CHAPTER XXIII
SOLVING THE PROBLEM
Dinner was finished at Sandymere, Miss Challoner had gone out, and, inaccordance with ancient custom, the cloth had been removed from thegreat mahogany table. Its glistening surface was broken only by adecanter, two choice wine-glasses, and a tall silver candlestick.Lighting a cigar, Blake looked about while he braced himself for theordeal that must be faced.
He knew the big room well, but its air of solemnity, with which theheavy Georgian furniture was in keeping, impressed him. The ceilinghad been decorated by a French artist of the eighteenth century, andthe faded delicacy of the design, bearing as it did the stamp of itsperiod, helped to give the place a look of age. Challoner could tracehis descent much farther than his house and furniture suggested, butthe family had first come to the front in the East India Company'swars, and while maintaining its position afterward had escaped themodernizing influence of the country's awakening in the early Victoriandays.
It seemed to Blake, fresh from the new and democratic West, that hisuncle, shrewd and well-informed man as he was, was very much of thetype of Wellington's officers. For all that he pitied him. Challonerlooked old and worn, and round his eyes there were wrinkles that hintedat anxious thought. His life was lonely; his unmarried sister, whospent much of her time in visits, was the only relative who shared hishome. Now that age was limiting his activities and interests, he hadone great source of gratification: the career of the soldier son whowas worthily following in his steps. His nephew determined that thisshould be saved for him, as he remembered the benefits he had receivedat the Colonel's hands.
"Dick," Challoner said earnestly, "I'm very glad to see you home. Ishould like to think you have come to stay."
"Thank you, sir. I'll stay as long as you need me.
"I feel that I need you altogether. It's now doubtful whether Bertramwill leave India, after all. His regiment has been ordered into thehills, where there's serious trouble brewing, and he has askedpermission to remain. Even if he comes home, he will have many duties,and I have nobody left."
Blake did not answer immediately, and his uncle studied him. Dick hadgrown thin, but he looked very strong, and the evening dress set offhis fine, muscular figure. His face was still somewhat pinched, butits deep bronze and the steadiness of his eyes and the firmness of hislips gave him a very soldierly look and a certain air of distinction.There was no doubt that he was true to the Challoner type.
"I must go back sooner or later," Blake said slowly; "there is anengagement I am bound to keep. Besides, your pressing me to stayraises a question. The last time we met you acquiesced in my decisionthat I had better keep out of the country, and I see no reason forchanging it."
"The question must certainly be raised; that is why I sent for you.You can understand my anxiety to learn what truth there is in the storyI have heard."
"It might be better if you told me all about it."
"Very well; the task is painful, but it can't be shirked."
Challoner carefully outlined Clarke's theory of what had happenedduring the night attack, and Blake listened quietly.
"Of course," Challoner concluded, "the man had an obvious end to serve,and I dare say he was capable of misrepresenting things to suit it.I'll confess that I found the thought comforting; but I want the truth,Dick. I must do what's right."
"Clarke once approached me about the matter, but he will never troubleeither of us again. I helped to bury him up in the wilds."
"Dead!" exclaimed Challoner.
"Frozen. In fact, it was not his fault that we escaped his fate. Heset a trap for us, intending that we should starve."
"But why?"
"His motive was obvious. There was a man with us whose farm and stockwould, in the event of his death, fall into Clarke's hands; and it'sclear that I was a serious obstacle in his way. Can't you see that hecouldn't use his absurd story to bleed you unless I supported it?"
Challoner felt the force of this. He was a shrewd man, but just thenhe was too disturbed to reason closely and he failed to perceive thathis nephew's refusal to confirm the story did not necessarily disproveit. That Clarke had thought it worth while to attempt his life bulkedmost largely in his uncle's eyes.
"He urged me to take some shares in a petroleum syndicate," he said.
"Then, I believe you missed a good thing." Blake seized upon the changeof topic. "The shares would probably have paid you well. He found theoil, and put us on the track of it, though of course he didn't have anywish to do that. We expect to make a good deal out of the discovery."
"It looks like justice," Challoner declared. "But we are getting awayfrom the point. I'd better tell you that after my talk with the man, Ifelt that he might be dangerous and that I must send for you."
"Why didn't you send for Bertram?"
Challoner hesitated.
"When I cabled out instructions to find you, there was no word of hisleaving India; then, you must see how hard it would have been to hintat my suspicions. It would have opened a breach between us that couldnever be closed."
"Yes," said Blake, leaning forward on the table and speaking earnestly,"your reluctance was very natural. I'm afraid of presuming too far,but I can't understand how you could believe this thing of your onlyson."
"It lies between my son and my nephew, Dick." There was emotion in theColonel's voice. "I had a great liking for your father, and I broughtyou up. Then I took a keen pride in you; there were respects in whichI found you truer to our type than Bertram."
"You heaped favors on me," Blake replied. "That I bitterlydisappointed you has been my deepest shame; in fact, it's the one thingthat counts. For the rest, I can't regret the friends who turned theirbacks on me; and poverty never troubled the Blakes."
"But the taint--the stain on your name!"
"I have the advantage of bearing it alone, and, to tell the truth, itdoesn't bother me much. That a man should go straight in the presentis all they ask in Canada, and homeless adventurers with nopossessions--the kind of comrades I've generally met--are charitable.As a rule, it wouldn't become them to be fastidious. Anyway, sir, youmust see the absurdity of believing that Bertram could have failed inhis duty in the way the tale suggests."
"I once felt that strongly; the trouble is that the objection applieswith equal force to you. Do you deny the story this man told me?"
Blake felt that his task was hard. He had to convict himself, and hemust do so logically: Challoner was by no means a fool. As he nervedhimself to the effort he was conscious of a rather grim amusement.
"I think it would be better if I tried to show you how the attack wasmade. Is the old set of Indian chessmen still in the drawer?"
"I believe so. It must be twenty years since they were taken out.It's strange you should remember them."
A stirring of half-painful emotions troubled Blake. He loved the oldhouse and all that it contained and had a deep-seated pride in theChalloner traditions. Now he must make the Colonel believe that he wasa degenerate scion of the honored stock and could have no part in them.
"I have forgotten nothing at Sandymere; but we must stick to thesubject." Crossing the floor he came back with the chessmen, which hecarefully arranged, setting up the white pawns in two separate ranks torepresent bodies of infantry, with the knights and bishops forofficers. The colored pieces he placed in an irregular mass.
"Now," he began, "this represents the disposition of our force prettywell. I was here, at the top of the ravine"--he laid a cigar on thetable to indicate the spot--"Bertram on the ridge yonder. This bunchof red pawns stands for the Ghazee rush."
"It agrees with what I've heard," said Challoner, surveying the roughlymarked scene of battle with critical eyes. "You were weak in numbers,but your position was strong. It could have been held!"
Blake began to move the pieces.
"The Ghazees rolled straight over our first line; my mine, which mighthave checked them, wouldn't go off--a broken c
ircuit in the firingwires, I suppose. We were hustled out of the trenches; it was too darkfor effective rifle fire."
"The trench the second detachment held should have been difficult torush!"
"But," Blake insisted, "you must remember that the beggars wereGhazees; they're hard to stop. Then, our men were worn out and hadbeen sniped every night for the last week or two. However, thebugler's the key to my explanation; I'll put this dab of cigar ash hereto represent him. This bishop's Bertram, and you can judge by thedistance whether the fellow could have heard the order to blow, 'Ceasefire,' through the row that was going on."
He resumed his quick moving of the chessmen, accompanying it by arunning commentary.
"Here's another weak point in the tale, which must be obvious to anyone who has handled troops; these fellows couldn't have gained afooting in this hollow because it was raked by our fire. There was nocover and the range was short. Then, you see the folly of believingthat the section with which the bugler was could have moved along theridge; they couldn't have crossed between the Ghazees and the trench.They'd have been exposed to our own fire in the rear."
He added more to much the same effect, and then swept the chessmen upinto a heap and looked at his companion.
"I think you ought to be convinced," he said.
"It all turns upon the bugler's movements," Challoner contended.
"And he was killed. I've tried to show you that he couldn't have beenwhere Clarke's account had him."
Challoner was silent for a while, and Blake watched him anxiously untilhe looked up.
"I think you have succeeded, Dick, though I feel that with a triflingalteration here and there you could have cleared yourself. Now we'lllet the painful matter drop for good; unless, indeed, some fresh lightis ever thrown on it."
"That can't happen," Blake declared staunchly.
Challoner rose and laid a hand on his arm. "If you were once at fault,you have since shown yourself a man of honor. Though the thing hurt meat the time, I'm glad you are my nephew. Had there been any basenessin you, some suspicion must always have rested on your cousin. Well,we are neither of us sentimentalists, but I must say that you haveamply made amends."
He turned away and Blake went out into the open air to walk up anddown. The face of the old house rose above him, dark against the clearnight sky; in front the great oaks in the park rolled back in shadowymasses. Blake loved Sandymere; he had thought of it often in hiswanderings, and now he was glad that through his action his cousinwould enjoy it without reproach. After all, it was some return to makefor the favors he had received. For himself there remained the charmof the lonely trail and the wide wilderness.
For all that, he had been badly tempted. Poverty and disgrace wereserious obstacles to marriage, and had he been free to do so, he wouldeagerly have sought the hand of Millicent Graham. It was hard to holdhis longing for her in check. However, Harding was confident that theywere going to be rich, and that would remove one of his disadvantages.Thinking about the girl tenderly, he walked up and down the terraceuntil he grew calm, and then he went in to talk to Miss Challoner.