The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
in, old man," I said hoarsely. "At first I put him down as bluffing, but afterwards I knew he wasn't. And when you doubled up like that—" I broke off as Jim crossed to the switch.
"I knew he wasn't bluffing," he answered. "I saw that in his eyes. Now we'll see how he likes it."
There came another vivid spark, and with a loud clang the gate closed in the grille, while the Egyptian still sprawled unconscious in the chair.
"So I took the only possible way as it seemed to me. If it failed—I died, and by the mercy of Allah it didn't! Oh! my God! look!"
His hand gripped my arm, and I swung round just in time to see it. I suppose he'd slipped in the chair or something, but Prince Selim's back was arched inwards in a semi-circle, and for a moment he seemed to stand on his head. Then he crashed forward on to the floor and lay still.
"No," repeated Jim, and his hand shook a little, "it wasn't bluff."
* * * * *
I don't profess to account for it. Whether he was indeed mad, or whether he was merely the victim of some terrible form of mental abnormality, will never be known. Amazing stories of unbelievable debauches were hinted at by his servant during the inquest—debauches always carried out in this room.
Tales showing his appalling cruelty and his fiendish pleasure in witnessing pain in others were listened to by an astounded and open-mouthed jury. But one thing they did not hear—and that was of the presence of two white men in the house on the night preceding the finding of the Prince's dead body. The Arab who had brought in the champagne was not quite a fool, and a verdict of accidental death saved complications.
XII. — MOLLY'S AUNT AT ANGMERING
AND so I come to the finish. As I have said, Jim's half- section was made up, and he wasn't our best man after all, for we had a double wedding. As is only meet and proper, it caused the cessation of his wanderings and turned him into an orderly member of society. How long it will last is another thing altogether. Sometimes now there comes a gleam into his eyes not induced, I regret to say, by the intense excitement of English country life. And sometimes now, when Molly and I go to stay with them, the two men of the party are routed out by their indignant wives at two in the morning.
The whisky is low in the decanter; the atmosphere gives every excuse for paroxysms of feminine coughing as the door opens. And then the two men rise sheepishly from their chairs and basely pretend that they had no idea it was so late. It doesn't deceive their wives for an instant, but they are merciful and kindly souls who have even been known to brave the atmosphere and come and sit on the arms of their respective husbands' chairs.
For he found her—did Jim. He found his girl—the girl he had last seen in the hotel at Tampico. The Fate that juggles the pieces gave the wheel another twist—a kindly twist, and the harbour for which old Jim in his heart of hearts had been steering through long years hove in sight. And now there was Molly, bless her! at the helm.
Great happiness is apt to make one a bit selfish, I think, and somehow or other Jim and his, quest had slipped a little into the background of my mind. As he had said to me with a shrug of his shoulders and an apparent indifference which failed to deceive, what chance was there of finding her— that girl who was never absent for long from his mind? And even if he did find her—what then? She hated and despised him. And I had agreed: the odds against finding her were long. Also I had forgotten, for such is the way of a man in love himself.
And then suddenly one afternoon it happened. At first I could hardly believe my eyes: I said to myself that it was merely an astonishing likeness. But after a moment or two I knew that it was no mistake: the girl talking to Molly was Jim's girl.
It was a hat shop—Chez Bernie it was called: and Molly had taken me there for the purpose of disregarding my advice. It appeared that she often came to this shop. It was run by a lady who had built up the business herself. Moreover she was a dear: had struggled through a real bad time and now had made good. Sheila Bernie was her name, and from the corner to which I had retired I saw Sheila Bernie come out from an inner sanctum and greet Molly.
And Sheila Bernie was the girl I had known as Sheila Blair—the wife of Raymond Blair, drunken derelict.
Molly called me up to introduce me, and for a moment Jim's girl—in my mind I always called her that—stared at me with a puzzled frown.
"Surely," she said hesitatingly, "we have met somewhere?"
I bowed and took her hand.
"Tampico," I said. "In the South Seas."
I heard her catch her breath, and then I went on.
"Mr. Maitland and I landed in London about a month ago."
I knew that Molly was looking from one to the other of us, but she didn't make any fool remark about the world being small. And even when the girl went on, with her head thrown back in that queer little way that I remembered so well, Molly said nothing, being that manner of human who knows when to speak and when not to.
"Will you tell Mr. Maitland," said the girl quietly, "that I made a very grave mistake which I have never ceased regretting. I can quite understand that he will find it impossible to forgive me, but I had no method of communicating with him."
"I will certainly tell him," I assured her. "But is there any reason, Mrs. Blair, why you shouldn't tell him yourself?"
For a moment she hesitated.
Then: "I am here every day from nine till five."
She turned to Molly, but for the first and last time in her life Molly's interest in hats seemed to have waned. Tea was her sole thought, and she would come back again tomorrow when she had more time. So tea it was, and at tea came the inquisition.
"Tell me everything, Dick. Why did you call her Mrs. Blair? I've known her now for two years: I've stayed with her sometimes down in a little bungalow she's got down in Sussex. And she's never mentioned the fact that she was married."
"Her husband died some years ago," I said quietly, and my thoughts went back to that sun-drenched dusty street in Tampico.
"It's an amazing, an incredible coincidence running into her this afternoon. You see there has never been another woman in Jim's life since he met her. And I think he'd given up all hope of ever seeing her again."
And then I told her the whole story. I told her of Tampico, of its loneliness and its rottenness; I told her of the human derelicts who died their drink-sodden deaths in it. And I told her of Raymond Blair.
"In your life, Molly," I. said, "you've probably never come across such a case. You've seen men tight maybe, and on that you've based your ideas of drunkenness. Blair was a crawling, pitiful thing: he wasn't a man at all. When the drink was out of him there was no depth to which he wouldn't sink to get it: when the drink was in him—and this is the point I want to make clear—he was almost normal. In fact, he had got into the last and final stage of the drunkard."
"And that was Sheila's husband," said Molly, very low.
"That was her husband," I answered gravely. "She wasn't out there with him, and she thought he was a trader in a big way. In fact, she used to send out money to him every month to help him expand his business. How she got it I don't know—but it went down his throat right enough."
"What a brute!" cried Molly.
"When a man gets to that condition, my dear, he's dead to every sense of decency. And things might have gone on till he died without her ever finding out, but for the fact that she suddenly decided to come out herself and see her husband. She arrived with Jim—he looked after her on the way out. And that was when I met him first."
"And what was her husband doing?"
"Raymond Blair was in a saloon reciting nursery rhymes for the benefit of a bunch of Dagos, and crawling on the floor like