Beaumaroy Home from the Wars

by Anthony Hope

  CHAPTER VII

  A GENTLEMANLY STRANGER

  On this same Christmas Day Sergeant Hooper was feeling morose anddiscontented; not because he was alone in the world (a situationcomprising many advantages); nor on the score of his wages, which wereextremely liberal; nor on account of the "old blighter's"--that is, Mr.Saffron's--occasional outbursts of temper, these being in the nature ofthe case and within the terms of the contract; nor, finally, by reasonof Beaumaroy's airy insolence, since from his youth up the Sergeant washardened to unfavourable comments on his personal appearance, triflingvulgarities which a man of sense could afford to ignore.

  No; the winter of his discontent--a bitter winter--was due to theconviction, which had been growing in his mind for some time, that hewas only in half the secret, and that not the more profitable half. Heknew that the old blighter had to be humoured in certain small ways--as,for example, in regard to the combination knife-and-fork--and thereason for it. But, first, he did not know what happened inside theTower; he had never seen the inside of it; the door was always locked;he was never invited to accompany his masters when they repaired thitherby day, and he was not on the premises by night. And, secondly, he didnot understand the Wednesday journeys to London, and he had never seenthe inside of Beaumaroy's brown bag--that, like the Tower door, wasalways locked. He had handled it once, just before the pair set out forLondon one Wednesday. Beaumaroy, a careless man sometimes, in spite ofthe cunning which Dr. Irechester attributed to him, had left it on theparlour table while he helped Mr. Saffron on with his coat in thepassage, and the Sergeant had swiftly and surreptitiously lifted it up.It was very light--obviously empty, or, at all events, holding onlyfeather-weight contents. He had never got near it when it came back fromtown; then it always went straight into the Tower and had the key turnedon it forthwith.

  But the Sergeant, although slow-witted as well as ugly, had had hisexperiences; he had carried weights both in the army and in otherinstitutions which are officially described as His Majesty's, and hadseen other men carry them too. From the set of Beaumaroy's figure as hearrived home on at least two occasions with the brown bag, and from theway in which he handled it, the Sergeant confidently drew the conclusionthat it was of a considerable, almost a grievous, weight. What was theheavy thing in it? What became of that thing after it was taken into theTower? To whose use or profit did it, or was it to, ensure? Because itwas plain, even to the meanest capacity, that the contents of the baghad a value in the eyes of the two men who went to London for them, andwho shepherded them from London to the custody of the Tower.

  These thoughts filled and racked his brain as he sat drinking rum andwater in the bar of the Green Man on Christmas evening; a solitary man,mixing little with the people of the village, he sat apart at a smalltable in the corner, musing within himself, yet idly watching thecompany--villagers, a few friends from London and elsewhere, somesoldiers and their ladies. Besides these, a tall slim man stood leaningagainst the bar, at the far end of it, talking to Bill Smithers, thelandlord, and sipping a whisky-and-soda between pulls at his cigar. Hewore a neat dark overcoat, brown shoes, and a bowler hat rather on oneside; his appearance was, in fact, genteel, though his air was a trifleraffish. In age he seemed about forty. The Sergeant had never seen himbefore, and therefore favoured him with a glance of special attention.

  Oddly enough, the gentlemanly stranger seemed to reciprocate theSergeant's interest; he gave him quite a long glance. Then he finishedhis whisky-and-soda, spoke a word to Bill Smithers, and lounged acrossthe room to where the Sergeant sat.

  "It's poor work drinking alone on Christmas night," he observed. "May Ijoin you? I've ordered a little something; and--well, we needn't botherabout offering a gentleman a glass to-night."

  The Sergeant eyed him with apparent disfavour--as, indeed, he dideverybody who approached him--but a nod of his head accorded the desiredpermission. Smithers came across with a bottle of brandy and glasses."Good stuff!" said the stranger, as he sat down, filled the glasses, anddrank his off. "The best thing to top up with, believe me!"

  The Sergeant, in turn, drained his glass, maintaining, however, hisaloofness of demeanour. "What's up?" he growled.

  "What's in the brown bag?" asked the stranger lightly and urbanely.

  The Sergeant did not start; he was too old a hand for that; but hissmall gimlet eyes searched his new acquaintance's face very keenly. "Youknow a lot!"

  "More than you do in some directions, less in others perhaps. Shall Ibegin? Because we've got to confide in one another, Sergeant. A littlestory of what two gentlemen do in London on Wednesdays, and of what theycarry home in a brown leather bag? Would that interest you? Oh, thatstuff in the brown leather bag! Hard to come by now, isn't it? But theyknow where there's still some--and so do I, to remark it incidentally.There were actually some people, Sergeant Hooper, who distrusted therighteousness of the British Cause--which is to say" (the strangersmiled cynically) "the certainty of our licking the Germans--and theyhoarded it, the villains!"

  Sergeant Hooper stretched out his hand towards the bottle. "Allow me!"said the stranger politely. "I observe that your hand trembles alittle."

  It did. The Sergeant was excited. The stranger seemed to be touching ona subject which always excited the Sergeant--to the point of handstrembling, twitching, and itching.

  "Have to pay for it too! Thirty bob in curl-twisters for every ruddydisc; that's the figure now, or thereabouts. What do they want to do itfor? What's your governors' game? Who, in short, is going to get offwith it?"

  "What is it they does--the old blighter and Boomery" (Thus hepronounced the name Beaumaroy)--"in London?"

  "First to the stockbroker's--then to a bank or two--I've known it threeeven; then a taxi down East, and a call at certain addresses. The bag'swith 'em, Sergeant, and at each call it gets heavier. I've seen itswell, so to speak."

  "Who in hell are you?" the Sergeant grunted huskily.

  "Names later--after the usual guarantees of good faith."

  The whole conversation, carried on in low tones, had passed under coverof noisy mirth, snatches of song, banter, and giggling; nobody paid heedto the two men talking in a corner. Yet the stranger lowered his voiceto a whisper, as he added:

  "From me to you fifty quid on account; from you to me just a sight ofthe place where they put it."

  Sergeant Hooper drank, smoked, and pondered. The stranger showed theedge of a roll of notes, protruding it from his breast-pocket. TheSergeant nodded--he understood that part. But there was much that he didnot understand. "It fair beats me what the blazes they're doing it_for_," he broke out.

  "Whose money would it be?"

  "The old blighter's, o' course. Boomery's stony, except for his screw."He looked hard at the gentlemanly stranger, and a slow smile came on hislips. "That's your idea, is it, mister?"

  "Gentleman's old--looks frail--might go off suddenly. What then? Friendsturn up--always do when you're dead, you know. Well, what of it? Lessmoney in the funds than was reckoned; dear old gentleman doesn't cut upas well as they hoped! And meanwhile our friend B----! Does it dawn onyou at all--from our friend B----'s point of view, Sergeant? I may bewrong, but that's my provisional conjecture. The question remains howhe's got the old gent into the game, doesn't it?"

  Precisely the point to which the Sergeant's mind also had turned! Theknowledge which he possessed--that half of the secret--and which hiscompanion did not, might be very material to a solution of the problem;the Sergeant did not mean to share it prematurely, or without necessity,or for nothing. But surely it had a bearing on the case? Dull-witted ashe was, the Sergeant seemed to catch a glimmer of light, and mentallygroped towards it.

  "Well, we can't sit here all night," said the stranger in good-humouredimpatience. "I've a train to catch."

  "There's no train up from here to-night."

  "There is from Sprotsfield. I shall walk over."

  The Sergeant smiled. "Oh, if you're walking to Sprotsfield, I'll put youon your way. If anybody
was to see us--Boomery, for instance--hecouldn't complain of my seeing an old pal on his way on Christmas night.No 'arm in that; no look of prowling, or spying, or such-like! And youare an old pal, ain't you?"

  "Certainly; your old pal--let me see--your old pal Percy Bennett."

  "As it might be, or as it might not. What about the----?" He pointed toPercy Bennett's breast-pocket.

  "I'll give it you outside. You don't want me to be seen handing it overin here, do you?"

  The Sergeant had one more question to ask. "About 'ow much d'ye reckonthere might be by now?"

  "How often have they been to London? Because they don't come to see myfriends every time, I fancy."

  "Must 'ave been six or seven times by now. The game began soon afterBoomery and I came 'ere."

  "Then, quite roughly--quite a shot--from what I know of the deals we--myfriends, I mean--did with them, and reasoning from that, there might bea matter of seven or eight thousand pounds."

  The Sergeant whistled softly, rose, and led the way to the door. Thegentlemanly stranger paused at the bar to pay for the brandy, and afterbidding the landlord a civil good evening, with the compliments of theseason, followed the Sergeant into the village street.

  Fifteen minutes' brisk walk brought them to Hinton Avenue. At the end ofit they passed Doctor Mary's house; the drawing-room curtains were notdrawn; on the blind they saw reflected the shadows of a man and a girl,standing side by side. "Mistletoe, eh?" remarked the stranger. TheSergeant spat on the road; they resumed their way, pursuing the roadacross the heath.

  It was fine, but overclouded and decidedly dark. Every now and thenBennett--to call the stranger by what was almost confessedly a _nom deguerre_--flashed a powerful electric torch on the roadway. "Don't wantto walk into a gorse bush," he explained with a laugh.

  "Put it away, you darned fool! We're nearly there."

  The stranger obeyed. In another seven or eight minutes there loomed up,on the left hand, the dim outline of Mr. Saffron's abode--the squarecottage with the odd round tower annexed.

  "There you are!" The Sergeant's voice instinctively kept to a whisper."That's what you want to see."

  "But I can't see it--not so as to get any clear idea."

  No lights showed from the cottage, nor, of course, from the Tower; itsonly window had been, as Mr. Penrose said, boarded up. The wind--therewas generally a wind on the heath--stirred the fir trees and the bushesinto a soft movement and a faint murmur of sound. A very acute and alertear might perhaps have caught another sound--footfalls on the road, agood long way behind them. The two spies, or scouts, did not hear them;their attention was elsewhere.

  "Probably they're both in bed; it's quite safe to make our examination,"said the stranger.

  "Yes, I s'pose it is. But look to be ready to douse your glim. Boomery'sa nailer at turning up unexpected." The Sergeant seemed rather nervous.

  Mr. Bennett was not. He took out his torch, and guided by its light(which, however, he took care not to throw towards the cottage windows)he advanced to the garden gate, the Sergeant following, and took asurvey of the premises. It was remarkable that, as the light of thetorch beamed out, the faint sound of footfalls on the road behind diedaway.

  "Keep an eye on the windows, and touch my elbow if any light shows.Don't speak." The stranger was at business--his business--now, and hisvoice became correspondingly business-like. "We won't risk going insidethe gate. I can see from here." Indeed he very well could; Tower Cottagestood back no more than twelve or fifteen feet from the road, and thetorch was powerful.

  For four or five minutes the stranger made his examination. Then heturned off his torch. "Looks easy," he remarked, "but of course there'sthe garrison." Once more he turned on his light, to look at his watch."Can't stop now, or I shall miss the train, and I don't want to have toget a bed at Sprotsfield. A strayed reveller on Christmas night might betoo well remembered. Got an address?"

  "Care of Mrs. Willnough, Laundress, Inkston."

  "Right. Good night." With a quick turn he was off along the road toSprotsfield. The Sergeant saw the gleam of his torch once or twice,receding at quite a surprising pace into the distance. Feeling the wadof notes in his pocket--perhaps to make sure that the whole episode hadnot been a dream--the Sergeant turned back towards Inkston.

  After a couple of minutes, a tall figure emerged from the shelter of ahigh and thick gorse bush just opposite Tower Cottage, on the otherside of the road. Captain Alec Naylor had seen the light of thestranger's torch, and, after four years in France, he was well skilledin the art of noiseless approach. But he felt that, for the moment atleast, his brain was less agile than his feet. He had been suddenlywrenched out of one set of thoughts into another profoundly different.It was his shadow, together with Cynthia Walford's, that the Sergeantand the stranger had seen on Doctor Mary's blind. After "walking herhome," he had--well, just not proposed to Cynthia, restrained more bythose scruples of his than by any ungraciousness on the part of thelady. Even his modesty could not blind him to this fact. He was full ofpity, of love, of a man's joyous sense of triumph, half wishing that hehad made his proposal, half glad that he had not, just because it, andits radiant promise, could still be dangled in the bright vision of thefuture. He was in the seventh heaven of romance, and his heaven washigher than that which most men reach; it was built on loftierfoundations.

  Then came the flash of the torch; the high spirits born of oneexperience sought an outlet in another. "By Jove, I'll track 'em--likeold times!" he murmured, with a low light laugh. And, just for fun, hedid it, taking to the heath beside the road, twisting his long body inand out amongst gorse, heather, and bracken, very noiselessly, withwonderful dexterity. The light of the lamp was continuous now; thestranger was making his examination. By it Captain Alec guided hissteps; and he arrived behind the tall gorse bush opposite Tower Cottagejust in time to hear the Sergeant say, "Mrs. Willnough, Laundress,Inkston," and to witness the parting of the two companions.

  There was very little to go upon there. Why should not one friend giveanother an address? But the examination? Beaumaroy should surely know ofthat? It might be nothing; but, on the other hand, it might have ameaning. But the men had gone, had obviously parted for the night.Beaumaroy could be told to-morrow; now he himself could go back to hisvisions--and so homeward, in happiness, to his bed.

  Having reached this sensible conclusion, he was about to turn away fromthe garden gate which he now stood facing, when he heard the house doorsoftly open and as softly shut. The practice of his profession had givenhim keen eyes in the dark; he discovered Beaumaroy's tall figurestealing very cautiously down the narrow, flagged path. The next instantthe light of another torch flashed out, and this time not in thedistance, but full in his own face.

  "By God, you, Naylor!" Beaumaroy exclaimed in a voice which was low butfull of surprise. "I--I--well, it's rather late----"

  Alec Naylor was suddenly struck with the element of humour in thesituation. He had been playing detective; apparently he was now thesuspected!

  "Give me time and I'll explain all," he said, smiling under the dazzlingrays of the torch.

  Beaumaroy glanced round at the house for a second, pursed up his lipsinto one of the odd little contortions which he sometimes allowedhimself, and said, "Well, then, old chap, come in and have a drink, anddo it. For I'm hanged if I see why you should stand staring into thisgarden in the middle of the night! With your opportunities I should bebetter employed on Christmas evening."

  "You really want me to come in?" It was now Captain Alec's voice whichexpressed surprise.

  "Why the devil not?" asked Beaumaroy in a tone of frank but friendlyimpatience.

  He turned and led the way into Tower Cottage. Somehow this invitation toenter was the last thing that Captain Alec had expected.