Anthony Hope

“ By the side of the sheet and the piece of carpet there was an old brown leather bag.
Tradition, and Mr. Penrose, had told the truth. Here without doubt was Captain Duggle’s grave, the grave he had caused to be dug for himself, but which—be the reason what it might—-his body had never occupied. Yet the tomb was not entirely empty. The floor of it was strewn with gold, to what depth Mary could not tell, but it was covered with golden sovereigns; there must be thousands of them. They gleamed under the light of the candles.
Mary turned, startled, inquiring, apprehensive eyes on Beaumaroy. ”

“ Then Mary herself collapsed; she sank down on the dais and broke into weeping. It had all been so pitiful, and somehow so terrible. Her quick tumultuous sobbing sounded through the place which the vibrations of the old man’s voice had lately filled.
She felt Beaumaroy’s hand on her shoulder. “You must make sure,” he said, in a low voice. “You must make your examination.”
With trembling hands she did it—she forced herself to it, Beaumaroy aiding her. There was no doubt. Life had left the body which reason had left long before. ”

“ Naylor was not wrong as to Mary’s mood and purpose. But she did not find it easy to begin. Pretty quick at a retort herself, she could often foresee the retorts open to her interlocutor. Beaumaroy had provided himself with plenty: the old man’s whim; the access to the old man so willingly allowed, not only to her but to Captain Alec; his own candor carried to the verge of self-betrayal. Oh, he would be full of retorts, supple and dexterous ones! ”

“ And this question did draw from the General, if not an explosion, at least a rather contemptuous smile: Beaumaroy had earned no right to express opinions!
But express one he did, and with his habitual air of candor. “I believe it’s destroyed every, scruple I ever had!”
“Mr. Beaumaroy!” exclaimed his hostess, scandalized; while the two girls, Cynthia and Gertie, laughed.
“I mean it. Can you see human life treated as dirt, absolutely as cheap as dirt, for three years, and come out thinking it worth anything? Can you fight for your own hand, right or wrong? ”

“ Mary persisted.
“So that’s how great fortunes are made? That’s how individuals—to say nothing of nations—rise to wealth and power! And I never knew it,” Beaumaroy reflected in a gentle voice. His eye caught Mary’s, and she gave a little laugh. “By deciding doubtful cases against themselves! Dear me, yes!”
“I didn’t say they rose to greatness and power.”
“Then the people who do rise to greatness and power—and the nations—don’t they go by right of conquest, Doctor Mary? Don’t they decide cases in their own favor?” ”

“ Well, was I to give him up—to the law, and the Radbolts, and the jailers of an asylum—a man who trusted me like that?”
“But he was mad,” objected Doctor Mary obstinately.
“A man has his feelings, or may have, even when he’s mad. He trusted me and he loved me, Doctor Mary. Won’t you allow that I’ve my case—so far?” She made no sign of assent. “Well then, I loved him—does that go any better with you? If it doesn’t, I’m in a bad way; be cause what I’m giving you now is the strong part of my case.”
“I don’t see why you should put what you call your case to me at all, Mr. Beaumaroy.” ”

“ Hector Beaumaroy had an adorable candor of manner. He answered questions with innocent readiness and pellucid sincerity. It would be impossible to think him guilty of a lie; ungenerous to suspect so much as a suppression of the truth. Even Mr. Naylor, hardened by five-and-thirty years’ experience of what sailors will blandly swear to in collision cases, was struck with the open candor of his bearing. ”

“ Her husband, with his suave oiliness, came to her rescue. “My wife is always nervous, perhaps foolishly nervous, about fire, Mr. Beaumaroy. Well, with an old house like this, there is always the risk.”
“Upon my soul, I hadn’t thought of it! And I’ve packed up all my things, and your car’s come and fetched them, Mr. Naylor. Still, of course I could—”
“Oh, we’ve no right, no claim, to trouble you, Mr. Beaumaroy. Only my wife is—”
“Fire’s an obsession with me, I’m afraid,” said the stout woman, with a rumbling giggle. The sound of her mirth was intolerably disagreeable to Mary. ”

“ Who really cares for right or wrong, anyhow?”
A pause ensued—rather an uncomfortable pause. There was a raw sincerity in Beaumaroy’s utterance that made it a challenge.
“I honestly think we did care about the rights and wrongs—we in England,” said Naylor.
“That was certainly so at the beginning,” Irechester agreed.
Beaumaroy took him up smartly. “Aye, at the beginning. But what about when our blood got up? What then? Would we, in our hearts, rather have been right and got a licking, or wrong and given one?”
“A searching question!” mused old Naylor. “What say you, Tom Punnit?” ”

“ To the left of the throne, to her right as she stood in the doorway facing it, there was a fireplace; an empty grate, though the night was cold. Immediately in front of it was, unmistakably, the excavation in the floor which Mr. Penrose had described at the Christmas dinner-party at Old Place—six feet in length by three in breadth, and about four feet deep. Against the wall, close by, stood a sheet of cast iron, which evidently served to cover and conceal the aperture; by it was thrown down, in careless disorder, a strip of the same dull red baize as covered the rest of the floor of the Tower. ”

“ Then he suddenly recalled Alec Naylor’s story of the two men, one tall and slight, one short and stumpy, who had reconnoitered Tower Cottage. The Sergeant had an accomplice, no doubt. He listened again. He heard the scrape of metal on metal, as when a man gathers up coins in his hand out of a heap. Yet he stood where he was, smoking still. Thoughts were passing rapidly through his brain, and they brought a smile to his lips.
Let them take it! Why not? It was no care to him now! Doctor Mary had to tell the truth about it, and so, consequently, had he himself. It belonged to the Radbolts. ”

“ Beaumaroy was equally obstinate.
Mary rose. “Then that’s settled, and we needn’t keep Captain Alec waiting any longer.”
“How do you know that I sha’n’t cheat you?” he asked.
“I don’t know how I know that,” Mary admitted. “But I do know it. And I want to tell you—”
She suddenly felt embarrassed under his gaze; her cheeks flushed, but she went on resolutely:
“To tell you how glad, how happy, I am that it all ends like this; that the poor old man is free of his fancies and his fears, beyond both our pity and our laughter.” ”

“ These thoughts filled and racked his brain as he sat drinking rum and water 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 small table in the corner, musing within himself, yet idly watching the company—villagers, a few friends from London and elsewhere, some soldiers and their ladies. Besides these, a tall slim man stood leaning against the bar, at the far end of it, talking to Bill Smithers, the landlord, and sipping whisky-and-soda between pulls at his cigar. ”

“ It fell from his hand back into the grave again; under its impact the gold coins in the grave again jangled.
Beaumaroy had, by this time, been standing close outside the door for about two minutes; he had lighted a cigarette from the candle on the parlor table. The sounds that he thought he heard were not conclusive; creaks and cracks did sometimes come from the boarded-up window and the rafters of the roof. But the sound of the jangling gold was conclusive; it must be due in some way to human agency; and in the circumstances human agency must mean a thief. ”

“ For it was over that implement that Beaumaroy had tripped up. It ought to have been hidden before she was admitted to the cottage. Somebody had been careless, somebody had blundered—whether Beaumaroy himself or his servant was immaterial. Beaumaroy had lied, readily and ingeniously, but not quite readily enough. The dart of his hand had betrayed him; that, and a look in his eyes, a tell-tale mirth which had seemed to mock both her and himself, and had made his ingenious lie even at the moment unconvincing. ”

“ The phrase sounded rather an odd one to Mary, but Beaumaroy accepted the assurance with a nod: “All right, I’ll wait downstairs, sir. I hope you’ll bring me a good account of him, Doctor.” So he left Mary to make her examination; going downstairs, he shook his head once, pursed up his lips, and then smiled doubtfully, as a man may do when he has made up his mind to take a chance. ”

“ Since by all the laws of average, when millions of men are wearing a uniform, there must be some rogues in it. But it was Alec’s way to hold himself responsible for the whole of His Majesty’s Forces. Their honor was his; for their misdeeds he must in his own person make reparation. “That fellow Beaumaroy may have lost his conscience, but my boy seems to have acquired five million,” the old man grumbled to himself—a grumble full of pride. ”

“ His lie was found out. “It’s dashed difficult always to remember that you’re a doctor,” he broke out the next minute.
Mary could not help laughing; but her eyes were still keen and challenging as she said, “Perhaps you’d better change your doctor again, Mr. Beaumaroy. You haven’t found one stupid enough!”
Again Beaumaroy had no defense; his nonplussed air confessed that maneuver, too. Mary dropped her rallying tone and went on gravely: “Unless I’m treated with confidence and sincerity, I can’t continue to attend Mr. Saffron.”
“That’s your ultimatum, is it, Doctor Mary?” ”

“ CHAPTER IX. — DOCTOR MARY’S ULTIMATUM
Even Captain Alec was not superior to the foibles which beset humanity. If it had been his conception of duty which impelled him to take a high line with Beaumaroy, there was now in his feelings, although he did not realize the fact, an alloy of less precious metal. He had demanded an ordeal, a test—that he should see Mr. Saffron and judge for himself. ”

“ Mary smiled. “A matter of principle with you, was it, Mr. Beaumaroy?”
“No—instinct, I think. It’s my instinct to be against the proper thing, the regular thing, the thing that deals hardly with an individual in the name of some highly nebulous general principle.”
“Like discipline?” she put in, with a reminiscence of Major-General Punnit. ”

“ Naylor’s a man of honor, Doctor Mary; a man who appreciates a situation, a man you can trust.” Beaumaroy seemed very gay and happy now, disembarrassed of a load, and buoyant alike in walk and in spirit. ”

“ That was what General Punnit had said! Alec Naylor grew impatient. “That’s the very spirit we have to fight against!” he exclaimed, rather hotly.
“Forgive me, but, please, don’t raise your voice.”
Alec lowered his voice, for a moment anyhow, but the central article of his creed was assailed, and he grew vehement. “It’s fatal; it’s at the root of all our troubles. Allow for failures in individuals, and you produce failure all round. It’s tenderness to defaulters that wrecks discipline. ”

“ My sack, the sack I rescued?”
“Including the sack in the water-butt. Yes, every single sovereign!” Though Mary was pursuing the high moral line, there was now more mischief than gravity in her demeanor.
“Well, I’ll do it!” He evidently spoke with a great effort. “I’ll do it! But, look here, Doctor Mary, you’ll live to be sorry you made me do it. Oh, I don’t mean that that conscience of yours will be sorry. That’ll approve, no doubt, being the extremely conventionalized thing it is. But you yourself, you’ll be sorry, or I’m much mistaken in the Radbolts.” ”

“ Looking down on him, Beaumaroy allowed a smile to appear on his lips, a queer smile, which seemed to be compounded of affection, pity, and amusement.
“The difficulties there remain considerable for the present,” he remarked.
“They must be overcome.” Once again the old man’s voice became sharp and even dictatorial.
“They shall be, sir, depend on it.” Beaumaroy’s air was suddenly confident, almost braggart. Mr. Saffron nodded approvingly. ”

“ He also had a very nasty little club in the same pocket, whereas Mr. Bennett carried no weapon of offense—merely the tools of his trade, at which he was singularly expert. The friends had worked together before; though Neddy reviled Mike for a coward, and Mike averred with curses, that Neddy would bring them both to the gallows some day, yet they worked well together and had a respect for one another, each allowing for the other’s idiosyncrasies. The true spirit of partnership! On it alone can lasting and honorable success be built. ”

“ You’re a lucky young woman, Mary.” He rose to take his leave. “So, with our young folk happily married, and you installed, and friend Beaumaroy suited to his liking—why, upon my word, we may ring the curtain down on a happy ending—of Act I, at all events!”
She seemed to pay no heed to his words. He stood for a moment, admiring her; not as a beauty, but a healthy comely young woman, stout-hearted, and with humanity and a sense of fun in her. ”