Devil's Tor (28 page)

"The appeal is not to nature, but to honour," Saltfleet answered her, bending forward in his seat. "I can't understand, moreover, why Drapier should want to possess it. In any case, we could not allow it, or listen to any proposals towards it."

"Since, however, we have gone so far, I would like to hear what your attitude—and Mr. Arsinal's—would be to, let me say, an offer on his part."

"I believe it will be best to assume only friendly relations for the present. I repeat, it is an affair of honour; and your cousin impressed me immediately as being a man of honour."

Helga felt herself to be painfully feeble and daunted in the face of his rising indignation. In her daze, she fell back upon meannesses of logic which were the last she could ever have wished to use.

"You keep insisting on the word
honour,
Mr. Saltfleet; but is it really legitimate in any discussion of the case?"

"You mean, we stole the thing first, and therefore have no status. But that action concerns
our
consciences only. Drapier's obligation is to us."

"His previous consent was neither sought nor given."

"The question of honour would not touch his consent."

"Surely it must! ... Imagine a pickpocket rushing by you in the street, followed by a hot pursuit, and slipping a gold watch into your hand. …"

"I should pass it to the first policeman; but that Drapier hasn't done. Nor are we pickpockets. When we shear a sheep, we don't call the confiscation of wool a robbery; and with no greater accuracy can you style it that, when a high-minded English scientist of international standing takes for his own service a financially-valueless object from a dying heathen temple in an unpopulated land, where for long years it has been lodged absolutely neglected. Drapier himself, I am convinced, would be the last man on earth to entertain any pettifogging scruples about it. He is familiar with the monks of Tibet, and he has met Arsinal. He knew what
we
were going after, and manifested no righteous horror at all. Permit me to say, Mrs. Fleming, that I can’t in the least grasp what you are driving at with these contentions. If they are to excuse your cousin's repudiation of his plain duty, I would rather have it out with the man himself."

"I think you must. But will you let me apologise for that last illustration? It was discourteous, and I shouldn't have used it. …"

"It was unapt," said Saltfleet indifferently.

He returned immediately to the practical arrangement.

"Then with regard to meeting Drapier, I believe—in view of this new turn you have considerably more than hinted at, which I confess I don't at all comprehend ... I believe it will be advisable not to rely on his caring to give me a look-up at the inn; I had better call here again later. I assume it hasn't arrived at the pitch of his wishing to avoid me? So will you suggest a time, and notify him as soon as he gets back?"

"He would certainly be in this evening. … You might like to take dinner with us, and talk to him after?" She smiled anxiously, consulting his face with a rapid glance. "If you are to be marooned in the village for any length of time, waiting for him, the 'Bell' is rather a dreary place, and you may be glad of a little diversion."

"It’s extremely kind. I trust to get him much earlier than that, however; and, if possible, to be away this afternoon."

Helga was sure that it was as he said, not that he was despising her hospitality, and so she felt that she could press the invitation without loss of dignity. She must press it. Something was telling her that should these two meet by themselves during the day, Hugh would come to serious grief. She had to catch him directly he returned to the house, and use all her persuasions to induce him to give up this thing he had no right to want to keep. If he consented to, the trouble would be at an end. If he refused, or remained undecided, she must anyway get him to stop at home for the rest of the day. If Saltfleet ran up against him anywhere out-of-doors, as was otherwise extremely likely, there would be an infinitely worse scene between them; in fact it would be as bad as possible. Until it was all somehow arranged, she could not trust them alone together. …
Arranged
!—How could it be arranged, except by Hugh's unconditional surrender? But what would the other do? Helga already seemed to know that her second will, which she was so powerless to command, was intending to provoke Saltfleet, just in order to discover how far his threats would carry him. She was sick with dread for the impulse that was to make her so insanely brazen. …

Postponing the moment—for at least that was within her ability—she said:

"I think I would not be in such a hurry, Mr. Saltfleet. It is disagreeable that you should have to stay on, through no fault of your own; but still, I would like to get this settled amicably. Let me speak to him first. Will it be inconveniencing you terribly to put it off till this evening?"

"No. I am only anxious to know where I stand. You are to urge him to fulfil his obligation?"

"Yes, I want him to."

"Haven't you done so already?—since, evidently, you must have discussed it with him."

"I was rather taken by surprise, and it seemed not particularly pressing; but now that it
is
pressing, I shall certainly strengthen my arguments."

"You should. … But yet there is one point I fail to understand. You have only just now been finding all sorts of reasons for his
not
restoring our property..."

"Those reasons did not represent my opinion," she replied, with a true simplicity, that succeeded in convincing him. He judged, accordingly, that they had merely been testings to elicit from him the degree of emphasis of their claim.

So thoughtfully, after another moment, he said, "Very well, since I wish to get this affair fixed in any way that is the best, if we don't meet first I will leave it as you propose."

"You will dine with us?"

"Thank you."

"At seven—just as you are. We shall only be a small family party."

He half-bowed, from his seat.

Helga smiled uneasily. "Apart from this bother, you and Hugh Drapier must have many gaps to fill in. Did your fight develop into a serious affair?"

"No, it was never more than a feint, to keep the beggars employed until the spoil should be well on its way to Drapier. Afterwards Arsinal would not hear of the real thing, so we let ourselves be taken, stripped and searched; and before the brutes dismissed us again, they took care to secure the full sentimental value of their fetish, expressed in the terms of nine-tenths of our goods and ponies."

"Then how did you contrive to get back so soon?"

Saltfleet laughed.

"We adopted Napoleon's method, after Moscow. Arsinal and I came on ahead light, leaving the caravan to crawl home how it could. But as the men were to receive triple pay at Srinagar, they could not complain."

"You personally would perhaps have preferred to cut a way through?"

"I am not a very patient man."

"No, that I am sure you are not!" thought Helga.

Now he was immediately to go, and if she was to make trial of his true temper and ascertain how they proposed to manage in the event of a rebuff, it must be at once. …

"This Curio, Mr. Saltfleet"—she discovered the words issuing from her mouth, seemingly almost without breath—"I can't help noticing that you have been very careful to say nothing about itself. Has it a quality, or why does your friend set such an extreme value on it?"

"To answer you, I fear I could only repeat what he has passed to me in strict confidence."

"I am persuaded it has a quality, then. And, unfortunately my cousin Hugh is just the person to have stumbled upon it, and be affected. You were quite right to describe him as being essentially a man of honour. In all normal circumstances, he would make large personal sacrifices before he would consent to fail in his duties. But he is Celtic and psychic, as well."

"That is interesting, but hardly has to do with us."

"I am going to be candid. Your stone, I happen to know, is appealing to him in the most extraordinary fashion. Is there any chance at all of his being permitted to keep it, for a consideration, of course?"

"It is absolutely out of discussion. Do you mean a money consideration?"

"I cannot suggest what else," answered Helga.

"The offer is yours—not his?"

"The inquiry is mine."

"Then, in you, Mrs. Fleming, it may be excusable, as I conceive you are only anxious to serve him and to get this matter put out of the way. But I think I should make it plain to you, before we go further, that here it is not a case of comparing one man's interest in a certain thing with another man's. Arsinal is the stone's rightful proprietor in a sense that your cousin could never attain to were he to live with it for another fifty years. Arsinal has taken vast pains over a very extended period to track the thing down to the native religious house where finally we unearthed it—pains of a heartbreaking study of ancient Hellenic and Eastern records, scattered over three continents; and pains of practical detective work, rendered possible by his acquaintance with half a score of specialised sciences, and twice as many peoples and tongues. So, to undeceive you at once regarding Drapier's prospects of being permitted to retain what already he has retained too long, even for an absurdly large cheque in return—they are utterly
nil;
and, as I said before, we could not tolerate so much as a broaching of the matter."

"I am sorry."

"It is not an affair of money. It is the crowning of an Idea, to which Arsinal has devoted all his life. The single excuse your cousin can possibly furnish for his delay in surrendering what is not his, is that he may be failing fully to appreciate the urgency of the expedition he found us on. Yet—not to drag in myself, being a man generally on some hazardous trip or other—he must surely have realised that a person obviously so physically frail as my associate does not go out of his way to penetrate almost the most difficult country of all Asia, for the sake of acquiring an object which afterwards he is to be willing to throw away for a few guineas, or a few hundreds of guineas. So now, on Drapier's behalf, to offer us money—
money
—forgive me if I discard courtesy in declaring the proposition to be something very like
impudence
!...
If he were called home so unexpectedly, he should have left the thing in India under seal for us. But to run off in the way he did, leaving no message and no address, and on the top of it to request to be allowed to retain it for his own insignificant enjoyment..."

"Mr. Saltfleet!—stop, please!.

A sort of low bellowing note had changed his voice, producing in her the strangest agitation, of sympathetic emotion, and æsthetic pleasure, and shock, and fear. It was nearly reminiscent of the first hollow opening of the full roar of a lion, and her intelligent feeling was that she must stop him in time. She apprehended she knew not what savage explosion of unrestrained ire. … So Hugh was right, and it might well be Sulla or another fearful ancient dictator and imperator thus confronting her with eyes of distended menace. He had risen.

Retaining with a conscious effort her own seat, she gave him a long, calm and friendly look, and he said no more. When, after a pause, she begged him to resume his place, he did that too. …

This anger, besides, was a virtue in him, since it was for a friend. … She suddenly and without a reason remembered her daughter; then, having remembered her, was glad that she was not here, to be subjected to her own womanly reactions. … That was absurdity; but she ought, for Hugh's sake, to dismiss the man quickly. He might come back at any moment—they might encounter here or in the lane, before anything had been prepared. …

But still she had to hear his extreme threats; and surely he could state them without a repetition of that beginning outburst. She must know them, so that Hugh might know them too.

She must also know them for her own reassurance.

Persons of Saltfleet’s social class or Arsinal's professional standing could not conceivably dream of imitating the methods of American underworld criminals; but neither had they any recourse in law. …

In this way her singular secret will, that was independent of her upper sense, was captured by her everlasting desire for mental security. She would consent in mind to no action of hers that she could not understand, and so must invent these motives for her own predetermined conduct. Another eye in her saw that Hugh's persuasion or her reassurance was of the smallest moment in the case, and that it was for a different invisible result that she was, on her own seeking, to be put in fear by a most fearful man. …

"There is no need," she said, "to use such a very big club to destroy an inquiry so simple and humble as mine! You won't hear of it; and that is enough. But if I am to speak to Hugh, I ought to be informed. I hope he will be reasonable. If, unhappily, he is not, however ...?"

"Having entertained no suspicion of the facts, naturally, we have not considered the contingency."

"Please consider it now. I am not raising new objections, but, for instance, it seems quite clear that you could not prosecute your claim through the Courts."

"Should there be trouble, Arsinal must be fetched down. … Nevertheless, Mrs. Fleming, I would point out that this talk is very much in the dark. You are hinting, and hinting, and will tell me nothing definite of what Drapier has said to you; yet either you should make the plain statement, or else you should leave it alone. It is rather too much to expect, that we should present an ultimatum upon the mere vague insinuation. I can only say at once that we shall on no account allow your cousin to keep a thing which Arsinal regards as so infinitely important. …"

He stopped abruptly, to glance round. The door-handle had been turned from outside in the quick, casual way of a person entering a room supposed to be unoccupied, and now the door itself was in the moment of being swung open. As well as he, Helga, without needing to turn her head, beheld the apparition of her daughter arrested on the threshold; tall, pale, grave, striking and beautiful, in a dark dress. But then, at the spectacle of her mother and a strange man talking together privately, the girl would have retired again quietly from the room. …