CHAPTER XVIII

WHITEY’S WAY

Amber found the road from Maidstone to Rochester a most pleasant way. There are those who in the early spring might have complained that it erred on the side of monotony, that tiresome winding, climbing and dipping road; although bleak enough with the gaunt Kentish rag rising untidily to a modest eminence on the one hand, and the valley of the Medway showing dimly through a white haze on the other.

Yet Amber found the walk invigorating and desirable, and neither grey skies above, nor the keen gusty wind that drove from the sea seeking one’s very marrow, chilled or depressed him.

“We might have driven out,” said the girl who was with him--her presence explained his oblivion to all else. “I’m so afraid that the weather----”

“Produces complications in the poor African traveller,” said he, and laughed. “Peter gave me a long lecture on the same subject. It appears that a hero of his was subject to brain fever as a result of a sudden change of climate--though that can’t be true, for heroes are not affected by the weather.”

“I like your Peter,” she said, after a pause.

“He’s a rum bird,” confessed Amber.

“Father likes him too,” she went on, and sighed. “Do you think father will ever be well again?”

Amber was a long time framing a reply, so long that she stopped.

“I wish you would tell me,” she said quietly.

“I want to tell you,” he said. “I was trying to put my most private thoughts into words. Yes,” he considered again. “Yes, I believe he will get better.”

“He is not----” She did not finish the sentence.

“No, he is not--mad, as madness is understood. He has an obsession--he is so full of one happening that everything has stood still since then.”

“He has lost his memory--and yet he remembers me and the River of Stars.”

They walked on in silence, both too much engaged in their own thoughts for conversation.

The problem of Sutton the explorer was one which had occupied no small amount of their waking thoughts. The house Cynthia had taken stood back from the road. It had originally been a farm-house, but a succession of leisured tenants had converted it into a comfortable little mansion, and with its four acres of wooded grounds it made an admirable retreat.

Frank Sutton was sitting before a crackling wood fire, a book on his knees. He looked up with a smile as they entered.

His experience had made a man of him--the fact had never struck Amber so forcibly as it did at that moment. His face was tanned and thin, he had lost the boyish roundness of cheek, and lost, too, the air of impatience which had distinguished him when Amber had first met him.

“What news?” he asked.

Amber stretched his hands to the blazing fire.

“To-morrow the Colonial Office will ask Lambaire to locate his mine,” he said. “I fear my Lambaire will experience a difficulty.”

“I think he will,” said the other dryly. “How long will he be given?”

“A week, and if no explanation is made at the end of that time the Colonial Office will issue a statement casting doubt upon Lambaire’s bona fides.”

“An unusual course,” said Sutton.

“An unusual situation, my intrepid explorer,” rejoined Amber.

Sutton grinned.

“Don’t rot me,” he pleaded. “I feel I’m rather a pup.”

Amber looked at him with a kindly eye.

“We all pass through the furniture-gnawing stage,” he said. “Really, I think you’re a rather wonderful kid.”

The boy coloured, for there was a note of sincerity in the other’s voice.

“Where is your father?” Amber asked suddenly.

“In the grounds with your friend; really, it was an inspiration to send our friend--what is his name--Musk?”

“Peter--you must call him Peter,” said Amber. He rose and walked to the French window that opened on to the lawn.

“Peter interests the governor no end,” Sutton went on. “He’s a perfect library of romance.”

“Let us go out and meet them,” said Amber.

They walked towards the little walled garden where the explorer found his recreation, and came upon the two unexpectedly.

Peter with a stick was illustrating a story he was telling, and the bent man with the straggling beard and the seamed face stood by, nodding his head gravely at the other.

“Sir Claude,” Peter was saying, “was holding the bridge here, so to speak, and Sir Reginald was crossin’ the moat there; the men-at-arms was a hurlin’ down stones from the battlements, and Lady Gwendoline, sword in hand, defended the White Tower. At that minute, when the heroic youth was a urgin’ his valiant archers forward, there arose a loud cry, ‘St. George and England!’--you understand me, Mr. Sutton? There was no idea that the King’s army was so close.”

“Perfectly,” said the explorer, “perfectly, Mr.--er--perfectly. I remember a similar experience when we were attacking the Mashangonibis in ’88--I--I think I remember.”

He passed his hand over his eyes wearily.

“Father,” said Frank gently, “here is our friend Captain Grey.”

The explorer turned sharply.

“Captain Grey?” he half queried, and held out his hand.

Some fugitive memory of Amber flickered across his mind.

“Captain Grey; I’m afraid my son shot at you!”

“It is of no account, sir,” said Amber.

The only association the sick man had with Amber was that other dramatic meeting, and though they met almost daily, the elder Sutton had no comment to offer than that.

Day by day, whether he greeted him in the morning at breakfast, or took leave of him at night, the explorer’s distressed, “I am afraid my son shot at you,” was the beginning and the end of all conversation.

They walked slowly back to the house, Amber and Peter bringing up the rear.

“He’s more sensible, Mr. Amber,” said Peter. “He seems to have improved durin’ the last two days.”

“How long has he had the benefit of your society, my Peter?” asked the other.

“Two days,” replied the unconscious Mr. Musk.

Amber had an opportunity of studying the old man as they sat at tea--the meals at White House were of a democratic character.

Old he was not as years went, but the forest had whitened his hair and made deep seams in his face. Amber judged him to be of the same age as Lambaire.

He spoke only when he was addressed. For the greater part of the time he sat with his head sunk on his breast deep in thought, his fingers idly tapping his knee.

On one subject his mind was clear, and that was the subject which none cared to discuss with him--the River of Stars.

In the midst of a general conversation he would begin talking quickly, with none of the hesitation which marked his ordinary speech, and it would be about diamonds.

Amber was giving an account of his visit to London when the old man interrupted him. At first his voice was little above a whisper, but it grew in strength as he proceeded.

“... there were a number of garnets on the ground,” he said softly, as though speaking to himself. “There were also other indications of the existence of a diamond pipe ... the character of the earth is similar to that found in Kimberley and near the Vaal River ... blue ground, indubitable blue ground ... naturally it was surprising to find these indications at a place so far remote from the spot wherein our inquiries had led us to believe the mine would be located.”

They were silent when he paused. By-and-by he went on again.

“The rumours of a mine and such specimens as I had seen led me to suppose that the pipe itself led to the north-westward of the great forest, that it should be at the very threshold of the country rather than at the furthermost border illustrates the uncertainty of exploration ... uncertainty ... uncertainty? that is hardly the word, I think....”

He covered his eyes with his hand.

Though they waited he said no more. It was a usual ending to these narratives of his; some one word had failed him and he would hesitate, seeking feebly the exact sentence to convey a shade of meaning, and then relapse into silence.

The conversation became general again, and soon after Mr. Sutton went to his room.

“He’s better,” said Amber heartily, as the door closed upon the bent figure. “We get nearer and nearer to the truth about that discovery of his.”

Frank nodded.

“You might have thought that all those months when he and I were alone in the forest, I should have learnt the truth,” he said. “Yet from the moment he found me lying where that precious pair of scoundrels left me to the night you discovered us both, he told me nothing.”

Amber waited until Peter had bustled away importantly--he took very kindly to the office of nurse--and the three were left together.

“When did you first realize the fact that he had discovered the River of Stars?”

Frank Sutton filled his pipe slowly.

“I don’t know when I realized it,” he said. “The first recollection I have is of somebody bending over me and giving me a drink. I think that he must have given me food too. I was awfully weak at the time. When I got better I used to lie and watch him scratching about in the bed of the river.”

“He was quite rational?”

“Quite, though it used to worry me a bit, when he would bring me a couple of pebbles and beg of me to take great care of them. To humour him I kept them; I used to make a great show of tying them up in my pocket handkerchief, never realizing for a moment that they were diamonds.”

“And all this time, Frank, you knew it was father?”

It was the girl who spoke, and Frank nodded again.

“I don’t know how I knew, but I knew,” he said simply. “I was only a child when he went out, and he has changed from the man I remembered. I tried to persuade him to trek to the coast, but he would not move, and there was nothing to do but to stay and chance getting hold of a native to send to the coast with a message. But the natives regarded the place as haunted, and none came near, not even the hunting regiments. And the curious thing was,” he said thoughtfully, “that I did not believe the stones were anything but pebbles.”

He got up from the deep chair in which he was sitting.

“I’m going to leave you people for a while--you’ll find me in the library.”

“I’ll go with you for a moment, if you will excuse me,” said Amber, and the girl smiled her assent.

When the library door had closed behind them: “Sutton,” said Amber, “I want you to be jolly careful about that prospectus--you got my wire?”

“Yes, you wired me not to send the copy to the printers. Why?”

“It contains too much information that would be valuable to Lambaire,” said the other. “It contains the very information, in fact, that he would give his head to obtain.”

“I never thought of that,” said Sutton; “but how could he get it from a little country printer’s?”

“I don’t think he could get it, but Whitey would. To-morrow or to-day the Colonial Office asks Lambaire to locate his mine--we want to make sure that he does not secure his information from us.”

“I take you,” said the young man with a cheery nod. “I’m making a copy of the map you prepared, and to-morrow we’ll send it to the Colonial Office.”

Amber returned to the girl. She was sitting in the corner of the settee which was drawn up at right angles to the fireplace.

She screened her face from the blaze with an opened fan, and he saw little save what an emulating flame leaping higher than its fellows, revealed.

“I want to talk to you seriously,” he said, and took his seat at the other end of the couch.

“Please don’t talk too seriously; I want to be amused,” she said.

There was silence for a few minutes, then:

“I suppose you realize,” he said, “that within a week or so you will be the daughter of a very rich man?”

He could not see her face distinctly in the half-light, but he thought he saw her smile.

“I have not realized it,” she replied quietly, “but I suppose that you are right. Why?”

“Why? Oh, nothing--except that I am not immensely wealthy myself.”

She waited for him to go on.

“You see?” he suggested after a while.

She laughed outright.

“I see all there is to be seen, namely, that father will be very rich, and you will not be as rich. What else do you wish me to see?”

He wished her to see more than he cared for the moment to describe, but she was blandly obstinate and most unhelpful.

“I hate being conventional,” he said, “more than I hate being heroic. I feel that any of Peter’s heroes might have taken the line I take--and it is humiliating. But I--I want to marry you, dear, and you have of a sudden become horribly rich.”

She laughed again, a clear whole-hearted laugh of girlish enjoyment.

“Come and sit by me,” she commanded; “closer....”

* * * * *

“Do you ever go to bed, my dear?” asked Frank Sutton from the doorway. “It is past eleven o’clock, and Peter and I are bored with one another.”

He walked across the room and jabbed the fire.

“And you’ve let the fire go out, you wretched people.”

Cynthia rose guiltily.

“I’m afraid,” she faltered, “Captain Grey--we----”

“I’m afraid you have,” agreed her brother, as with a smile he kissed her. “Say good night to Amber: father is asleep.”

They heard the rustle of her skirts as she went through the hall to the stairs.

“Talking with Peter?” questioned Amber. “I thought you were working most industriously in your library.”

Sutton was poking the fire vigorously.

“Finished that an hour ago; how long do you think you people have been gassing?”

Amber discreetly hazarded no opinion.

“I found Peter tremendously interesting,” Sutton said with a laugh. “The little room we have given him looks like nothing so much as a newsagent’s--one of those newsagents that specialize in the pernicious literature beloved of youth.”

“’Ware hasty judgment,” said Amber gravely, “these pernicious----”

There was a hasty step in the hall, the door opened and Cynthia came in a little white of face.

Amber took a quick step forward.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Father is not in his room,” she said breathlessly. “I went in to say good night--he has not been to bed----”

The three looked at each other.

“He is in the garden, I expect,” said Frank uneasily. “He has gone out before, though I’ve begged him not to.”

He went out into the hall and took an electric hand lamp that stood on the hall-stand. Amber drew the curtains and, opening the French window, stepped out.

The girl threw a shawl round her shoulders and followed.

“There’s another lamp in the study, Amber,” said Sutton; and Amber with a nod strode through the room and down the passage that led to the library.

He found the lamp, turned out the light, and rejoined the others.

A thin fog overhung the country-side and shrouded the grounds, but it was not so thick that it offered any obstacle to their search.

The circuit of the grounds took them very little time. There was no sign of the explorer.

At the furthermost corner of the little estate was a wicket gate which opened to a narrow lane leading from the main road to the Nigerhill Road, and toward this the search party made. As they drew near Amber smothered an oath. The wicket was wide open.

In the circle of light the lamps threw upon the weather-stained door a fluttering white paper attracted their attention.

It was a half-sheet of notepaper fastened by a drawing-pin, and Amber raised his lamp and read:

“They have took him to the quarry on the Rag. Follow quickly. Turn to the right as you get out of the gate and follow the road up the hill. Go quickly and you can save everything.

“A FRIEND.”

“Wait a moment.”

Amber held the other’s arm as he made for the lane.

“Don’t delay, for God’s sake, Amber!” cried Sutton fretfully; “we may be in time.”

“Wait,” commanded Amber sharply.

He flashed his lamp on the ground. The soil was of clay and soft. There were footmarks--of how many people he could not tell. He stepped out into the road. The ground was soft here with patches of grass. Whoever had passed through the wicket had by good fortune or intention missed the soft patches of clay, for there was no recent footprint.

“Come along!” Sutton was hurrying up the road, and Amber and the girl followed.

“Have you got a gun?” asked Amber.

For answer Sutton slipped a Smith Weison from his pocket.

“Did you expect this?” asked the girl by his side.

“Something like it,” was the quiet answer. “Until we had settled this business I insisted that we should all be armed--I know Whitey.”

Sutton fell back until he was abreast of them.

“I can see no sign of footmarks,” he said, “and I’m worried about that message.”

“There is one set of footprints,” said Amber shortly.

His light had been searching the road all the time. “As to the message, I am more puzzled than worried. Hullo, what is that?”

In the middle of the road lay a black object, and Sutton ran forward and picked it up.

“It is a hat,” he said. “By Heaven, Amber, it is my father’s!”

“Oh,” said Amber shortly, and stopped dead.

They stood for the space of a few seconds.

“I’m going back,” said Amber suddenly.

They stared at him.

“But--” said the bewildered girl, “but--you are not going to give up the search?”

“Trust me, please,” he said gently. “Sutton go ahead; there are some labourers’ cottages a little way along. Knock them up and get assistance. There is a chance that you are on the right track--there is a bigger chance that I am. Anyway, it will be less dangerous for Cynthia to follow you than to return with me.”

With no other word he turned and went running back the way he came with the long loping stride of a cross-country runner.

They stood watching him till he vanished in the gloom.

“I don’t understand it,” muttered Frank. The girl said nothing; she was bewildered, dumbfounded. Mechanically she fell in by her brother’s side. He was still clutching the hat.

They had a quarter of a mile to go before they reached the cottages, but they had not traversed half that distance before, in turning a sharp bend of the lane, they were confronted by a dark figure that stood in the centre of the road.

Frank had his revolver out in an instant and flashed his lamp ahead.

The girl, who had started back with a heart that beat more quickly, gave a sigh of relief, for the man in the road was a policeman, and there was something very comforting in his stolid, unromantic figure.

“No, sir,” said the constable, “nobody has passed here.”

“A quarter of an hour ago?” suggested Frank.

“Not during the last three hours,” said the policeman. “I thought I heard footsteps down the lane the best part of an hour since, but nobody has passed.”

He had been detailed for special duty, to detect poachers, and he had not, he said, moved from the spot since seven o’clock--it was then eleven.

Briefly Frank explained the situation.

“Well,” said the man slowly, “they couldn’t have brought him this way--and it is the only road to the quarry. Sounds to me like a blind. If you’ll wait whilst I get my bicycle, which is behind the hedge, I’ll walk back with you.”

On the way back Frank gave him such particulars as he thought necessary.

“It’s a blind,” said the man positively. “Why should they take the trouble to tell you which way they went? You don’t suppose, sir, that you had a friend in the gang?”

Frank was silent. He understood now Amber’s sudden resolve to return.

The road was downhill and in ten minutes they were in sight of the house.

“I expect Peter----” began Frank.

Crack!--Crack!

Two pistol-shots rang out in the silent night.

Crack--crack--crack!

There was a rapid exchange of shots and the policeman swung himself on to the cycle.

“Take this!”

Frank thrust his revolver into the constable’s hand.

At the full speed the policeman went spinning down the hill and the two followed at a run.

No other shots broke the stillness and they arrived out of breath at the wicket gate to find Amber and the constable engaged in a hurried consultation.

“It’s all right.”

Amber’s voice was cheery.

“What of father?” gasped the girl.

“He’s in the house,” said Amber. “I found him gagged and bound in the gardener’s hut at the other end of the garden.”

He took the girl’s trembling arm and led her toward the house.

“He went out for a little walk in the grounds,” he explained, “and they pounced on him. No, they didn’t hurt him. There were three of the rascals.”

“Where are they?” asked Frank.

“Gone--there was a motor-car waiting for them at the end of the lane. The policeman has gone after them in the hope that they have a breakdown.”

He led the way to the sitting-room.

“Peter is with your father. Sit down, you want a little wine, I think”--her face was very white--“I’ll tell you all about it. I didn’t quite swallow that friendly notice on the wicket. I grew more suspicious when I failed to see any footmarks on the road to support the abduction theory. Then of a sudden it occurred to me that the whole thing was a scheme to get us out of the house whilst they had time to remove your father.

“When I got back to the wicket I made another hurried search of the garden and happed upon the tool-house by luck. The first thing I saw was your father lying on a heap of wood trussed and gagged. I had hardly released him when I heard a voice outside. Three men were crossing the lawn toward the wicket. It was too dark to see who they were, but I ran out and called upon them to stop.”

“We heard firing,” said the girl.

Amber smiled grimly.

“This was their answer,” he said; “I followed them to the road. They fired at me again, and I replied. I rather fancy I hit one.”

“You are not hurt?” she asked anxiously.

“My lady,” said Amber gaily, “I am unscathed.”

“But I don’t understand it,” persisted Frank. “What did the beggars want to take the governor for?”

Amber shook his head.

“That is beyond my----” He stopped suddenly. “Let us take a look at the library,” he said, and led them to the room.

“Hullo, I thought I turned this light out!”

The light was blazing away, the gas flaring in the draught made by the open door.

Well might it flare, for the window was open. So, too, was the door of the safe hanging wretchedly on one hinge.

Amber said nothing--only he whistled.

“So that was why they lured us from the house,” he said softly. “This is Whitey’s work, and jolly clever work too.”