On his other side lay Tester, close up against his lord. Mansel’s left hand was upon him; but, though, I think, he would have licked it, the poor scrap never moved, but lay as still as an image, with his chin on his little paws and his eyes upon Mansel’s face.
If the others came and went, I did not notice them; and, after a little, I found the windows open and the doors of the chamber shut.
“Punter and Bunch,” said Mansel. “Search them for money and take every penny they’ve got. Go to Innsbruck and buy them two tickets for London. Give them these and drop them outside the town. Someone must watch them in and see that they go. And the caretakers must be dealt with. Perhaps the ‘doctor’ will help. It shouldn’t be very hard to stop their mouths. But try and mop everything up before you go.”
I could only nod; and, when he had seen me do this, he closed his eyes.
If he suffered, he never showed it. Indeed, he seemed well content. And, when Adèle stooped to kiss him, a light that was not of this world came into his eyes.
Once I made to rise and leave them, but, interpreting my movement, Mansel lifted his hand and bade me stay.
So we three waited together, as we had waited together the day before, but this time under a shadow which would not pass . . . .
My eyes stole round the room.
The chamber was full of light, and a broad sash of sunshine was lying athwart the wall. The black oak, the gold and the crimson feasted the eye. The tapestries beckoned into the glades they pictured, and the four men-at-arms about the bed insisted upon the presence they had been set to keep. All I can say is that the presence was there. For once Fate had not bungled, but had laid a king upon a king’s bed to die.
Then I thought of Maximilian and of the exquisite surname which he had won, and at last I saw the writing which had been all the time upon the wall.
Destiny will be served. For more than four hundred years that room had been swept and garnished, had stood ever ready and waiting for “The Last of the Knights.” Jonathan Mansel, Gentleman, had come into his own.
My eyes returned to the bed—to read as dreadful a message as ever I saw.
We had drawn the coverlet, before we had laid him down, exposing a silken quilt that had, I think, once been white, but was now yellow with age. Upon this there was now a great blood-stain, very slowly spreading about his hips.
The terrible sight shocked me, and I covered my eyes.
Adèle was speaking.
“Can we do nothing, my darling? No single thing?”
Very gently he shook his head.
“If we were in London,” he murmured, “they might have a shot; but I’m very comfortable, and it’s a great relief to know that we’re out of the wood.”
A dry sob shook Adèle.
“Another wood’s coming, Jonah; it’s very near; I must go into that alone—and there aren’t any leaves on the trees.”
Mansel smiled very tenderly.
“The spring’s in your heart, my darling. The trees will break at your coming and the wood will become your bower.”
Adèle shook her lovely head.
“Ah, Jonah, I’ve no heart left. If we could have gone in together, I wouldn’t have cared; but it’s . . . so dreadful, Jonah . . . to face it alone.”
“Hush, my darling. William will see you through. Think only how rich you made me, that I’m going laden with a treasure which no Customs can take away. Remembering that, my Lady, how can you mourn? See what a tide I’m taking. It’s never been half so high in all my life. I’m going out on the very full of the flood, and the ebb that might have hurt me will never run.”
“It’s our tide you’re taking, Jonah—our wonderful, shining tide. And I’ve got to stand on the shore and see it go down. I could have borne it with you. It never would have fallen, so long as you were beside me—to share our lovely secret and teach me to play the game.”
For the first time a troubled look came into his face.
“It’s better like this, my sweet. We might have slipped and fallen, or—”
“Never,” sobbed Adèle. “You know it. Not if Boy were to live for fifty years. You love me, and that’s enough. Your arms have been about me, and I’ve kissed your blessed lips, and I’d have lived on that memory—”
“Live on it still, my queen. Do me that matchless honour. Lift up the heart I touched, because I touched it, the eyes I kissed, because a man knelt and looked up and saw himself in them.”
“Oh, Jonah, if love could do it, it should be done. But it’s strength alone that can help me, and all my strength is in you. You don’t know your strength, my darling. You carry so lightly what no other man could lift. We’ve always leaned on you, Jonah; the first thing I learned of Boy was to lean upon you. When they took me that day by Sava, I knew you’d come. I wasn’t afraid, because I knew you’d find me and pull me out. I wasn’t afraid of Rose Noble—I told him so, I told him he hadn’t an earthly and that, if he took me to Hell, you’d follow me down and break him and carry me back. And I wasn’t afraid to love you and take your love—to play with the fire of Heaven, for I knew I could count on your strength to bring us through. But now . . . you’re going my darling . . . and I must fend for myself. And I’m lost and beggared and beaten, and— oh, Jonah, I’m terribly afraid.”
Mansel put up a hand and touched her hair.
“I found my strength in your nature, in the light of your steady, brown eyes and the flash of your smile; in your beautiful voice and your laughter and the play of your little hands; in the lisp of your footfalls and, at last, in the brush of your lips . . . You gave me my strength, my darling; and the spirit that lighted my life can light its own. Two days ago in this room you made me a king—of your own sweet will, though Death had his ear to the keyhole, and Terror his eyes on the latch. That’s not the way of fear.”
“But you were with me, Jonah. I tell you, with you to lean on, I knew no fear.”
“A fiction, my beauty, a fiction. You mustn’t bow down to an image that you set up. It wasn’t I that set the stars in your eyes or gave that fine, proud curve to your beautiful mouth. Adèle was a great lady, before ever she head my name. So lift up your head, in the old familiar way. Look Fate in the eyes, my darling, and he’ll always give you the wall.”
Adèle seemed to brace herself. Then she took his hand and kissed it and held it against her heart.
“I’ll try,” she said quietly. “If Tester will let me, I’ll do what I can to help him; and, as soon as we’ve got our bearings, Tester and I will try.”
I saw the dog’s ears lift, but he never stirred.
“Poor little chap,” said Mansel. “I’m afraid it’ll hit him hard.”
Then he spoke to the scrap and told him that he must look after Adèle and that soon he was to be her dog, “for you see, old fellow,” he murmured. “I’ve got to go away. And it’s not like the other times, for this time . . . I shan’t come back.”
A tremor ran through the dog’s frame, and he gave a little whimper that wrung my heart. As plainly as if he had spoken, he was acknowledging the sentence which the man that he worshipped had passed. Devotion so piteous and so absolute would have drawn tears from any stone, and I was not surprised when beneath this turn of the roller Adèle broke down.
She slipped from the bed to the floor, buried her face in her hands and shook like a leaf.
“I can’t face it,” she said wildly. “Three days ago I could have done it, but now it’s too late. Two days ago the face of my world was changed. We changed it together, Jonah, you and I. But, when we changed it, we set a yoke on our necks . . . I wouldn’t go back for fifty million worlds—our yoke’s my pride and glory, the loveliest jewel that ever a woman wore. They were going to tattoo me, Jonah—to write your name on my back. I wish to God they’d done it; but it wouldn’t have been the same as the yoke we put on together two days ago. And now I’ve got to carry . . . our yoke . . . alone . . . . Between us, its weight was nothing. It had no weight. Day and night I’
d have worn it, and life would have been the lighter because it was there. But alone, Jonah . . . alone. How can I lift up my heart, when my fellow is gone?”
Great beads of sweat were standing on Mansel’s brow; but his voice, though low, was steady as it had ever been.
“‘The one shall be taken,’” he said, “‘And the other left.’ That is the private touchstone of the great Alchemist himself. Only the greatest hearts come to be put to such a shining proof, and those that pass it, my lady, emerge so tempered that no blow can ever dent them, and they can turn the edge of any sorrow.”
Adèle dragged herself up and knelt to the bed; as she leaned over blindly, Mansel put his arm round her neck . . . .
And then, for a while, there was silence, and the whisper of the water, taking its leap from the terrace, was all the sound we heard.
Tester lifted his head and looked at the wall.
At first I could hear nothing; then came a step in the passage, and, an instant later, Hanbury opened the door.
As he looked at the bed—
“Ah, George,” said Mansel, and smiled.
Hanbury glanced behind him, and a tall, fresh-faced man came into the room.
“This is Dr. Buchinger,” said George. “He is an Innsbruck surgeon, who happened to be at Lass.”
The other bowed to Adèle; then he stepped to the bed.
I was just in time to catch Tester, who would have flown at his throat, but the surgeon ignored the flurry and, frowning a little at the blood-stain upon the quilt, stooped to set his fingers on Mansel’s wrists.
There was a breathless silence.
Then he took a case from his pocket and straightened his back.
“I must give an injection” he said. “Please see if the room is ready and bring a shutter or something on which you may carry him.”
“You see,” said George, “it was like this. I knew it was a chance in a million, but there was the car waiting, and the bookseller ready to help. I would have gone to Innsbruck, for I hadn’t much hope of Lass. ‘Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ But my father’s a doctor, you know, and I knew we were up against time—haemorrhage. You don’t die of the wound; you die of the loss of blood. I tell you, I had next to no hope . . . .
“All the way I kept wondering how I could smother the rumours my action was going to start. Call in a doctor, and you always open the sluice. When I thought of the flood behind, my foot went out to the brake. It amounted to this—I was putting all our shirts on the rankest outsider that ever was saddled up. Then I thought of the shock his death would be to Adèle and the awful look in your face as we carried him in . . . .
“By the time we ran into Lass, I had a half-baked plan.
“We drove to the local surgeon’s. His door was open and, by the grace of God, he was just showing Buchinger out. Then I made a most happy mistake. I took Buchinger for the local, and the local for Buchinger’s man. Before the bookseller could stop me, I’d asked if he could speak English, and, when he said ‘yes,’ I dragged him into the house and started in. There was no time for finesse; my only card was the money, so I jolly well bunged it in. I said if he’d do the case, we’d pay him a thousand pounds—and another four thousand pounds three months from to-day, provided we’d reason to think that he’d held his tongue. Then I took out the wallet that Mansel keeps in the car and laid the notes on the table before his eyes. He seemed rather staggered and looked at me very hard. Then the bookseller put in his oar. ‘I will give you my word,’ he said, ‘that there is nothing to fear. This gentleman is saving a lady’s name.’ That seemed to reassure Buchinger, but still he wouldn’t say ‘yes.’
“‘Dr. Rachel must help me,’ he said, and looked at the wallah that I had thought was his man.
“Then I saw my mistake and that he must be another and bigger pot.
“‘By all means,’ said I, and added two hundred and fifty to what there was on the board.
“The two of them looked at the notes.
“Then Rachel made a noise like a siphon and picked his up . . . .
“Well, he has a kind of clinic attached to his house. All the stuff for an operation was ready to hand. Without Buchinger, he’d have been hopeless—forgotten from A to Z. But Buchinger knows his job. He called for paper and pencil and made out a list. When he’d done, he checked it over; then he gave it to Rachel and told him to ‘get those things into the car.’ Five minutes later we picked him up at a chemist’s two streets away.”
“You’ve saved his life,” said I.
“That remains to be seen,” said George. “But, if I have, it’s pure fluke. Buchinger was leaving the house to catch his train. He was actually on the doorstep. And Rachel could no more have done it than you or I. Clever enough, no doubt; but take him out of his groove, and he loses his mind.”
This estimate, if not exact, was unpleasantly near the truth. As Rachel was bidden, he did—with an excellent grace; but the poor man’s composure was gone, and his efforts to bring it to heel were as obvious as they were vain. This made us all fear for his discretion; but the bookseller presently insisted that the sight of familiar surroundings would send this disorder away and that, once he was back in his province, we could count upon his prudence as upon that of a sage.
This comforted us, for there was much to be done, and our cup of anxiety was full.
When the operation was over, Buchinger told us plainly that, so far from his life being saved, Mansel might die any minute during the next three days.
“When he thought he was dying,” he said, “he was perfectly right. He was dying—and dying fast. He is now no longer dying; Dr. Rachel and I have stopped that. But he is standing still—on the very edge of death. And there we must try to keep him, for, nothing that I can do can draw him back. If he should live for three days, he will himself draw back; and then a medical student could make him well. But if, before then, he slips—that is the end.
“I shall, of course, stay here. As luck will have it, my holiday does not end for another six days. But Dr. Rachel must go. You will fetch him again this evening, when he will bring my things and some drugs that I want. And, if you will keep your secret, I think I should drive into Lass by some indirect way. Of course, you should have a nurse—two nurses. But women would talk. Only, I fear for the health of that beautiful girl — ”
We drew what cheer we could from these solemn words and, since Adèle was with Mansel, turned with relief to the business of setting our house in order as best we might.
Rose Noble lay still unburied, for Carson and Bell had left him and rushed to the castle directly they heard the shot, and, finding the truth so dreadful, had rightly stayed within call. And, since another grave had now to be dug, we put these two matters in train before anything else.
The surgeons had not seen Casemate, for, while George was gone for a doctor, the servants had taken the body into the Dining-room. For this I was thankful, for to help a man out of a trespass is one thing, but to stand accessory to homicide is, as they say, a different pair of shoes.
And here I may sat that, if Rachel was too much bemused, Buchinger was far too wary to ask any questions at all; he must have suspected that Mansel’s was not the only blood that had been shed, but he saw the danger of knowledge and held his peace.
When he had returned to the sick-room and George had gone off with Rachel, to drive him to Lass, we carried Casemate’s body down to the second car, and Bell and Rowley and I drove up to the wood. And there we laid the fellow to such rest as a murderer has; and I trust he will lie undisturbed for the rest of our days, for, do what we would, we could not withdraw my knife; but were forced to bury the dead with this document fast in his back.
Until these grim rites were over, I could not rest, for, if dead men can tell no tales, a corpse can speak for itself, and I was determined to take no chances at all.
George, who was very soon back, held the same view, md the four of us laboured like fury, until the business was done.
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br /> When we left the thicket, we took with us Punter and Bunch and cast them into the kitchen which they had turned into a gaol. When they saw their quarters, the two looked ready to burst; but, if they disliked their fortune, they had only themselves to thank. I do not suppose that hospitality was ever shown so grudgingly or taken so ill, but, though we hated their presence, we thought it wise not to enlarge them until we should leave the castle for good and all.
We then set the caretakers free.
As may be believed, these were half dead of apprehension. Indeed, their one idea was to fly the place, and, but for the bookseller, whom they had known for some years, we should have had no choice but to detain them by force.
Rose Noble, of course, had “bought” them; and, once he was fairly installed, they could not go back. They could not betray his presence, without disclosing that they had betrayed their trust, and obeyed in fear and trembling their new and terrible lord. They had in the end made up their minds to vanish, but he had divined their intention and, coming upon them whilst they were packing some traps, had cuffed their right feet together and locked them into their room. In this miserable state we found them, full of lamentation and the expectation of death and entirely persuaded that, even if they were saved, as the result of their bondage they would be lame for life. Indeed, when we cut the links, they both declared that they could not possibly walk, that the iron had set up gangrene and other faint-hearted rubbish that wearied us all. With infinite patience, however, the bookseller took them to task, and, when he had at last convinced them that they were whole, made it plain that they still had a chance of avoiding such penalties as they had justly earned. At this, they pricked up their ears, and within the hour it was settled that we would repair such damage as might have been done to the house and would hold our tongues, provided they served us truly so long as we stayed. The terms were not to their liking, but, since beggars cannot be choosers, they had to agree, and the woman cooked us some luncheon that very day. . . .
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