CHAPTER XVI
DEAD MAJESTY
Mary did not appear to answer Beaumaroy's glance; she continued to look
at, and to address herself to, Captain Alec. "I am tired, and I should
love a ride home. But I've still a little to do, and--I know it's awfully
late, but would you mind waiting just a little while? I'm afraid I might
be as much as half-an-hour."
"Right you are, Doctor Mary--as long as you like. I'll walk up and down,
and smoke a cigar; I want one badly." Mary made an extremely faint motion
of her hand towards the house. "Oh, thanks, but really I--well, I shall
feel more comfortable here, I think."
Mary smiled; it was always safe to rely on Captain Alec's fine feelings;
under the circumstances he would--she had felt pretty sure--prefer to
smoke his cigar outside the house. "I'll be as quick as I can. Come, Mr.
Beaumaroy!"
Beaumaroy followed her up the path and into the house. The Sergeant was
still on the floor of the passage; he rolled apprehensive resentful eyes
at them; Mary took no heed of him, but preceded Beaumaroy into the parlor
and shut the door.
"I don't know what your game is," remarked Beaumaroy in a low voice, "but
you couldn't have played mine better. I don't want him inside the house;
but I'm mighty glad to have him extremely visible outside it."
"It was very quiet inside there"--she pointed to the door of the
Tower--"just before I came out. Before that, I'd heard odd sounds. Was
there somebody there--and the Sergeant in league with him?"
"Exactly," smiled Beaumaroy. "It is all quiet. I think I'll have a look."
The candle on the table had burnt out. He took another from the sideboard
and lit it from the one which Mary still held.
"Like the poker?" she asked, with a flicker of a smile on her face.
"No you come and help, if I cry out!" He could not repress a chuckle;
Doctor Mary was interesting him extremely.
Lighted by his candle, he went into the Tower. She heard him moving about
there, as she stood thoughtfully by the extinct fire, still with her
candle in her hand.
Beaumaroy returned. "He's gone--or they've gone." He exhibited to her
gaze two objects--a checked pocket-handkerchief and a tobacco pouch.
"Number one found on the edge of the grave--Number two on the floor of
the dais, just behind the canopy. If the same man had drawn them both out
of the same pocket at the same time--wanting to blow the same nose,
Doctor Mary--they'd have fallen at the same place, wouldn't they?"
"Wonderful, Holmes!" said Mary. "And now, shall we attend to Mr.
Saffron?"
They carried out that office, the course of which they had originally
prepared. Beaumaroy passed with his burden hard by the Sergeant, and Mary
followed. In a quarter of an hour they came downstairs again, and Mary
again led the way into the parlor. She went to the window, and drew the
curtains aside a little way. The lights of the car were burning; the
Captain's tall figure fell within their rays and was plainly visible,
strolling up and down; the ambit of the rays did not, however, embrace
the Tower window. The Captain paced and smoked, patient, content, gone
back to his own happy memories and anticipations. Mary returned to the
table and set her candle down on it.
"All right. I think we can keep him a little longer."
"I vote we do," said Beaumaroy. "I reckon he's scared the fellows away,
and they won't come back so long as they see his lights."
Rash at conclusions sometimes--as has been seen--Beaumaroy was right in
his opinion of the Captain's value as a sentry, or a scarecrow to keep
away hungry birds. The confederates had stolen back to their base of
operations--to where their car lay behind the trees. There, too, no
Sergeant and no sack! Neddy reached for his roomy flask, drank of it,
and with hoarse curses consigned the entire course of events, his
accomplices, even himself, to nethermost perdition. "That place
ain't--natural!" he ended in a gloomy conviction. "'Oo pinched that sack?
The Sergeant? Well--maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't." He finished the
flask to cure a recurrence of the shudders.
Mike prevailed with him so far that he consented--reluctantly--to be left
alone on the blasted heath, while his friend went back to reconnoiter.
Mike went, and presently returned; the car was still there, the tall
figure was still pacing up and down.
"And perhaps the other one's gone for the police!" Mike suggested
uneasily. "Guess we've lost the hand, Neddy! Best be moving, eh? It's no
go for to-night."
"Catch me trying the bloomin' place any other night!" grumbled Neddy.
"It's given me the 'orrors, and no mistake."
Mike--Mr. Percy Bennett, that erstwhile gentlemanly stranger--recognized
one of his failures. Such things are incidental to all professions.
"Our best game is to go back; if the Sergeant's on the square, we'll
hear from him." But he spoke without much hope; rationalist as he
professed himself, still he was affected by the atmosphere of the Tower.
With what difficulty do we entirely throw off atavistic notions! They
both of them had, at the bottom of their minds, the idea that the dead
man on the high seat had defeated them, and that no luck lay in meddling
with his treasure.
"I 'ave my doubts whether that ugly Sergeant's 'uman himself," growled
Neddy, as he hoisted his bulk into the car.
So they went back to whence they came; and the impression that the
night's adventure left upon them was heightened as the days went by. For,
strange to say, though they watched all the usual channels of
information, as Ministers say; in Parliament, and also tried to open up
some unusual ones, they never heard anything again of the Sergeant, of
the sack of gold, of the yawning tomb with its golden lining, of its
silent waxen-faced enthroned guardian who had defeated them. It all--the
whole bizarre scene--vanished from their ken, as though it had been one
of those alluring, thwarting dreams which afflict men in sleep. It was an
experience to which they were shy of alluding among their confidential
friends, even of talking about between themselves. In a
word--uncomfortable!
Meanwhile the Sergeant's association with Tower Cottage had also drawn to
its close. After his search and his discovery in the Tower, Beaumaroy
came out into the passage where the prisoner lay, and proceeded to
unfasten his bonds.
"Stand up and listen to me, Sergeant," he said. "Your pals have run away;
they can't help you, and they wouldn't if they could, because, owing to
you, they haven't got away with any plunder, and so they'll be in a very
bad temper with you. In the road, in front of the house, is Captain
Naylor--you know that officer and his dimensions? He's in a very temper
with you too. (Here Beaumaroy was embroidering the situation; the
Sergeant was not really in Captain Alec's thoughts.) Finally, I'm in a
very bad temper with you myself. If I see your ugly phiz much longer, I
may break out. Don't you think you'd better depart--by the back door--and
go home? And if you're not out of Inkston for good and all by ten o'clock
in the morning, and if you ever show yourself there again, look out for
squalls. What you've got out of this business I don't know. You can keep
it--and I'll give you a parting present myself as well."
"I knows a thing or two--" the Sergeant began, but he saw a look that
he had seen only once or twice before on Beaumaroy's face; on each
occasion it had been followed by the death of the enemy whose act had
elicited it.
"Oh, try that game, just try it!" Beaumaroy muttered. "Just give me that
excuse!" He advanced to the Sergeant, who fell suddenly on his knees.
"Don't make a noise, you hound, or I'll silence you for good and all--I'd
do it for twopence!" He took hold of the Sergeant's coat-collar, jerked
him on to his legs, and propelled him to the kitchen and through it to
the back door. Opening it, he dispatched the Sergeant through the doorway
with an accurate and vigorous kick. He fell, and lay sprawling on the
ground for a second, then gathered himself up and ran hastily over the
heath, soon disappearing in the darkness. The memory of Beaumaroy's look
was even keener than the sensation caused by Beaumaroy's boot. It sent
him in flight back to Inkston, thence to London, thence into the unknown,
to some spot chosen for its remoteness from Beaumaroy, from Captain
Naylor, from Mike and from Neddy. He recognized his unpopularity, thereby
achieving a triumph in a difficult little branch of wisdom.
Beaumaroy returned to the parlor hastily; not so much to avoid keeping
Captain Alec waiting--it was quite a useful precaution to have that
sentry on duty a little longer--as because his curiosity and interest had
been excited by the description which Doctor Mary had given of Mr.
Saffron's death. It was true, probably the precise truth, but it seemed
to have been volunteered in a rather remarkable way and worded with
careful purpose. Also it was the bare truth, the truth denuded of all its
attendant circumstances--which had not been normal.
When he rejoined her, Mary was sitting in the armchair by the fire; she
heard his account of the state of affairs up-to-date with a thoughtful
smile, smoking a cigarette; her smile broadened over the tale of the
water-butt. She had put on the fur cloak in which she had walked to the
cottage--the fire was out and the room cold; framed in the furs, the
outline of her face looked softer.
"So we stand more or less as we did before the burglars appeared on the
scene," she commented.
"Except that our personal exertions have saved that money."
"I suppose you would prefer that all the circumstances shouldn't come
out? There have been irregularities."
"I should prefer that, not so much on my own account--I don't know and
don't care what they could do to me--as for the old man's sake."
"If I know you, I think you would rather enjoy being able to keep your
secret. You like having the laugh of people. I know that myself, Mr.
Beaumaroy." She exchanged a smile with him. "You want a death certificate
from me," she added.
"I suppose I do," Beaumaroy agreed.
"In the sort of terms in which I described Mr. Saffron's death to Captain
Alec? If I gave such a certificate, there would remain nothing--well,
nothing peculiar--except the--the appearance of things in the Tower."
Her eyes were now fixed on his face; he nodded his head with a smile of
understanding. There was something new in the tone of Doctor Mary's
voice; not only friendliness, though that was there, but a note of
excitement, of enjoyment, as though she also were not superior to the
pleasure of having the laugh of people. "But it's rather straining a
point to say that--and nothing more. I could do it only if you made me
feel that I could trust you absolutely."
Beaumaroy made a little grimace, and waited for her to develop
her subject.
"Your morality is different from most people's, and from mine. Mine is
conventional."
"Conventual!" Beaumaroy murmured.
"Yours isn't. It's all personal with you. You recognize no rights in
people whom you don't like, or who you think aren't deserving, or haven't
earned rights. And you don't judge your own rights by what the law gives
you, either. The right of conquest you called it; you hold yourself free
to exercise that against everybody, except your friends, and against
everybody in the interest of your friends--like poor Mr. Saffron. I
believe you'd do the same for me if I asked you to."
"I'm glad you believe that, Doctor Mary."
"But I can't deal with you on that basis. It's even difficult to be
friends on that basis--and certainly impossible to be partners."
"I never suggested that we should be partners over the money," Beaumaroy
put in quickly.
"No. But I'm suggesting now--as you did before--that we should be
partners--in a secret, in Mr. Saffron's secret." She smiled again as she
added, "You can manage it all, I know, if you like. I've unlimited
confidence in your ingenuity--quite unlimited."
"But none at all in my honesty?"
"You've got an honesty; but I don't call it a really honest honesty."
"All this leads up to--the Radbolts!" declared Beaumaroy with & gesture
of disgust.
"It does. I want your word of honor--given to a friend--that all that
money--all of it--goes to the Radbolts, if it legally belongs to them. I
want that in exchange for the certificate."
"A hard bargain! It isn't so much that I want the money--though I must
remark that in my judgment I have a strong claim to it; I would say a
moral claim but for my deference to your views, Doctor Mary. But it isn't
mainly that. I hate the Radbolts getting it, just as much as the old man
would have hated it."
"I have given you my--my terms," said Mary.
Beaumaroy stood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. His face
was twisted in a humorous disgust. Mary laughed gently. "It is possible
to--to keep the rules without being a prig, you know, though I believe
you think it isn't."
"Including the sack in the water-butt? 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."
"It isn't a question of the Radbolts," she insisted, laughing.
"Oh yes, it is, and you'll come to feel it so." 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."
"Aye, he's earned rest, if there is to be rest for any of us!"
"And you can rest, too. And you can laugh with us, and not at us. Isn't
that, after all, a more human sort of laughter?"
She was smiling still as she gave him her hand, but he saw that tears
stood in her eyes. The next instant she gave a little sob.
"Doctor Mary!" he exclaimed in rueful expostulation.
"No, no, how stupid you are!" She laughed through her sob. "It's not
unhappiness!" She pressed his hand tightly for an instant and then walked
quickly out of the house, calling back to him, "Don't come, please don't
come. I'd rather go to Captain Alec by myself."
Left alone in the cottage, now so quiet and so peaceful, Beaumaroy mused
a while as he smoked his pipe. Then he turned to his labors--his final
night of work in the Tower. There was much to do, very much to do; he
achieved his task towards morning. When day dawned, there was nothing but
water in the water-butt, and in the Tower no furnishings were visible
save three chairs--a high carved one by the fireplace, and two much
smaller on the little platform under the window. The faded old red carpet
on the floor was the only attempt at decoration. And in still one thing
more the Tower was different from what it had been, Beaumaroy contented
himself with pasting brown paper over the pane on which Mike had
operated. He did not replace the matchboarding over the window, but
stowed it away in the coal-shed. The place was horribly in need of
sunshine and fresh air--and the old gentleman was no longer alive to fear
the draught!
When the undertaker came up to the cottage that afternoon, he glanced
from the parlor, through the open door, into the Tower.
"Driving past on business, sir," he remarked to Beaumaroy, "I've often
wondered what the old gentleman did with that there Tower. But it looks
as if he didn't make no use of it."
"We sometimes stored things in it," said Beaumaroy. "But, as you see,
there's nothing much there now."
But then the undertaker, worthy man, could not see through the carpet, or
through the lid of Captain Duggle's grave. That was full--fuller than it
had been at any period of its history. In it lay the wealth, the scepter,
and the trappings of dead Majesty. For wherein did Mr. Saffron's dead
Majesty differ from the dead Majesty of other Kings?
