Part 14

Steppe's attitude was definite and logical. Sault, in a measure, he admired without liking. He saw in him a difficult, and possibly a dangerous, man. That he had piqued his employer by his independence and courage did not influence Steppe one way or another. It was, in truth, the cause of his admiration. Sault was a man in possession of a dangerous secret. The folly of entrusting two other men with the combination word of the safe had been apparent from the first. He had been uneasy in his mind, more because of the unknown reliability of Moropulos, than because he mistrusted Sault, and he had decided that the scheme for the storage of compromising documents possessed too many disadvantages. Without telling either of his associates, he had arranged to transfer the contents of the safe to his own custody when the disaster occurred. The safe was in the hands of the curious police. And the more he thought about the matter, the more undesirable it seemed that the safe should be opened. It contained, amongst other things, the draft of a prospectus which had since been printed--the shares went to allotment two days before the murder. The draft was in his own hand, a dozen sheets of pencilled writing, and it described in optimistic language certain valuable assets which were in fact non-existent. The financial press had remarked upon the fact, and not content with remarking once, had industriously continued to remark. Steppe had made a mistake, and it was a bad mistake. The cleverest of company promoters occasionally overstep the line that divides the optimistic estimate from misrepresentation. Fortunately, his name did not appear on the prospectus; most unfortunately, he had preserved the draft. He had put it aside after Dr. Merville had copied the document. He had a reason for this. Jan Steppe seldom appeared in such transactions: even his name as vendor was skilfully camouflaged under the title of some stock-holding company. He was a supreme general who issued his orders to his commanders: gave them the rough plan of their operations, and left them to lick it into shape. It sometimes happened that they deviated from his instructions, generally to the advantage of the scheme they were working: occasionally they fell short of his requirements and then his draft proved useful in emphasizing their error. And this was only one of the safe's contents. There were others equally dangerous.

Steppe believed that his servant would die. To say that he hoped he would die would be untrue. Belief makes hope superfluous. It was politic to spend money on the defense of a man who, being grateful, would also be loyal. He could accept Sault's death with equanimity, and without regret. With relief almost. Evidence could be given which would show Moropulos in an unfavorable light. The Greek was a drunkard: his reputation was foul: he was provocative and quarrelsome. The weapon was his own (Sault had once taken it away from him) a plea of self-defense might succeed--always providing that Mr. Jan Steppe would submit himself to cross-examination, and the reflected odium of acquaintance with the dead man and his killer.

And Mr. Jan Steppe was firmly determined to do nothing of the kind. Sault would carry his secret to the grave unless--suppose this infernal photograph which Moropulos had put into the safe--suppose Sault mentioned this to the lawyers: but he would be loyal. Steppe, having faith in his loyalty, decided to let him die.

Sir John Maxton had changed his mind on the question of defending Sault as a result of an urgent request which had reached him immediately after the solicitor had left his chambers.

He called on Beryl Merville on his way home. She was alone. Christina had returned to her mother, and Dr. Merville was at Cannes, mercifully ignorant of the comments which the financial newspapers were passing upon a company of which he was president.

"I will undertake the defense, Beryl, though I confess it seems to me a hopeless proposition. I had just that moment refused the brief when you rang through. If I remember aright, I have met Sault--wasn't he that strong looking man who came to Steppe's house the night we were dining there? I thought so. And Moropulos--who was he? Not the drunken fellow who made such a fool of himself? By jove! I hadn't connected them--I have only glanced at the brief and I am seeing Sault on Friday. Fortunately, I am spending the week-end in the country, and I can call in on my way. Smith is attending to the inquest and the lower Court proceedings. I saw Smith (he is the solicitor) this afternoon: he tells me that Steppe is paying for the defense. That is a professional secret, by the way. He also surprised me by expressing the view that Sault is mad."

Beryl smiled. "He is not mad," she said quietly, "why does he think so?"

Sir John humped his thin shoulders: a movement indicative of his contempt for the lawyer's opinion on any subject.

"Apparently Sault talked about souls as though they were microbes. Smith, being a God-fearing man, was shocked. To him the soul stands in the same relationship to the body as the inner tube of a tire to the cover. He is something of a spiritualist, and spiritualism is the most material of the occult sciences--it insists that spirits shall have noses and ears like other respectable ghosts. From what he said, I couldn't make head or tail of Sault's view."

"Ambrose is not mad," said the girl, "he is the sanest man I have ever met, or will meet. His view is different: he himself is different. You cannot judge him by any ordinary standard."

"You call him 'Ambrose'," said Sir John in surprise, "is he a friend of yours?"

"Yes."

She said no more than that, and he did not press the question. It was impossible to explain Ambrose.

VI

A call at the Colebrook's in the afternoon or evening had become a regular practice since Christina had stayed with her. Evie had very carefully avoided being at home when Beryl called.

"I'm sorry I don't like your aristocratic friend, and I know it is a great comfort to have somebody to speak to, about poor Mr. Sault, but I simply can't stand her, Ronnie says that he quite understands my dislike. Christina, do you think Miss Merville is a--you won't be offended, will you? Do you think she is a good girl?"

"Good? Do you mean, does she go to church?"

"Don't be silly. Do you think she is a--virtuous girl? Ronnie says that some of these society women are awfully fast. He says it wouldn't be so bad if there was love in it, because love excuses everything, and the real wicked people are those who marry for money."

"Like Beryl," said Christina, "and love may excuse everything--like you--he hopes."

Evie sighed patiently.

"Do you know what I think about Ronnie?" asked Christina.

"I'm sure I don't want to know," snapped Evie, roused out of her attitude of martyrdom.

"I think he is a damned villain!--shut up, I'm going to say it. I think he is the very lowest blackguard that walks the earth! He is--"

But Evie had snatched up her coat and fled from the room.

Christina's orders from the osteopath were to go to bed early. She was making extraordinary progress and had walked unassisted down the stairs that very day--she was lying dressed on the bed when Beryl arrived.

"I suppose you'll liken me to the squire's good wife visiting the indigent sick," she said, "but I've brought a basket of things--fruit mostly. Do you mind?"

"I've always wanted to meet Lady Bountiful," said Christina. "I thought she never stepped from the Christmas magazine covers. Did you meet Evie?"

"No, I thought she was out."

"She's hiding in the scullery," said Christina calmly.

"She doesn't like me. Ronnie, I suppose?"

Christina nodded. "Ronnie at first hand may be endurable: as interpreted by Evie he is--there is only one word to describe him--I promised mother that I would never use it again. Any news?"

Beryl nodded. "I had a letter--"

"So did I!" said Christina triumphantly, and drew a blue envelope from her blouse.

"Written by the prison chaplain and dictated by Ambrose. Such a typical letter--all about the kindness of everybody and a minute description of the cell intended, I think, to show how comfortable he is."

Christina had had a similar letter.

"Sir John Maxton is defending him," said Beryl. "That is what I have come to tell you. He is a very great advocate."

They looked at one another, and each had the same thought.

"The best lawyer and the kindest judge and the most sympathetic jury would not save Ambrose," said Christina, and they looked for a long time into one another's eyes and neither saw fear.

Beryl did not stay long. They ran into a blind alley of conversation after that: a time of long quietness.

Jan Steppe was waiting in the drawing-room when she returned. The maid need not have told her: she sensed his presence before the door was opened. She had seen very little of Steppe, remembering that she had engaged herself to marry him. She did not let herself think much about it: she had not been accurate when she told Christina that she had no imagination. It was simply that she did not allow herself the exercise of her gift. The same idea had occurred to Jan Steppe--he had seen little of her. He was a great believer in clearing up things as he went along. An unpleasant, but profitable, trait of his.

"Been waiting for you an hour: you might leave word how long you'll be out, huh, Beryl?"

A foretaste, she thought, of the married man, but she was not offended. That was just how she expected Steppe would talk: probably he would swear at her when he knew her better. Nevertheless--

"I go and come as I please," she said without heat. "You must be prepared to put me under lock and key if you expect to find me in any given place, at any given time. And then I should divorce you for cruelty."

He did not often show signs of amusement. He smiled now.

"So that's your plan. Sit down by me, Beryl, I want a little talk."

She obeyed: he put his arm about her, and looking down, she saw his big hairy hand gripping her waist.

"Why are you shaking, Beryl? You're not frightened of me, huh?" he asked, bending his swarthy face to hers.

"I--I don't know." Her teeth were chattering. She was frightened. In a second all her philosophy had failed and her courage had gone out like a blown flame. Every reserve of will was concentrated now in an effort to prevent herself screaming. Training, education, culture, all that civilization stood for, crashed at the touch of him. She was woman, primitive and unreasoning: woman in contact with savage mastery.

"God! What's the matter, huh? You expect to be kissed, don't you? I'm going to be your husband, huh? Expect to be kissed then, don't you? What is the matter with you?"

She got up from the sofa, her legs sagging beneath her.

Looking, he saw her face was colorless: Steppe was alarmed. He wanted her badly. She had the appeal which other women lacked, qualities which he himself lacked. And he had frightened her. Perhaps she would break off everything. He expected to see the ring torn from her trembling hand and thrown on the floor at his feet. Instead of that:

"I am very sorry, Mr. Steppe--foolish of me. I've had rather a trying day." She was breathless, as though she had been running at a great pace.

"Of course, Beryl, I understand. I'm too rough with you, huh? Why, it is I who should be sorry, and I am. Good friends, huh?"

He held out his hand, and shivering, she put her cold palm in his.

"Doctor coming back soon? That's fine. You haven't sent him on any newspapers, huh? No, he could get them there."

Other commonplaces, and he left her to work back to the cause of her fright.

With reason again enthroned (this was somewhere near four o'clock in the morning) she could find no other reason than the obvious one. She was afraid of Steppe as a man. Not because he was a man, but because he was the kind of man that he was. He was a better man than Ronnie, she argued. He had principles of sorts. Ronnie had none. Perhaps she would get used to him: up to that moment it did not occur to her to break her engagement, and curiously enough, she never thought of her father. Steppe was sure in his mind that he held her through Dr. Merville. That was not true. Neither sense of honor nor filial duty bound her to her promise, nor was marriage an expiation. She must wear away her life in some companionship. After, was Ambrose Sault, in what shape she did not know or consider. She never thought of him as an angel.

VII

Sometimes the brain plays a trick upon you. In the midst of your everyday life you have a vivid yet elusive recollection of a past which is strange to you. You see yourself in circumstances and in a setting wholly unfamiliar. Like a flash it comes and goes; as swiftly as the shutter of a camera falls. Flick! It is gone and you can recall no incident upon which you can reconstruct the vision of the time-fraction. Beryl saw herself as she had been before she came upon a shabby gray-haired man studying the wallpaper in the hall of Dr. Merville's house. Yet she could never fix an impression. If the change of her outlook had been gradual, she might have traced back step by step. But it had been violent: catastrophic. And this bewildering truth appeared: that there had been no change so far as Ronnie was concerned. He had not altered in any degree her aspect of life. It worried her that it should be so. But there it was.

She had a wire from her father the next morning to say that he was returning at once. Dr. Merville had seen certain comments in the newspaper and was taking the next train to Paris.

She did not go to the station to meet him and was not in the house when he arrived. Even in the days that followed she saw little of him, for he seemed to have pressing business which kept him either at Steppe's office or Steppe's house. One night she went to dinner there. It was a meal remarkable for one circumstance. Although Sault was coming up for trial the following week, they did not speak of him. It was as though he were already passed from the world. She was tempted once to raise his name, but refrained. Discussion would be profitless, for they would only expose the old platitudes and present the conventional gestures.

In the car as they drove home the doctor was spuriously cheerful. His lighter manner generally amused Beryl; now her suspicions were aroused, for of late, her father's laborious good humor generally preceded a request for some concession on her part.

It was not until she was saying good night that he revealed the nature of his request.

"Don't you think it would be a good idea if you cut your engagement as short as possible, dear?" he asked with an effort to appear casual. "Steppe doesn't want a big wedding--one before the civil authorities with a few close friends to lunch afterwards--"

"You mean he wants to marry at once?"

"Well--not at once, but--er--er--in a week or so. Personally, I think it is an excellent scheme. Say in a month--"

"No, no!" she was vehement in her objection, "not in a month. I must have more time. I'm very sorry, father, if I am upsetting your plans."

"Not at all," said his lips. His face told another story.

Possibly Steppe had issued peremptory instructions. She was certain that if she had accepted his views meekly, the doctor would have named the date and the hour. Steppe may have expressed his desire, also, that she should be married in gray. He was the sort of man who would want his bride to wear gray.

Jan Steppe, for all his wealth and experience, retained in some respects the character of his Boer ancestors. His dearest possession was a large family Bible, crudely illustrated, and this he cherished less for its message (printed in the _taal_) than for the family records that covered four flyleaves inserted for the purpose. He liked wax fruit under glass shades and there hung in his library crayon enlargements of his parents, heavily framed in gold. He was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and maintained a pew in the kirk at Heidelberg where he was born and christened. He believed in the rights of husbands to exact implicit obedience from their wives. The ultimate value of women was their prolificacy; he might forgive unfaithfulness; sterility was an unpardonable offense. Springing, as he did, from a race of cattle farmers, he thought of values in terms of stock breeding.

Instinctively Beryl had discovered this: on this discovery her repugnance was based, though she never realized the cause until long afterwards.

The day of the trial was near at hand. Sir John Maxton had had two interviews with his client. After the second, he called on her.

"I haven't seen you since I met him, have I? Your Sault! What is he, in the name of heaven? He fascinates me, Beryl, fascinates me! Sometimes I wish I had never taken the brief--not because of the hopelessness of it--it _is_ hopeless, you know--but--"

"But?" she repeated, when he paused, puzzling to express himself clearly.

"He is amazing: I have never met anybody like him. I am not particularly keen on my fellows, perhaps I know them too well and have seen too much of their meannesses, their evilness. But Sault is different. I went to discuss his case and found myself listening to his views on immortality. He says that what we call immortality can be reduced to mathematical formulæ. He limited the infinite to a circle, and convinced me. I felt like a fourth form boy listening to a 'brain' and found myself being respectful! But it wasn't that--it was a sweetness, a clearness--something Christlike. Queer thing to say about a man who has committed two murders, both in cold blood, but it is a fact. Beryl, it is impossible to save him, it is only fair to tell you. I cannot help feeling that if we could get at the character of this man Moropulos, he would have a chance, but he absolutely refuses to talk of Moropulos. 'I did it,' he says, 'what is the use? I shot him deliberately. He was drunk: I was in no danger from him. I shot him because I wanted him to die. When I walked over to where he lay, he was dead. If he had been alive I should have shot him again.' What can one do? If he had been anybody else, I should have retired from the case.

"There is a safe in this case, probably you have read about it in the newspapers. It was found in the Greek's house, and is a sort of secret repository. At any rate, it cannot be opened except by somebody who knows the code word. I suspected Sault of being one who could unlock the door and challenged him. He did not deny his knowledge but declined to give me the word. He never lies: if he says he doesn't know, it is not worth while pressing him because he really doesn't know. Beryl, would your father have any knowledge of that safe?"

She shook her head. "It is unlikely, but I will ask him. Father says that Ronnie is going to the trial. Is he a witness?"

Sir John had, as it happened, seen Ronnie that day and was able to inform her. "Ronnie is writing the story of the trial for a newspaper. What has Sault done to him? He is particularly vicious about him. In a way I can understand the reason if they had ever met. Sault is the very antithesis of Ronnie. They would 'swear', like violently different colors. I asked him if he would care to stay with me--I have had the Kennivens' house placed at my disposal, they are at Monte Carlo--but he declined with alacrity. Why does he hate Sault? He says that he is looking forward to the trial."

Beryl smiled. "For lo, the wicked bend the bow that they may shoot in the darkness at the upright heart," she quoted.

VIII

Ronald Morelle also found satisfaction in apposite quotations from the Scriptures. When he was at school the boys had a game which was known as "trying the luck." They put a Bible on the table, inserted a knife between the leaves, and whatever passage the knife-point rested against, was one which solved their temporary difficulties.

Ronnie had carried this practice with him, and whenever a problem arose, he would bring down The Book and seek a solution. He utilized for this purpose a miniature sword which he had bought in Toledo, a copy of the Sword of the Constable. It was a tiny thing, a few inches in length. Its handle was of gold, its glittering blade an example of the best that the Fabrica produced.

"It is really wonderful how helpful it is, Christina," said Evie, to whom he had communicated the trick. "The other day, when I was wondering whether you would be better for good, or whether this was only, so to speak, a flash in the pan--because I really don't believe in osteopaths, they aren't proper doctors--I stuck a hat pin in the Bible and what do you think it said?"

"Beware of osteopaths?" suggested Christina lazily.

"No, it said, 'Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bone which Thou hast broken may rejoice!"

"My bones were never broken," said Christina, and asked with some curiosity: "How do you reconcile your normal holiness with playing monkey tricks with the Bible?"

"It isn't anything of the sort," replied Evie tartly, "the Bible is supposed to help you in your difficulties."

"Anyway, my bones rejoice to hear that Ronnie is such a Bible student," said Christina.

Evie knew that to discuss Ronald Morelle with her sister would be a waste of time. Ronnie was to her the perfect man. She even found, in what Christina described as a "monkey trick ", a piety with which she had never dreamed of crediting him. Christina was unjust, but she hoped in time to change her opinions. In the meantime, Ronald Morelle was molding Evie's opinions in certain essentials pertaining to social relationship, and insensibly, her views were veering to the course he had set. She had definitely accepted his attitude toward matrimony. She felt terribly advanced and superior to her fellows and had come to the point where she sneered when a wedding procession passed her. So far, her assurance, her complete plerophory of Ronnie's wisdom rested in the realms of untested theory.