The Three Sapphires Part 33

At that instant of his mental sequence the captain all but burned his nose, paralysed by a flashing thought. "Good Lord!" he groaned. "It is these papers that she seeks up this way; the somebody who is coming overland is bringing them for fear the authorities might have caught her on the steamer routes." Then in relief to this came the remembrance that so far she had not met the some one, for she travelled alone. But now that she--as he read in her eyes--had recognised him--her very wild plunge to escape proved it--his chance of discovering anything would be practically nil; he would possibly receive the same hushing treatment that had been meted out to Perreira, the half-caste.

"Shall we go back now?" Lord Victor was asking. "It's rather tame to-day; I'm not half fed up on tiger fights and elephant combats."

"Presently," Swinton answered, sitting down to still more methodically correlate the points of this newer vision. He could not confide any part of his discovery to Finnerty with Lord Victor present; he would decide later on whether he should, indeed, mention it at all. At first flush he had thought of galloping after the girl, but even if he had succeeded in overtaking her what could he do? If he searched her and found nothing, he would have ruined everything; probably Finnerty would have ranged up with the girl against this proceeding.

Further vibration of this human triangle, the three men of divers intent, was switched to startled expectancy by the clang of something upon the plateau--an iron-shod staff striking a stone or the impact of a horse's hoof. This was followed by silence. Finnerty stepped gently across to his horse, unslung from the saddle his 10-bore, and slipped two cartridges into it as he returned to stand leisurely against a tree trunk, an uplifted finger commanding silence. They could now hear the shuffling, m.u.f.fled noises which emanate from people who travel a jungle trail no matter how cautiously they move, and something in the multiplicity of sounds intimated that several units composed the approaching caravan.

Two Naga spearmen first appeared around the turn, their eager, searching eyes showing they were on the alert for something. The threatening maw of the 10-bore caused them to stand stock-still, their jungle cunning teaching them the value of implicit obedience. They made no outcry. In four seconds the s.h.a.ggy head of a pony came into view, and then his body, bearing in the saddle a sahib, and behind could be seen native carriers. The man on horseback reined up; then he laughed--a cynical, unmusical sneer it was. He touched the spur to his pony's flank, brushed by the Naga spearmen, and, eyeing the 10-bore quizzically, asked: "Well, my dear boy, what's the idea?"

Finnerty lowered the gun, answering: "Nothing; preparedness, that's all.

Thought it might be a war party of Naga head-hunters when I saw those two spearmen."

The horseman slipped from his saddle and stood holding the rein; a lithe, sinewy, lean-faced man of forty-five years, his sharp grey eyes, a little too close set, holding a vulpine wariness.

Swinton had noticed his easy pose in the saddle, suggesting polo command, and now the two or three quick, precise steps forward spoke, "Service."

To Finnerty the cynical, drawling voice rang familiar; it had a curious, metallic, high-pitched crispness that the drawl failed to smother, but the man's face, caked with the drifting hill dust that sweat had matrixed, was like a mask. Finnerty proffered a cheroot, which the stranger accepted eagerly, saying: "Fancy my beggars bagged mine. I've had only some native mixture to puff from a crude clay pipe I made and baked in a fire."

"Come from Tibet way?" the major queried.

"No; been up country buying cotton for Chittagong people, and got raided by dacoits; had to work out this way."

This story, even fantastic and sudden-built as it sounded, might have pa.s.sed ordinarily as just the rightful duplicity of a man not called upon to confide the reasons of his exploration trip to any one, had not the one word "Chittagong" burned like acid.

Swinton felt that the stranger's eyes were searching him, though his words were for Finnerty. Both knew the speaker was lying. His whole get-up was not the easy, indifferent, restful apparel of a man who had been some long time in the jungle. He wore brown leather riding boots instead of perhaps canvas shoes; his limbs were incased in cord breeches that spoke of a late Bond Street origin; a stock that had once been white held a horseshoe pin studded with moonstones, its lower ends pa.s.sing beneath a gaudily checked vest. This very get-up dinned familiarity into the major's mind; he struggled with memory, mentally asking, "Where have I seen this chap?" The tawny moustache, bristling in pointed smoothness, had a rakish familiarity, and yet the echoes came from far back on the path of life, as elusively haunting as a dream recalled in the morning.

Abstractedly, as they talked, the stranger shifted his riding whip to his teeth, and, reaching down with the liberated hand, gave a slight tug at his boot strap, and that instant Finnerty knew his man. It was almost a gasping cry of recognition: "Captain Foley--by all the powers!"

The stranger's face blanched, and Swinton sprang to his feet, galvanised by a tremendous revelation.

An amused cackle came from beneath the tawny moustache, followed by an even-worded drawl: "You Johnnies are certainly out for a fine draw this morning; my name happens to be Blake-Hume--Charles Blake-Hume."

Finnerty grinned. "The same old delightfully humorous Pat Foley that I knew in the Tenth Hussars at Umballa, when I was a griffin fresh out; even in the choice of a new name you're aristocratic--'Blake-Hume!' My dear boy, you could no more shed yourself than you could that desire for a fancy vest and the moonstone pin that you wore in a deviltry of revolt against the idea that moonstones were unlucky."

Swinton was now convinced that Finnerty had made no mistake; he could see it in a sudden narrowing of the foxy eyes, and, taking a step closer to their visitor, he said: "Captain Foley, your daughter Marie has just pa.s.sed down the trail."

This simple a.s.sertion had the comparative effect of a hand grenade dropped midway between Finnerty and the stranger; possibly the major was the more astounded one of the two.

"What, in the name of Heaven, are you saying, man?" he cried, though he still kept his steadfast blue eyes held on Captain Foley, for something in the latter's att.i.tude suggested danger.

"Simply this," Swinton answered; "Captain Foley is the father of the girl known here as Marie Boelke, and it was she who stole a state paper from the possession of Earl Craig."

"Candour seems to be a jewel above price in the jungles this morning, so my compliments to you, my dear Captain Herbert, government policeman,"

Foley snarled.

Stung by the gratuitous sneer, Finnerty said with feeling: "Perhaps 'Mad' Foley"--he dropped the captain, knowing that Foley had been cast from the service--"you also recognise me, but for certain pieces of silver you would deny it. Do you remember the time I saved you a jolly good hiding that was fair coming to you for one of your crazy tricks?"

"Perfectly, my dear Finnerty; you were known to the mess as the 'Ulster Babe'; it was just a humour of mine now to play you a little, and as for the 'bobby' here, one could never mistake those bits of blue china that have been dubbed the 'farthing eyes.' Indeed I know you both _quite well_."

Swinton, less edged than Finnerty, now tendered some cynical coin in payment: "Perhaps you know this young gentleman also; I think he has cause for remembering _you_."

"Good morning, Lord Victor! You are in pleasant company," and Captain Foley let his irritating cackle escape. He gathered the bridle rein in his left hand, grasping the mane at his pony's wither, and turned the stirrup outward to receive his foot as preparation for a leisurely lift to the saddle.

In answer to a hand signal, Finnerty lifted his 10-bore to cover Captain Foley as Swinton said: "Just a moment, Mister Foley; there are certain formalities imposed upon suspected persons crossing the Nepal border, which include perhaps a search. We want the papers your daughter stole from Earl Craig under your influence, and for which you were paid German gold."

"The bobby is devilish considerate, Lord Gilly, in not naming you as the careless one, isn't he? Charmingly diffident sort of chap, to put the onus on the venerable early. The old gent would be tremendously shocked to know he was accused of flirting with a young girl, don't you think?"

"I _do_ think something, which is that you're no end of a bounder to bring your daughter's name into your flooey talk," Lord Victor retorted angrily.

"Tell your coolies to open up everything," and Swinton's opaque eyes held Foley's shifty ones menacingly. "As to yourself, strip!"

"The coolies are at his majesty's service, Mister Bobby; as for myself I'll see you d.a.m.ned first. I am in independent territory; Maharajah Darpore is, like myself, not a va.s.sal of Johnnie Bull. If you put a hand on me I'll blink those farthing eyes of yours, Mister b.l.o.o.d.y Bobby."

Next instant the speaker sprawled on his back, both shoulders to the earthen mat, as Finnerty threw a quick wrestler's hold across his neck.

The big Irishman's blood had been heated by the very words that had roused Lord Victor's anger. Besides, this was the easier way; they had no time for international equity. Swinton quickly searched the prostrate man. His boots were pulled off, the insoles ripped out--even a knife blade inserted between the two laps of the outer soles, practically wrecking them. A Webley revolver that hung from a belt Foley wore was emptied of its sh.e.l.ls; even its barrel was prodded for a hidden roll of thin paper. The search of the packs was most thorough, and fully devoid of results.

Foley laughed cynically when the two searchers stood empty-handed, discomfiture patent in their faces.

"You turned the paper over to your daughter," Swinton accused in an unusually verbal mood.

"According to your own statement, my dear government spy, you had the young lady in your hands here; did you find this apocryphal doc.u.ment?"

Swinton's eyes met Finnerty's, which were saying quite plainly: "The girl has beaten us out!" There also lingered in the Irishman's eyes, Swinton fancied, a pathetic look of regret that now there could be no doubt about her mission; he even heard a deep-drawn breath, such as a game better takes when he has lost heavily.

"A devilish nice mess you have made of your life and your daughter's, Captain Foley," Lord Victor suddenly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "You were a 'king's bad bargain' in the army, and you're a man's bad bargain out of it."

Foley stared; then he sneered: "The young c.o.c.k must be cutting his spurs. Rather tallish order from a waster, Lord Gilly." He turned to Captain Swinton. "Now that you have performed your police duties I have a bottle of Scotch, which no doubt you observed among my traps, and if you gentlemen have no objection to joining me we'll drink a toast, 'Happy to meet, sorry to part, and happy to meet again.'"

"I don't drink with the king's enemies!" Swinton clipped the words with a sound as if coins dropped.

"Nor I--with thieves," added Lord Victor.

"I'm sorry for you, my boy," the major said solemnly. "I'm ashamed to refuse to drink with an Irishman, but I'm fed up on traitors."

Swinton drew the major to one side. When they had finished a discussion as to whether there was any benefit in detaining Foley or not, which was settled in the negative, Foley asked, a sneer curling the tawny moustache: "Well, you pair of bobbies, do I pa.s.s?"

"You may go--to h.e.l.l!" Finnerty added the warm destination in bitterness of soul over his shattered dream.

The coolies had repacked their burdens; the two Naga spearmen at a command trotted down the path; Foley swung into the saddle, and with a mocking, "Au revoir, Lord Gilly, Mister Bobby, and my dear Ulster Babe,"

was gone.

"Dished!" Finnerty exclaimed bitterly.

"The girl--we are outwitted by a woman!" Swinton admitted despondently.

"You two Johnnies have thrown up your tails," Lord Victor objected. "If the girl has the doc.u.ment you're so c.o.c.ksure of, it's something to know that it's in Darpore. That's what I call a deuced good clue."

"My dear boy," Finnerty said, under evident control, "you're as innocent as a babe. You don't happen to know that there's a mutiny near ripe in Darpore, and it just needed a torch, such as this doc.u.ment, to set the whole state in a blaze."