Book 4. The Counterchase - Night 24. Constantia

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_ BOOK IV. THE COUNTERCHASE
NIGHT THE TWENTY-FOURTH. CONSTANTIA

The drumming in my ears died suddenly out to silence, and then started afresh more violently than ever, and more sharply, for the long pinging of an electric bell shrilled through it. The pinging ceased sharply: the drumming continued; and I looked up to see the mess sergeant standing over me, at attention.

"Telephone call for you, sir."

I went to the instrument like a man in a dream. Something suddenly gone wrong with Sally's healthy first-born? Jimmy starting for France and ringing me up for farewell? Farrell--damn Farrell!--to talk business? Jephson, with word that he had achieved the urgent desire of his heart and been passed as a gunner, to join me, _quo fas et gloria ducunt_? These four only, to my knowledge, had my probable address.

"Hallo?" I called.

"Hallo!" came the answer sharp and prompt, in a woman's voice which I recognised at once for Constantia's. "Is that you, Roddy?"

"Yes--Roddy, all right," I spoke back, mastering my voice.

"Have you seen--?" Her voice trailed off.

"D'you mean the announcement? Yes, two minutes ago. Is it congratulations you're ringing up in this hurry?"

"Roddy, dear, don't be a beast!" the voice implored. "I'm in a horrible hole, and I think only you can help me. Is it possible for you to get leave, and come? Mamma asks me to say that there's a room here, and--and we want you!"

"As it happens," returned I, "there'll be no trouble about getting leave. We're to start--report says--at the end of the week, and I must be sent up to collect a few service odds-and-ends. As for sleeping, I'll ring up Jephson, and if he's already conscripted, I can doss at the Club. All that is easy. But tell me, what is the matter?"

"Oh! I can't here." Constantia's voice thrilled on the wire. "It's pretty awful. I never gave him leave--_never_!"

"You're getting pretty incoherent," said I. "We'll have it out when we meet. Dinner? . . . No, I shall pick up a meal on the train. . . . Mustn't expect me before 8.30; I have to put a draft through and see them off. Odd jobs, besides. . . . These are strenuous times."

"Roddy, you're an angel!"

"Not a bit," said I; "and I warn you not to expect me in that capacity. You'll observe that I haven't congratulated you yet." I put this in rather savagely.

"You're also rather a brute," answered the voice. "But you'll come?"

"Please God," said I.

"Thank God!" answered she; and I hung up the receiver.

Well, in my jubilation I had forgotten to ask for leave to run up and get kit. But leave was no sooner asked for than given. From Victoria that evening I taxi'd straight to Jermyn Street, where I found Jephson, warned by telegram, elate at the prospect of soldiering. I was able, after a talk with my Colonel, to inform him that he had also a prospect of coming along as my servant, and this lifted him to the seventh heaven. Then I went out, picked up a dinner at Arthur's, and walked on to Upper Brook Street.

In those days London had not started to shroud its lamps. One stood a few paces short of the porch of Number 105; and as I turned into Brook Street I saw a man come hastily down the steps, and enter a taxi anchored there. The butler followed and closed the door upon him. The night had begun to drizzle, and there was a sough of sou'westerly wind in the air. I turned up the collar of my service overcoat and, as the taxi passed, walked pretty briskly forward and intercepted Mrs. Denistoun's butler, who, after a stare at the retreating vehicle, had reascended the steps and was about to close the door. Recognising me by the light of the porch lamp, he opened the door wide, and full upon the figure of Constantia, standing in the hallway. She gave a little gasp and came to me, holding out her hand.

"You were always as good as your word, Roddy. Come into the library. Where are you sleeping, by the way?"

"In my flat," said I. "Jephson will not be called up for a day or two. He has a fire lit, and will sit up for me."

"He may have to sit up late," replied Constantia. "Mamma will be down presently. . . . There has been something of a scene, and she is upset. You saw Mr. Farrell go away, just now? You must have passed him, almost at the door."

"I did," said I, "though I don't know if he recognised me. Child, what is the matter?"

"Child?" echoed Constantia. "It does me good to be called that, for that's exactly how I am feeling. . . . He had no right--no right--" and there she broke off.

"Do you mean," said I, "that he put that announcement in the _Times_ having no _right_ to do it?"

"I dare say," moaned Constantia, waving her arms feebly, pathetically, "he understood more than I meant him to."

"Let us be practical, please," said I, becoming extremely stern. "Have you, or have you not, engaged yourself to marry Farrell?"

"Certainly I have not," she answered with vivacity. "He asked me, and I--well, I played for time."

I couldn't repress a small groan at this: or, rather, it was half a groan and half a sigh of relief. "Has he spoken to your mother?"

"No."

"Does your mother know about it?"

"Yes. I told her."

"Does she approve of this announcement in the papers? Has she sanctioned it?"

"Of course she does not--of course she has not. . . . Roddy, sit down and don't ask so many questions all of a heap. Sit down and light your pipe, and pass me a cigarette. Furnilove will bring in some whisky for you by and by."

"Thank you, Constantia; but I don't feel like staying. I've always maintained--oh, damnation!" I broke off.

"What have you always maintained, Roddy? Sit down and tell it. Are you not here because I sent for you? And didn't I send for you because I am in trouble? We are in a tangle, I tell you, and I'm asking you, on my knees, to untwist it. So light your pipe and, before we begin, tell me--What is it you have always maintained?"

"I have always maintained," I answered slowly, even more stern than before, "that no woman can be safely trusted to know a cad from a gentleman. If the cad can flourish a trifle of worldly success in front of her, or if he's a mere adventurer and flashes himself on her boldly enough, _or_, if she has persuaded herself to pity him, she's just fascinated, and you can't trust her judgment ten yards. There! . . . I've burnt my boats."

Constantia sat for some while pondering this, breathing out the smoke of her cigarette, gazing into the fire under the shade of a handscreen.

"I'll tell you another thing, Roddy," she said at length; "and it's as true and truer. No woman thinks worse of a man for burning his boats. . . . But it isn't quite worldly success to be wrecked and left desolate on an island three hundred miles from anywhere. It all started (as you hinted) with my pitying him and admiring his strength of will after the awful experience he had tholed."

"He left you just now? I saw him drive away, and his infernal dog with him."

"Yes: there had been a pretty bad scene. I was furious, and Mamma was so much upset that I doubt if she'll be fit to talk to-night. But it's a blessed relief to her, now that she knows you are anchored here for a while, to protect us, and that, at the worst, we can ring up Jermyn Street."

"Why," I exclaimed, "what the devil is there to protect you from?"

"Jack--Mr. Foe, that is--has been watching this house for days. He haunts the pavement opposite, all the hours he is off duty. Mamma is sure that he means evil, and I wish I was sure that he didn't. He has gone under, Roddy. It is awful to look out, as Furnilove draws the blinds, and see that figure there stationed, reproaching us--yet for what harm that we have done him? He is even ragged. . . . I should not be surprised to hear he was starving. Yet what can we do?"

"Tell me his address," said I.

She hesitated. "Why should you suppose that I know his address?" she asked, shading her face.

But I took her up bluntly. "I am sorry," I said, "to be discharging apophthegms upon you to-night: but you must hear just one other. Every woman follows and traces a man who has once laid his heart on her altar. I am sorry, Con, to call up an instance from so far back in the past: but you knew where to 'phone even for me, this morning. . . . So own up, child, and tell me, where is Foe?"

"I believe," she answered after a while, the handscreen hiding her face, "he has found work in one of these emergency hospitals they are putting up. . . . It's at a place called Casterville Gardens, down by Gravesend. When first he started watching this house, he was in rags; but for the last fortnight he has worn khaki, and it improves his appearance wonderfully. . . . Besides, when a man is in the army, you have the comfort to know that, at least, he isn't starving."

"Was it so bad as that?" I asked. "Well, and now about Farrell?"

"Ah!" said she, "when you saw him get into that taxi, I had dismissed him. He was going--or said he was going--straight to Printing House Square to get that abominable paragraph contradicted. I told him that he was to return to-night and bring me his assurance that it was contradicted--either that, or never to enter this house again. . . . And now, Roddy, as he may be late--as I would only be content with his seeing the Editor in person--and as editors, I understand, come down late to their work--suppose you mix yourself a whisky-and-soda: for here is Furnilove with the glasses. . . . Furnilove! keep the latch up for an hour or so, and the door on the chain. Mr. Farrell may be calling late with a particular message. Do not admit him beyond the hall, but come and report to me here. Sir Roderick will receive him in the hall and take the message."

"Yes, miss," said the obedient Furnilove.

"That is all." Constantia pondered.--"Except that you may tell the housemaid not to worry about the room for Sir Roderick. He will not sleep here, after all. And you may send Henriette up with word to Mamma that all is right and Sir Roderick stays only to receive Mr. Farrell's message. He will probably be going at once on receipt of it, and then you can lock up. The others can go to bed when they choose."

"Very good, miss," said Furnilove, and withdrew.

"And now," said Constantia, "since he is late, keep me amused. Tell me all about the island."

So I told her this and that of my voyaging; and the time drew on until the clock on the mantelpiece chimed a half-hour. It was one-thirty.

"The dickens!" said I, pulling out my own watch and consulting it. "Farrell is a long time at Printing House Square. In my belief, Con, he won't be returning."

Just at that moment the front door bell pealed loudly.

We stood up together. We heard Furnilove padding towards the door, and we both moved out into the passage as he slid up the latch and unhooked the chain. Constantia, in her eagerness, had pressed a little ahead of me.

A man rushed in, disregarding Furnilove, shouldering him aside--a man in a furred overcoat. Expecting Farrell, for the moment I mistook him for Farrell. Even when above the fur collar I caught the sight of common khaki, for another moment I took him for Farrell. But he ran for Constantia, stretching out his arms as if to embrace her; and as he stretched them, under the hall light, I saw that one of his hands was bleeding.

I had enough presence of mind to spring in front of her and ward him off. It was Foe.

"It's all right," he gasped, staring at me. "No need to make a fuss. . . . I have killed him." And with that, still staring at me horribly, he sank slowly and collapsed in a huddle at my feet, raving out incoherent words.

Furnilove behaved admirably. Having assured himself that Miss Constantia was safe, and that I had the intruder under control, he went smartly to the telephone. . . . Amid Foe's ravings I heard him ringing up the exchange and, after a pause, summoning the doctor.

"We had better have the spare room prepared again, after all," said Constantia. "We can't turn him out, in this state. . . . And there's a dressing-room, Roddy, next door, if you can put up with it. . . . But what has happened, God knows."

"God knows," said I. "But he's a lunatic, unless I'm mistaken. We'll hear what the doctor says. . . . But he shan't sleep here, to trouble you. . . . Furnilove, whistle up and have a taxi ready. . . ."

"Oh, what is he saying?" moaned Constantia as the body on the floor still twisted as if burrowing to hide itself, now muttering and again shouting in a voice that reverberated along the passage, "Kill him! Damn that dog!--kill him!"

I knelt on the body and held it still. It was the body of my best friend, and I knelt on it, almost throttling him.

"One can't ring up a lunatic asylum, at this hour of the morning," I found myself gasping. "He's for my flat, to-night, if your doctor will take charge of him with me." And with that I looked up and caught sight of Constantia's mother at the head of the staircase.

"It's all right, Mrs. Denistoun," said I, glancing up. "It's my friend, Jack Foe--my friend that was. With the doctor's leave I'll get him back presently to Jermyn Street, where Jephson and I will look after him for the night. . . . Jephson used to worship him, and will wait on him as a slave."

And with that--as it seemed amid the blasts of Furnilove's whistle in the porchway and the _toot-toot_ of a taxi, answering it--a quiet man stood above my shoulder. It was the doctor: and Furnilove had been so explicit on the 'phone that the doctor--whose name I learnt afterwards to be Tredgold--almost by magic whipped out a small bottle from his pocket.

"Water," said he, after a look at the patient, "and a tumbler, quick!"

Furnilove dashed into the library and returned with both.

"Bromide," said Dr. Tredgold. "Let him take it down and then hold his head steady for a few minutes. . . . Right! . . . Now the question is, where to bestow him? I can't answer for him when the dose wears off: but it's no case to leave with two ladies."

"There's a taxi, doctor," said I, "if we can get him into it. I have a flat in Jermyn Street, and a trustworthy manservant. I suggest that he'll do there for the night."

"Right," said Dr. Tredgold again; "and the sooner the better. I'll come with you, when I've bound up this wound on his hand. It's a nasty one. . . . It looks to me--Yes, and it is, too!"

"What is it?" I asked.

"A dog-bite."

"So _that_ was what he killed!" thought I, and aloud I said, "Thank God!"

"Eh?" said the doctor. "A dog-bite's a queer thing to thank God for."

"It might have been worse," I answered.

"H'm: well it's bad enough," Dr. Tredgold replied, busy with his bandaging. _

Read next: Book 4. The Counterchase: Night 25. The Paying Of The Score

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