As though to shut out a vision, Olivia covered her eyes.
Palin proceeded slowly.
“It’s all so plain and so natural that with my knowledge of history I really feel quite ashamed. But till Harris inspected his hands, it never entered my head. And then in an instant I knew that the three were doomed.
“The age of Pope Alexander the Sixth was the poisoner’s age. People used poison then more lightly than we use drugs. They poisoned food and liquor: they poisoned gloves: they poisoned fans and bouquets, the rims of goblets, the hilts of poniards, even the leaves of books. . . . And the Pope himself was a poisoner. He died of his own confection, by drinking in error of the cup which he himself had prepared for one of his guests. . . . What, then, could be more natural than that he should safeguard with poison his private treasury? When he packed those jewels, he packed them masked and gloved: and so he would have unpacked them, for the jewels were laid up in poison, just as you lay up in camphor your curtains or clothes. It follows that the thief that touched them was bound to die. Talk about safe custody . . .
“Well, there are the facts. Whoever won the treasure was doomed—to a frightful death. We all worked hard enough to get there, but Providence stretched out an arm and we made one ghastly mistake. And as the result of our error, Harris and Bunch and Father Herman are lying dead in our place.
“Now the jewels are yours—not mine. And what you will do about them is not for me to decide. Still, I’m the oldest here: and that gives me the right to advise you, although you mayn’t take my advice.
“Down in that charnel-house are gems which are worth the ransom of many kings. The collection is beyond all value. Their history and their sculpture apart, the size and splendour of such of the stones as I saw were unbelievable. Now you can’t display this treasure—it wouldn’t be safe. Either it must be lent to a museum—and I really don’t know who’d take it, for what they’d have to pay for insurance I can’t conceive—or else the collection must be sold. No one on earth could pay you its proper price, but you couldn’t get less than two or three million pounds. . . . You may wonder why I choose this particular moment to discuss these two alternatives. It is because I’m going to suggest a third. If I were you, I should let the gems lie where they are. Seal up that cursed chamber, dead men and all: pull up the shutter and let the cascade come back. More. I’d wall up the way to the dungeons, and I’d jam or rivet that shutter so that it can never go down, for it’s my belief there’s a curse on that lovely treasure . . . and when you think who owned it and how it was got—why, the wonder is that the stones don’t cry out upon their history, and the evil hands that held them, and the envy, hatred and malice which they inspired.
“It isn’t as if you were poor. I don’t say you’re rolling, but, damn it, you’ve money enough. And what do you want with millions? I never knew a rich man that was happy yet. . . . And you won’t be destroying the collection—that is a measure I couldn’t advise you to take. You will be keeping it—in safe custody. And if, in years to come, you feel that it should be unearthed—well, now you know the whole of the secret and exactly what you must do.”
There was a pregnant silence.
Then Olivia lifted her voice.
“I think we should vote,” she said. “The thing is above argument, and Andrew has said very well all there is to be said. And I think the ballot should be secret.”
She rose and opened the drawer of an old bureau.
“Here are red and white chessmen,” she said. She let them slide out of their bag and into the drawer. “Let white be for sealing the chamber, and red for leaving it open till we’ve taken the treasure away. We’re only three, so it’s easy enough to settle which we shall do. Two red will beat one white, and two white one red.”
She turned her back, dipped her hand into the drawer and then put it into the bag.
“Now Hubert,” she said, and came back to the chair she had left.
Hubert did as she had done and returned to his seat.
Then I cast my vote, as they had, and brought the bag to Palin and gave it into his hand. . . .
I can see the chessmen now, as he set them out on the table at which we sat.
A knight and a rook and a pawn.
And all were white.
In the carpenter’s shop there were three or four sacks of cement, and with this we sealed the chamber before we did anything else. This work we did, masked and gloved. Palin would not allow me to enter and bring out our lamp: so we cut the wire and left the lamp in the chamber, and Stiven brought one from the coach-house to take its place.
Since I laid most of the stones, I must confess I was glad that the lamp I had hung was put out, for though Harris and Bunch lay in shadow, the light had been falling on Father Herman’s face: and this was not fit to be seen, for his eyes were half out of their sockets and his lips were drawn back and the poor wretch had bitten his tongue, the end of which was hanging in a smother of blood.
To draw up the shutter proved simpler than we had hoped: but, what was more to the point, we found that, as with the tread, we could draw it clean out of its grooves and take it away. This we did without fear for our masonry, for the cement we had used was what is called ‘quick-drying,’ and, when the cascade was falling, all the weight of the water fell clear of the wall. Then we replaced the tread, proposing later to have another rise fashioned, to block up the hole. But this, in fact, we never took the trouble to do.
Then we returned to the dungeon, to find the water falling as it had fallen before, and the way to the chamber at once concealed and obstructed as though it did not exist.
And now seven days had gone by.
Sarem was slowly mending, the road of approach was open, the Rolls had been brought from the farm, the drawbridge was down for good.
We had driven Punter to Mittal, bought him a ticket for London and seen him aboard the train. Since he had not one penny upon him, he had, I think, no choice but to use the ticket we gave him to carry him home: and, indeed, his demeanour was humble and he gave us no sort of trouble from first to last. But this, no doubt, was because we gave him no chance. All the same, I disliked the man less, than his fellows—perhaps because he took his profession more lightly and had to be driven if he was to play his part. And I think we owed him something, for when Palin went out to meet him that terrible night, he found him asleep at the foot of the dungeon steps.
We had driven Olivia to Haydn, and there in our armed presence she had told her uncle the truth.
The Count had already assumed that his brother was dead, supposing that Harris had killed him and then made off with the jewels: and that, it appeared, was also Bugle’s belief—if one may trust the report which the Count himself delivered with stamps and yells.
On that fatal Sunday evening Bugle, as we had surmised, had gone out alone with the chauffeur, to let down the sluice. He had returned to Haydn at noon the next day—by car, but without the chauffeur with whom he had left. At once he had demanded his confederates, and, learning that they were not there, had proceeded to vent such violence as dangerous lunatics show, declaring that Harris had ‘done it on’ him, execrating Punter and Bunch, and vowing most shocking vengeance on all their heads. When efforts were made to restrain him, he had disabled such servants as had not had time to withdraw and had sought the turret-chamber to which the Count and Augustus had early repaired. Even his strength, however, was here defied, for though with his pistol he shattered the lock of the door, the Count had foreseen this gesture and had taken the frantic precaution of piling against the oak pieces of furniture so massive as only the fear of death could have lent him the strength to move. An unsatisfactory discussion had then ensued, for each desired information which neither was able to give, yet each believed that by persisting he might extract some item which would lead him up to the truth: moreover, while the Count could understand English, if it was carefully used, the English he spoke himself was incredibly bad, and the argument fairly bristled with misconc
eption which Bugle’s offensive impatience did nothing at all to relieve. Still, out of this incoherence such truths emerged as enabled us, when we heard them, to guess the rest.
The thieves had never meant Haydn to share the spoil. Once they had seized the treasure, they proposed to silence the priest and then to retire by the drawbridge, or, failing that, by the ramparts and so down the postern steps. Bugle was to meet them at the mouth of the road of approach—with the car, but without the chauffeur, whom he was to put out of action as soon as the sluice was down. Only in the last resort would they return to Haydn—that is to say, only if their plans miscarried, or they found themselves for some reason unable to deal with the priest.
Now finding the sluice destroyed, Bugle had at once set off to communicate to Harris this very unpleasant news, but, losing his way in the darkness, when once he had left the car, he only reached the mouth of the waste-pipe after the cascade was restored. At first he would not believe the account of those who were there that the flow of the water had ceased for nearly four hours, but the absence of the priest and his confederates argued the truth of this most astounding report: so at last he returned to the car, knocked the chauffeur senseless and proceeded to the road of approach. There, of course, he had waited in vain. After that, on his own admission, he had searched all the neighbouring roads for hour upon hour, at last returning to Haydn, to learn what he could: and there, as I have related, his horrid suspicions were confirmed.
Though he would not allow such a theory, I think he must have wondered whether in fact we had not given battle and laid the four by the heels: but if that were so, his case was just as evil and all his expectations were just as thoroughly destroyed.
From the turret he had gone to the cellars, to see for himself whether there was not below a rarer spirit than any the Count had offered him during his stay. Here again he found his suspicions confirmed, discovering wines and spirits very much richer and finer than any the. Count had thought fit to produce to his guests. To mark his disapproval of such economy, he destroyed fifty-two dozen bottles in a quarter of an hour and then returned to daylight, bringing with him six bottles of brandy which was more than one hundred years old.
If the household had hoped that the end of its tribulation was now in sight, it was very soon disabused, for almost at once it appeared that Bugle was in search of refreshment, and not of such consolation as liquor will bring. Indeed, for the next four hours he worked with astonishing vigour, ransacking drawers and cupboards all over the house and doing most horrid damage wherever he went. Since he made no attempt to conceal his occupation, the noise of this mischief was continually heard by the Count, who went nearly out of his mind as door after door was burst open and drawer after drawer was forced: but though with howls and yells he besought and commanded the servants to interfere, they either remained out of earshot or preferred to provoke their master to provoking a strong man armed.
At last, about half past four, Bugle had appeared in the courtyard and had laden the best of the cars with the booty which he had secured. He had then shouted up to the Count that unless he gave him money, he would set fire to the place. After a fearful scene, the Count had thrown down the best part of a hundred pounds and then, upon Bugle’s demand, his watch and chain and tie-pin and diamond links After that the rogue took his leave: and with him he took the wheel-caps of the car which he left, so as to put out of question any attempt at pursuit.
As though this were not enough, the Count was now unable to leave the turret-chamber in which he had spent the day, for the fear which had lent him the strength to move the furniture forward was now no longer present to help him to move it back. The oak which had stood against Bugle stood equally fast against the servants who sought to release their lord, and no ladder could reach the windows, because they were set too high. Two hideous hours went by before the door was reduced, for, as luck would have it, the carpenter was gone to Robin, to visit his aunt, and no one else had any but the rudest ideas of dealing with oak and iron. On his own something querulous confession, the Count was by now unfit to dwell at all usefully upon bringing Bugle to justice or taking any action which might go to right his wrongs, while the most distracting disorder prevailing in every room made such demands upon his reason that he presently suffered the servants to put him to bed. In the morning, however, overwhelmed by the emotion of vengeance, he determined, cost what it might, to call in the Salzburg police, and not until then was informed that the car which was yet in the garage could not be used.
So Bugle got clean away: and, though he little thought it, did better than any of his friends.
Here I would say that we let the Count of Haydn assume that we had removed the treasure and lodged it in the vaults of some bank: for we had had trouble enough, and though, as like as not, the Count would have kept our counsel, we could not afford to risk any breach of faith.
I do not believe he regretted his brother’s death. He seemed much more taken up with the damage which Bugle had done and the thousand and one indignities which he and his house had suffered while Harris and his men were his guests. And I do not find this surprising, for, because he was weak as water, his brother had ridden and driven him whither he would, and now, in a sense, the yoke he should never have carried, was off his neck.
One question he answered which had been perplexing us all—and that was how the thieves and his brother had scaled the inside of the waste-pipe without any help from above. When Olivia raised the point, he said at once that in all such old vertical drains there were steps or slots in the wall, just as there are in old chimneys: and that these were cut or left as well for the convenience of the masons that made the drains as for such as might have to come after, to clean or repair their work.
And now seven days had gone by, and I was once more in the forecourt of the inn where we had found Palin three weeks before.
The time was the afternoon of a summer’s day: and Olivia was sitting beside me, under the limes.
Her dress was of powder-blue linen, her arms were bare: her small straw hat was off, and her dark brown curls were dappled with light and shade: and her beauty was so lively that she might have been the temple to which the spirit of summer had chosen this day to repair.
It was by her wish that she and I had taken tea at the inn: and since of late we had been but little alone, I had been only too ready to honour her sudden whim.
I shall always remember the scene, which might have belonged to the days when Nicolas Ferrers himself was a baby child. New washed with lime, the inn was as brave and fresh as a smock-frock straight from the iron, and the smiling lane before it was watered, to lay the dust. On the farther side of the doorway a saddle-horse was standing, with his bridle hitched to a staple, set for that purpose in the wall, and in the shade beyond him an apple-cheeked old fellow was sitting beneath the hedgerow, busily rushing a chair. From a meadow beside the inn the steady hiss of a scythe gladdened the ear, to yield from time to time to the ring of steel, so often as he who was reaping whetted his blade: and after a while, I remember, a school of goslings passed, with a little girl to switch them—a pretty, barefoot child, that made us a grave-eyed curtsey, as she went by.
These things were precious enough to stick in any man’s mind: yet I remember them less for themselves than as the setting of what was for me the death-knell of hopes which I had not dared harbour, which, nevertheless, had risen out of my dreams.
Olivia had rung their knell in as casual a sentence as ever I heard her speak.
“And by the way, John, my dear, it’s time I was gone. I want to be in Paris next week. And perhaps you’ll take some action, as the raison d’être of our marriage has ceased to exist.”
Then, as though to avoid discussion, she had gone on to speak of the stables which only that morning she and my cousin had planned. These were to be built in the meadows at the foot of the postern steps.
What I answered I do not know, and when at length she suggested that we should revisit the scene
of my brush with Harris on the day on which he escaped, I rose and stepped to the Rolls as a man in a dream.
Though I took the wheel and drove off, I did not know what I did, and, but for her, I might well have gone on to Robin, but almost at once, it seemed, I felt her hand on my sleeve.
“This is the place, John. Just there, by the silver birch. Harris came out of those bushes, the other side of the road.”
In silence we left the car and took the line he had taken as far as the path, and two or three minutes later we came to the spring of water and the gutter dripping with silver and the golden green of the meadow blowing beyond.
And there we sat down, still in silence, and listened to the plash of the water and watched the shadows stealing over the grass.
“Are you asleep?” said Olivia.
I dared not look upon her, but I moved my head a little till I could see her slim ankles crossed on the sward.
“No,” I said. “I was thinking.” And then, “I like this place.”
“Tender memories?” flashed Olivia.
I knew she was referring to my drubbing, and forced a laugh. But I was not thinking of Harris.
“What are you thinking of?”
“Of that quotation,” I said. “That verse from the Psalms. I suppose this place brought it back. ‘Deliver my soul from the sword: my darling from the power—’ ”
And there I stopped short—too late. I could not call back the word. The damage was done.
There was a dreadful silence.
Then—
“My what?” said Olivia, faintly.
I moistened my lips.
“ ‘Darling’ is right,” I said desperately. “The quotation is ‘my darling from the power of the dog.’ I altered it to ‘neighbour.’ And then, just now, I forgot.”
“Why did you alter it?” said Olivia.
Safe Custody and Laughing Bacchante Page 25