H. C. McNeile

“ And he’s very, very glad that he has been privileged to help the most beautiful girl in all the world. Don’t cry, my dear, don’t cry: there’s nothing about that sinner’s that’s worth a single tear of yours. You must forget his wild presumption in falling in love with that beautiful girl: his only excuse is that he couldn’t help it. And maybe, in the days to come, the girl will think kindly every now and then of a man known to some as Archie Longworth—known to others as Flash Pete—known to himself as—well, we won’t bother about that. ”

“ In an instant I was out of bed.
“It’s probably Bill himself,” I said. “I found him down there last night walking in his sleep.”
“The devil you did!” muttered Jack, and at that moment Dick Armytage came in.
“Bill’s room is empty,” he announced; and I nodded.
“It’s Bill right enough,” I said. “He went back quite quietly last night. And, for Heaven’s sake, you fellows, don’t wake him. It’s very dangerous.”
Just as before the dining-room door was open, and the light filtered through into the passage as we tiptoed along it. Just as before we saw Bill standing by the table—his hand outstretched. ”

“ To Dick and Jack the rottenness of the balustrade; to me—the end of the vicar’s story. What they thought I know not; but to my dying day I shall never forget my own agony of mind. In that corner of the musicians’ gallery—though we could see her not—stood Lady Wrothley; to the man walking slowly towards her the door was opening slowly—the door which had remained shut the night before—the door behind which lay the terror. ”

“ You see, when one has fallen in love with an ideal—as I fell in love with that picture of you, all in white in the garden at your father’s place—and you treasure that ideal for three years, it jolts one to find that the ideal is different to what you thought. I fell in love with a girl in white, and sometimes in the wilds I’ve seen visions and dreamed dreams. And then I found her a lovely being in Paquin’s most expensive frocks; a social celebrity: a household name. And then I met her, and knew my girl in white had gone. ”

“ For after the first bar no one moved in the room: they stood motionless watching one couple—Lady Cynthia Stockdale and an unknown man.
“Why, it’s the fellow who breeds dogs,” muttered someone to his partner, but there was no reply. She was too engrossed in watching.
And as for Lady Cynthia, from the moment she felt Desmond Brooke’s arm round her, the world had become merely movement—such movement as she had never thought of before. To say that he was a perfect dancer would be idle: he was dancing itself. And the band, playing as men possessed, played for them and them only. ”

“ But though I’ve seen and heard many things in my life that have impressed me—horrible, dreadful things that I shall never forget—the moment of all others that is most indelibly stamped on my brain is that moment when, leaning across the bar, I looked into the depths of the soul of the man who called himself Jimmy Mainwaring—the man who could not get drunk. ”

“ The first point, which was as obvious as the electric light over the bunk, was that if Jack Manderby was not in love with Molly Felsted he was as near to it as made no odds. The second and far more important point was one on which I was in the dark—was the girl in love with him? If so, it simplified matters considerably; but if not, if she was only playing the fool, there was going to be trouble when we got to Burma. And the trouble would take the form of Rupert Morrison. For the more I thought of it the more amazed did I become that such a girl could ever have become engaged to such a man. ”

“ In some miraculous way Peter had not been killed; Peter was there in front of him—but a new Peter; a Peter whose memory of the past had completely gone, whose mind was as blank as a clean-washed slate.
“How long have you been doing this?” he asked quietly.
“Never you mind,” said the girl sharply. “He ain’t nothing to you. I looks after ’im, I do.”
Not for a second did Jimmy hesitate, though deep down inside him there came a voice that whispered—“Don’t be a fool! Pretend it’s a mistake. Clear off! Molly will never know.” ”

“ After all, if Peter didn’t recover, it would only mean fearful unhappiness for everyone. He wouldn’t know Molly, and it would break her heart, and the girl’s, and—but, of course, he didn’t count. It was the others he was thinking of—not himself.
He turned into the Park opposite the Albert Hall, and passers-by eyed him strangely, though he was supremely unaware of the fact. But when all the demons of hell are fighting inside a man, his face is apt to look grey and haggard. And as he walked slowly towards Hyde Park Corner, Jimmy Lethbridge went through his Gethsemane. ”

“ Lethbridge smiled at the girl reassuringly. “I’m glad you came.”
“Who’s that cove?” demanded the girl suspiciously, staring at Mainwaring.
“A doctor,” said Jimmy. “I want him to have a look at Peter later on.”
“His name ain’t Peter,” muttered the girl sullenly. “It’s Bill.”
“Well, at Bill, then. Don’t be frightened, Lizzie; come farther into the room. I want you to see a photograph I’ve got here.”
Like a dog who wonders whether it is safe to go to a stranger, she advanced slowly, one step at a time; while Peter, twirling his cap awkwardly in his hands, kept beside her. ”

“ For dancing was a part of Lady Cynthia’s life—and a big part.
The humour of the situation had struck her that day. For this dog-breeding crank to presume to judge her powers of dancing seemed too sublimely funny for annoyance. But he deserved to be taught a very considerable lesson. And she proposed to teach him. After that she proposed to dismiss him completely from her mind.
She gave him a cool nod as he came up, and frowned slightly as she noticed the faint glint of laughter in his eyes. Really Mr. Desmond Brooke was a little above himself. So much the worse for him. ”

“ Just for a moment the owner of the bungalow had been so stupefied at the sudden appearance of the man he hated that he had simply sat still, staring; but only for a moment. The movement of his arm was so quick that I hardly saw it; I only noticed what seemed to be a streak of light which shot across the room. And then I heard Jimmy’s revolver again—the tenth, the hundredth of a second too late. He’d drilled Pedro Salvas through the heart all right—I watched the swine crumple and fall with the snarl still on his face—but this time the knife wasn’t sticking in the wall. ”

“ So Jack had been there! And old Marley was dead! Murdered! Hit on the head with a poker. And Jack had been there. It’s only in romantic fiction that the reader is expected to assume the impossibility of the hero committing a crime, owing to the extreme beauty of his nature. And this wasn’t romantic fiction. It was hard, brutal reality. The two facts stood there, side by side, in all their dazzling simplicity. Jack’s nature was not supremely beautiful. He was an ordinary man, with the devil of a temper when it was roused. ”

“ And then, because it is not good that man should be tempted till he breaks, the Fate that had led him to Peter, led him gently out of the Grim Garden into Peace once more. He gave a short hard laugh which was almost a sob, and turning into Knightsbridge he hailed a taxi. It was as it drew up at the door of Molly’s house that he laughed again—a laugh that had lost its hardness. And the driver thought his fare’s “Thank you” was addressed to him. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was the first time Jimmy had prayed for ten years. ”

“ I was thinking of Morrison and wondering whether Jack’s optimism was justified. Apart from his moroseness and drinking, there were other stories about the man—stories which are not good to hear about a white man. I’d never paid any heed to them before, but now they came back to me—those rumours of strange things, which only the ignorant sceptic pretends to scorn; strange things done in secret with native priests and holy men; strange things it is not well for the white man to dabble in. And someone had it that Rupert Morrison did more than dabble. ”

“ Perrison’s face had grown more and more livid as he listened, and when the quiet voice ceased, unmindful of the girl standing by, he began to curse foully and hideously. The next moment he cowered back, as two iron hands gripped his shoulders and shook him till his teeth rattled.
“Stop, you filthy swine,” snarled Longworth, “or I’ll break every bone in your body. Quite a number of men are blackguards, Perrison—but you’re a particularly creeping and repugnant specimen. Now—get out—and do it quickly. The nine-thirty will do you nicely. ”

“ For about three miles inland there stretched a belt of stinking swamp—one vast malaria hot-bed—and over this belt the straggling street meandered towards the low foot-hills beyond. At times it almost lost itself: but if you didn’t give up hope, or expire from the stench, and cast about you’d generally find it again leading you on to where you felt you might get a breath of God’s fresh air in the hills. As a matter of fact you didn’t; the utmost one can say is that it wasn’t quite so appalling as in the swamp itself. Mosquitoes! Heavens! they had to be seen to be believed. ”

“ A look of wonder had come into the doctor’s eyes—wonder mixed with a dawning admiration.
“But, my God! old man,” he muttered at length, “if the operation is successful——”
“Can you think of a better wedding present to give a girl than the man she loves?” said Jimmy slowly, and the doctor turned away. There are times when it is not good to look on another man’s face.
“And if it isn’t successful?” he said quietly.
“God knows, Bill. I haven’t got as far as that—yet.”
And it was at that moment that there came a ring at the front-door bell. There was a brief altercation; then Jimmy’s man appeared. ”

“ The house team, with the respectable total of three hundred and fifty odd, were all out by tea-time, and both elevens forgathered in the tent behind. All, that is, except Trevor, who remained in the other until Apson himself went and pulled him out. I watched the old man, with his cheery smile, take Trevor by the elbow and literally drag him out of his chair; I watched Trevor in his blue undress jacket, smart as be damned, coming towards us with our host. And then very deliberately I looked at Giles Yeverley’s wife. She was staring over my head at the two men; then she lowered her parasol. ”

“ His marriage had taken place four years previously while I was abroad, and now, meeting his wife for the first time, I recalled bit by bit the gossip I’d heard in letters I got from home. How to everyone’s amazement he’d married a girl young enough to be his daughter; how everybody had prophesied disaster, and affirmed that she was not half good enough for one of the elect like Giles Yeverley; how she’d been engaged to someone else and thrown him over. ”

“ It has opened my mind to a vista of the Things that Might Be—if the Things that Had Been were different. But as you grow older, Sybil, you will learn one bitter truth: no human being can ever be exactly what he seems. ”

“ It is to be regretted that theological knowledge was not her strong point, but Ada Laverton, her hostess, did not smile. From beneath some marvellously long eyelashes she was watching the lovely girl lying back in the deck-chair opposite, who was vainly trying to blow smoke rings. A sudden wild idea had come into her brain—so wild as to be almost laughable. But from time immemorial wild ideas anent their girl friends have entered the brains of young married women, especially the lucky ones who have hooked the right man. ”

“ But the Dago wasn’t taking any, and ’pon my soul I hardly blamed him. For if ever a man was mad, Jimmy Mainwaring was mad that night: mad with the madness that knows no fear and is absolutely blind to consequences. ”

“ For a while the Doctor was silent; then he gave a short laugh.
“They sat next to one another at dinner, opposite me, and I’m afraid my partner must have thought I was a little wanting in intellect. They were such a perfectly ideal couple; and I noticed old Joe Maitland watching them every now and then. But gradually, as the meal progressed, a puzzled look began to creep into the girl’s eyes, and once she bit her lip suddenly and turned abruptly to the man on her other side. It was then that Digby looked across the table at me, and in that moment I realised that he was right. ”

“ I found a seething cauldron of discontent; men out of work—strikes—talk of revolution. And this was the country for which a million of our best had died. I also found—week after week—my picture girl displayed in every paper, as if no such thing as trouble existed. She, in her motor-car, cared for none of these things. ”

“ Do you blame her, gentlemen? You have daughters of your own. She no more knew what she had in her hand than a baby would. To keep him away—that was her sole idea. And then—suddenly—it happened. The revolver went off—the man fell dead.
“What did this girl do, gentlemen, after that? Realising that he was dead, did she make any attempt to conceal what she had done—to conceal her share in the matter? No—exactly the reverse. Instantly she rang up Sir Edward Shoreham, whose views on such matters are well known to you all. ”