beautiful woman living alone, and much admired. ... Rumour has it that she's a widow, and again has it that she is not. I've got beyond the age when a man troubles to find out."

"What causes you to imagine she is in with the other side?" inquired his hearer, a shade of impatience in his tone.

"The boy--"

"Hayhurst?"

"Yes. Hayhurst declares that she induced him to go home with her, that she pumped him, and then signalled to a man who must have been hiding on the stoep, and who sprang in through the window behind him and knocked him senseless with a blow over the head. When he came to himself he was lying in the gutter near his lodging and the papers were gone. My G.o.d!"

wound up the speaker savagely, "to know that that young fool had in his possession what I've been months scheming to get hold of, and lets a woman Delilah him out of his prize! I could cheerfully have slain him when he brought the tale of his failure to me."

"Lucky for him it was not to me he brought it," the other said grimly; "I should probably have done it. You don't reckon yourself over credulous, I suppose, in accepting his tale as it stands?"

"No. I might have questioned it; but it seems probable enough in face of the fact that the fellow who holds the papers has been paying marked attention to Mrs Lawless for some time, and she certainly does not discourage him. Cape Town couples their names together, I believe. One can credit anything about a woman who will listen to the suit of a rogue like that,--a d.a.m.ned swindler, with a reputation for being bigamously married already in another country!"

"His name?" the man with the scar asked sharply, leaning half-way across the table.

"Van Bleit."

Grit sat up.

"G.o.d! man, I know him intimately. We were in Rhodesia together." He laughed harshly. "It is to him I owe the nickname that has stuck closer than my own. The former acquaintance may prove helpful."

The Colonel peered at him closely.

"You have just reminded me that the nickname is all I know you by," he said. "Simmonds could not recall your rightful t.i.tle."

"He is not singular in that respect," was the curt response. "My name is Lawless."

The Colonel stared at him blankly, his jaw fallen.

"Lawless!" he repeated, and for the life of him he could not prevent the sudden freeze in his manner. It even occurred to him at the moment that he was the victim of a trick. If so, he had walked into the trap fairly easily.

"It is a somewhat uncommon name," he added. "Are you by any chance related to the lady of whom we have been speaking?"

The man he addressed returned his suspicious scrutiny with careless indifference.

"By marriage only," he answered briefly.

The Colonel was only partially relieved.

"I have confided in you so much, Mr Lawless," he said, "that you will readily understand how unwelcome this intelligence is. Had I known of the connection sooner I should have hesitated to speak so freely of a matter that is as a sacred trust to me--"

"You need not let what you have just learnt trouble you, sir," the other returned carelessly. "Nothing that you have told me so far would be news to the other side. As for the connection!"--he flicked his fingers scornfully,--"it need weigh with you no more than that... The lady disapproves of me. We have not met for years."

"Perhaps, though, since a connection of yours is mixed up in this affair you might not care to go on with it..."

"It makes no difference," Lawless answered.

The Colonel reached across the table.

"You are throwing in your lot with me?" he asked quickly.

The other's hand met his.

"I'll get those papers back for you, or I'll kill your man," he said.

CHAPTER TWO.

It was late afternoon. The sun hung low in the blue sky and shot its beams between the palm slits, making a brilliant tracery on the smooth paths where it pierced a pa.s.sage between the branches of the mimosa trees, yellow with their golden b.a.l.l.s. The chirrup of a cricket was the only sound that broke the quivering silence, save when every now and again the warm wind swept lazily through the gum trees and made music with their leaves.

Looking out upon the sultry stillness of the garden, her pose stiller even than the almost motionless trees, with tense features, and eyes that were stirred with emotion, as the eyes of one who looks back upon the past from the stage of the present, seeing things with the broadened vision of experience, stood the woman of whom the Colonel had spoken in his interview with Lawless. She was tall and dark and splendid, with large brown eyes flecked with a lighter shade as though they held imprisoned sunbeams in their pellucid depths. Her rich dark hair waved back from a low brow that was like ivory in its smooth whiteness, and in the thin lips, scarlet as the flower of the pomegranate, showed her only touch of colour. She wore a white dress of some Indian embroidery, and the plain gold band of her wedding-ring comprised her sole ornament.

A clock inside the room chimed the half-hour, and scarcely had the sound died away into silence when the door behind her opened and a native servant showed a visitor into the room. Mrs Lawless turned slowly round, and with a hesitating, reluctant step moved forward a few paces and then stood still, her arms hanging motionless at her sides, her lips slightly parted, perhaps in a greeting that never pa.s.sed them, for she did not speak when she met the straight gaze of the visitor's keen eyes, and looked into the scarred yet still handsome face of the man she had not seen for eight years. He had halted just inside the doorway, and he remained where he was, staring at her, the light falling direct upon his face. The scar showed livid. She gazed at it with fascinated eyes.

She had not seen it before.

"It was good of you to consent to see me," he said with grave politeness. "I would not have troubled you with a visit had it not been important. But what I have to say to you could not be written in a letter."

"I quite understand," she answered quietly. "Won't you sit down?"

And in this commonplace manner pa.s.sed a moment that marked a crisis in two lives.

He waited until she was seated, then he crossed to the window and stood with his back to the sunlit scene.

"I'd rather stand, thank you."

He looked at her uncertainly, looked at the handsome furnishing of the room and frowned. Where had she got her wealth from, this woman whom he had always understood to be poor?

"I did not know," he said slowly, bringing his gaze back to her face, "that you were in South Africa until a few weeks ago. It was a surprise to me. I trust you do not consider it intrusive that I took early advantage of the knowledge to solicit an interview. I would not have done so in ordinary circ.u.mstances, but it is a peculiar coincidence that you and I should be mixed up in the same shady concern. I want you to believe," he added earnestly, "that I had no knowledge of your part in the business of which I am here to speak until after I had volunteered my services. What part you actually played in it I am hoping you will confide in me, and not consider that I am guilty of an impertinence in seeming to interfere in what you do."

"Oh no!" she answered gently, in her rich, deep voice, and added: "I expect it is the affair of that poor boy and the letters you have come to speak about. I always felt that I should hear of it again."

He confirmed her surmise.

"You are suspected," he said in conclusion, "of having a.s.sisted in their recapture."

She sat forward on the low sofa upon which she had taken her seat, and, gripping the cushions tightly, questioned him with her eyes.

"Suspected by whom?--You?"

"That question is unnecessary, surely," he replied coldly. "Had I suspected such a thing I should not be here. It is because I want to hit the next man who breathes such a slander that I desire to have from your own lips an explanation of that night's work. Will you tell me all you know of the affair? It may be a help to me in tracing those letters."

"What have the letters to do with you?" she asked.

"That's easily answered," he replied. "I am a soldier of fortune; my hand and brain go to the highest bidder. Personally, I am not interested in this matter--or rather, I was not interested; it has now become a matter of life or death to me. I am pledged to recover those letters,--and I mean to do it."

She released her grip of the sofa cushion, folded her hands loosely in her lap, and looked calmly into his sombre eyes. He thought as he watched her that she was the most alluringly beautiful woman he had ever seen.