CHAPTER XIII. POLICHINELLE
"Why, Ned," he asked gravely, "what has happened?"
"It is Samoval," was Tremayne's quiet answer. "He is quite dead."
He stood up as he spoke, and Sir Terence observed with terrible inwardmirth that his tone had the frank and honest ring, his bearing theimperturbable ease which more than once before had imposed upon him asthe outward signs of an easy conscience. This secretary of his was acool scoundrel.
"Samoval, is it?" said Sir Terence, and went down on one knee besidethe body to make a perfunctory examination. Then he looked up at thecaptain.
"And how did this happen?"
"Happen?" echoed Tremayne, realising that the question was beingaddressed particularly to himself. "That is what I am wondering. I foundhim here in this condition."
"You found him here? Oh, you found him here in this condition! Curious!"Over his shoulder he spoke to the butler: "Mullins, you had better callthe guard." He picked up the slender weapon that lay beside Samoval."A duelling sword!" Then he looked searchingly about him until his eyescaught the gleam of the other blade near the wall, where himself he haddropped it. "Ah!" he said, and went to pick it up. "Very odd!" He lookedup at the balcony, over the parapet of which his wife was leaning."Did you see anything, my dear?" he asked, and neither Tremayne nor shedetected the faint note of wicked mockery in the question.
There was a moment's pause before she answered him, faltering:
"N-no. I saw nothing." Sir Terence's straining ears caught no faintestsound of the voice that had prompted her urgently from behind thecurtained windows.
"How long have you been there?" he asked her.
"A--a moment only," she replied, again after a pause. "I--I thought Iheard a cry, and--and I came to see what had happened." Her voice shookwith terror; but what she beheld would have been quite enough to accountfor that.
The guard filed in through the doors from the official quarters, asergeant with a halbert in one hand and a lantern in the other, followedby four men, and lastly by Mullins. They halted and came to attentionbefore Sir Terence. And almost at the same moment there was a sharprattling knock on the wicket in the great closed gates through whichSamoval had entered. Startled, but without showing any signs of it, SirTerence bade Mullins go open, and in a general silence all waited to seewho it was that came.
A tall man, bowing his shoulders to pass under the low lintel of thatnarrow door, stepped over the sill and into the courtyard. He wore acocked hat, and as his great cavalry cloak fell open the yellow rays ofthe sergeant's lantern gleamed faintly on a British uniform. Presently,as he advanced into the quadrangle, he disclosed the aquiline featuresof Colquhoun Grant.
"Good-evening, General. Good-evening, Tremayne," he greeted one and theother. Then his eyes fell upon the body lying between them. "Samoval,eh? So I am not mistaken in seeking him here. I have had him under veryclose observation during the past day or two, and when one of my menbrought me word tonight that he had left his place at Bispo on foot andalone, going along the upper Alcantara road, If had a notion that hemight be coming to Monsanto and I followed. But I hardly expected tofind this. How has it happened?"
"That is what I was just asking Tremayne," replied Sir Terence. "Mullinsdiscovered him here quite by chance with the body."
"Oh!" said Grant, and turned to the captain. "Was it you then--"
"I?" interrupted Tremayne with sudden violence. He seemed now to becomeaware for the first time of the gravity of his position. "Certainly not,Colonel Grant. I heard a cry, and I came out to see what it was. I foundSamoval here, already dead."
"I see," said Grant. "You were with Sir Terence, then, when this--"
"Nay," Sir Terence interrupted. "I have been alone since dinner,clearing up some arrears of work. I was in my study there when Mullinscalled me to tell me what he had discovered. It looks as if there hadbeen a duel. Look at these swords." Then he turned to his secretary. "Ithink, Captain Tremayne," he said gravely, "that you had better reportyourself under arrest to your colonel."
Tremayne stiffened suddenly. "Report myself under arrest?" he cried. "MyGod, Sir Terence, you don't believe that I--"
Sir Terence interrupted him. The voice in which he spoke was stern,almost sad; but his eyes gleamed with fiendish mockery the while. Itwas Polichinelle that spoke--Polichinelle that mocks what time heslays. "What were you doing here?" he asked, and it was like moving thecheckmating piece.
Tremayne stood stricken and silent. He cast a desperate upward glanceat the balcony overhead. The answer was so easy, but it would entaildelivering Richard Butler to his death. Colonel Grant, following hisupward glance, beheld Lady O'Moy for the first time. He bowed, swept offhis cocked hat, and "Perhaps her ladyship," he suggested to Sir Terence,"may have seen something."
"I have already asked her," replied O'Moy.
And then she herself was feverishly assuring Colonel Grant that she hadseen nothing at all, that she had heard a cry and had come out on to thebalcony to see what was happening.
"And was Captain Tremayne here when you came out?" asked O'Moy, thedeadly jester.
"Ye-es," she faltered. "I was only a moment or two before yourself."
"You see?" said Sir Terence heavily to Grant, and Grant, with pursedlips, nodded, his eyes moving from O'Moy to Tremayne.
"But, Sir Terence," cried Tremayne, "I give you my word--I swear toyou--that I know absolutely nothing of how Samoval met his death."
"What were you doing here?" O'Moy asked again, and this time thesinister, menacing note of derision vibrated clearly in the question.
Tremayne for the first time in his honest, upright life found himselfdeliberately choosing between truth and falsehood. The truth wouldclear him--since with that truth he would produce witnesses to it,establishing his movements completely. But the truth would send a manto his death; and so for the sake of that man's life he was driven intofalsehood.
"I was on my way to see you," he said.
"At midnight?" cried Sir Terence on a note of grim doubt. "To whatpurpose?"
"Really, Sir Terence, if my word is not sufficient, I refuse to submitto cross-examination."
Sir Terence turned to the sergeant of the guard, "How long is it sinceCaptain Tremayne arrived?" he asked.
The sergeant stood to attention. "Captain Tremayne, sir, arrived rathermore than half-an-hour ago. He came in a curricle, which is stillwaiting at the gates."
"Half-an-hour ago, eh?" said Sir Terence, and from Colquhoun Grantthere was a sharp and audible intake of breath, expressive either ofunderstanding, or surprise, or both. The adjutant looked at Tremayneagain. "As my questions seem only to entangle you further," he said,"I think you had better do as I suggest without more protests: reportyourself under arrest to Colonel Fletcher in the morning, sir."
Still Tremayne hesitated for a moment. Then drawing himself up, hesaluted curtly. "Very well, sir," he replied.
"But, Terence--" cried her ladyship from above.
"Ah?" said Sir Terence, and he looked up. "You would say--?" heencouraged her, for she had broken off abruptly, checked again--althoughnone below could guess it--by the one behind who prompted her.
"Couldn't you--couldn't you wait?" she was faltering, compelled to it byhis question.
"Certainly. But for what?" quoth he, grimly sardonic.
"Wait until you have some explanation," she concluded lamely.
"That will be the business of the court-martial," he answered. "My dutyis quite clear and simple; I think. You needn't wait, Captain Tremayne."
And so, without another word, Tremayne turned and departed. Thesoldiers, in compliance with the short command issued by Sir Terence,took up the body and bore it away to a room in the official quarters;and in their wake went Colonel Grant, after taking his leave of SirTerence. Her ladyship vanished from the balcony and closed her windows,and finally Sir Terence, followed by Mullins, slowly, with bowed headand dragging steps, reentered the house. In the quadrangle, floodednow by the cold, white light of t
he moon, all was peace once more. SirTerence turned into his study, sank into the chair by his desk and satthere awhile staring into vacancy, a diabolical smile upon his handsome,mobile mouth. Gradually the smile faded and horror overspread his face.Finally he flung himself forward and buried his head in his arms.
There were steps in the hall outside, a quick mutter of voices, and thenthe door of his study was flung open, and Miss Armytage came sharply torouse him.
"Terence! What has happened to Captain Tremayne?"
He sat up stiffly, as she sped across the room to him. She was wrappedin a blue quilted bed-gown, her dark hair hung in two heavy plaits, andher bare feet had been hastily thrust into slippers.
Sir Terence looked at her with eyes that were dull and heavy and thatyet seemed to search her white, startled face.
She set a hand on his shoulder, and looked down into his ravaged,haggard countenance. He seemed suddenly to have been stricken into anold man.
"Mullins has just told me that Captain Tremayne has been ordered underarrest for--for killing Count Samoval. Is it true? Is it true?" shedemanded wildly.
"It is true," he answered her, and there was a heavy, sneering curl onhis upper lip.
"But--" She stopped, and put a hand to her throat; she looked as if shewould stifle. She sank to her knees beside him, and caught his hand inboth her own that were trembling. "Oh, you can't believe it! CaptainTremayne is not the man to do a murder."
"The evidence points to a duel," he answered dully.
"A duel!" She looked at him, and then, remembering what had passedthat morning between Tremayne and Samoval, remembering, too, LordWellington's edict, "Oh, God!" she gasped. "Why did you let them takehim?"
"They didn't take him. I ordered him under arrest. He will reporthimself to Colonel Fletcher in the morning."
"You ordered him? You! You, his friend!" Anger, scorn, reproach andsorrow all blending in her voice bore him a clear message.
He looked down at her most closely, and gradually compassion crept intohis face. He set his hands on her shoulders, she suffering it passively,insensibly.
"You care for him, Sylvia?" he said, between inquiry and wonder."Well, well! We are both fools together, child. The man is a dastard,a blackguard, a Judas, to be repaid with betrayal for betrayal. Forgethim, girl. Believe me, he isn't worth a thought."
"Terence!" She looked in her turn into that distorted face. "Are youmad?" she asked him.
"Very nearly," he answered, with a laugh that was horrible to hear.
She drew back and away from him, bewildered and horrified. Slowlyshe rose to her feet. She controlled with difficulty the deep emotionswaying her. "Tell me," she said slowly, speaking with obvious effort,"what will they do to Captain Tremayne?"
"What will they do to him?" He looked at her. He was smiling. "They willshoot him, of course."
"And you wish it!" she denounced him in a whisper of horror.
"Above all things," he answered. "A more poetic justice never overtook ablackguard."
"Why do you call him that? What do you mean?"
"I will tell you--afterwards, after they have shot him; unless the truthcomes out before."
"What truth do you mean? The truth of how Samoval came by his death?"
"Oh, no. That matter is quite clear, the evidence complete. I mean--oh,I will tell you afterwards what I mean. It may help you to bear yourtrouble, thankfully."
She approached him again. "Won't you tell me now?" she begged him.
"No," he answered, rising, and speaking with finality. "Afterwards ifnecessary, afterwards. And now get back to bed, child, and forget thefellow. I swear to you that he isn't worth a thought. Later I shall hopeto prove it to you."
"That you never will," she told him fiercely.
He laughed, and again his laugh was harsh and terrible in its bittermockery. "Yet another trusting fool," he cried. "The world is full ofthem--it is made up of them, with just a sprinkling of knaves to battenon their folly. Go to bed, Sylvia, and pray for understanding of men. Itis a possession beyond riches."
"I think you are more in need of it than I am," she told him, standingby the door.
"Of course you do. You trust, which is why you are a fool. Trust," hesaid, speaking the very language of Polichinelle, "is the livery offools."
She went without answering him and toiled upstairs with dragging feet.She paused a moment in the corridor above, outside Una's door. She wasin such need of communion with some one that for a moment she thought ofgoing in. But she knew beforehand the greeting that would await her;the empty platitudes, the obvious small change of verbiage which herladyship would dole out. The very thought of it restrained her, and soshe passed on to her own room and a sleepless night in which to piecetogether the puzzle which the situation offered her, the amazing enigmaof Sir Terence's seeming access of insanity.
And the only conclusion that she reached was that intertwined with thedeath of Samoval there was some other circumstance which had aroused inthe adjutant an unreasoning hatred of his friend, converting him intoTremayne's bitterest enemy, intent--as he had confessed--upon seeing himshot for that night's work. And because she knew them both for men ofhonour above all, the enigma was immeasurably deepened.
Had she but obeyed the transient impulse to seek Lady O'Moy she mighthave discovered all the truth at once. For she would have come upon herladyship in a frame of mind almost as distraught as her own; and shemight--had she penetrated to the dressing-room where her ladyshipwas--have come upon Richard Butler at the same time.
Now, in view of what had happened, her ladyship, ever impulsive, wasall for going there and then to her husband to confess the whole truth,without pausing to reflect upon the consequences to others than NedTremayne. As you know, it was beyond her to see a thing from two pointsof view at one and the same time. It was also beyond her brother--thefailing, as I think I have told you, was a family one--and her brothersaw this matter only from the point of view of his own safety.
"A single word to Terence," he had told her, putting his back to thedoor of the dressing-room to bar her intended egress, "and you realisethat it will be a court-martial and a firing party for me."
That warning effectively checked her. Yet certain stirrings ofconscience made her think of the man who had imperilled himself for hersake and her brother's.
"But, Dick, what is to become of Ned?" she had asked him.
"Oh, Ned will be all right. What is the evidence against him after all?Men are not shot for things they haven't done. Justice will out, youknow. Leave Ned to shift for himself for the present. Anyhow his dangerisn't grave, nor is it immediate, and mine is."
Helplessly distraught, she sank to an ottoman. The night had been a verytrying one for her ladyship. She gave way to tears.
"It is all your fault, Dick," she reproached him.
"Naturally you would blame me," he said with resignation--the completemartyr.
"If only you had been ready at the time, as he told you to be, therewould have been no delays, and you would have got away before any ofthis happened."
"Was it my fault that I should have reopened my wound--bad luck toit!--in attempting to get down that damned ladder?" he asked her. "Is itmy fault that I am neither an ape nor an acrobat? Tremayne should havecome up at once to assist me, instead of waiting until he had to come upto help me bandage my leg again. Then time would not have been lost, andvery likely my life with it." He came to a gloomy conclusion.
"Your life? What do you mean, Dick?"
"Just that. What are my chances of getting away now?" he asked her. "Wasthere ever such infernal luck as mine? The Telemachus will sail withoutme, and the only man who could and would have helped me to get out ofthis damned country is under arrest. It's clear I shall have to shiftfor myself again, and I can't even do that for a day or two with my legin this state. I shall have to go back into that stuffy store-cupboardof yours till God knows when." He lost all self-control at the prospectand broke into imprecations of his luck.
She attempted to soothe him. But he wasn't easy to soothe.
"And then," he grumbled on, "you have so little sense that you want torun straight off to Terence and explain to him what Tremayne was doinghere. You might at least have the grace to wait until I am off thepremises, and give me the mercy of a start before you set the dogs on mytrail."
"Oh, Dick, Dick, you are so cruel!" she protested. "How can you say suchthings to me, whose only thought is for you, to save you."
"Then don't talk any more about telling Terence," he replied.
"I won't, Dick. I won't." She drew him down beside her on the ottomanand her fingers smoothed his rather tumbled red hair, just as her wordsattempted to smooth the ruffles in his spirit. "You know I didn'trealise, or I should not have thought of it even. I was so concerned forNed for the moment."
"Don't I tell you there's not the need?" he assured her. "Ned will besafe enough, devil a doubt. It's for you to keep to what you toldthem from the balcony; that you heard a cry, went out to see what washappening and saw Tremayne there bending over the body. Not a word more,and not a word less, or it will be all over with me."