Inside the Lines (Biggers and Ritchie)/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
THE CAPTAIN COMES TO TEA
JANE GERSON, alone for the first time since the incident of the cigarette on the parade ground a few hours back, sat before a narrow window in her room at Government House, fighting a great bewilderment. The window opened on a varied prospect of blooming gardens and sail-flecked bay beyond. But for her eyes the riot of color and clash of contrast between bald cliff and massed green had no appeal. Her hands locked and unlocked themselves on her lap. The girl's mind was struggling to coordinate scattered circumstances into a comprehensible whole, to grapple with the ethical problem of her own conduct.
What she knew, or thought she knew—and what she should do—those were the two saber points of the dilemma upon which she found herself impaled.
Could there now be any doubt of what she felt to be the truth? First, she had met Captain Woodhouse on the Express du Nord—an officer in the English army, by his own statement, returning from leave in England to his post in Egypt. Then, the encounter of last night at the Hotel Splendide, Captain Woodhouse first denying his identity, then admitting it under the enforced pledge that she should not reveal the former meeting. Captain Woodhouse, not in Egypt, but at Gibraltar, and, as she had soon learned, there with papers of transfer from an Egyptian post to the garrison of the Rock. Following this surprise had come General Crandall's dogged examination of that morning—his blunt declaration that a serious question as to the captain's position at Gibraltar had arisen, and his equally plain-spoken threat to have the truth from her concerning her knowledge of the suspected officer.
To cap all, the message on the cigarette! An informer—she guessed the prefix to the unfinished word—had denounced "you and Louisa" to General Crandall. To whom the pronoun referred was unmistakable—Almer's eagerness to insure Captain Woodhouse's receiving the cigarette case plainly defined that. As to "Louisa," involved with Woodhouse, the girl from Hildebrand's was sensible only of a passing flash of curiosity, made a bit more piquant, perhaps, by a little dart of jealousy, hardly comprehended as such. A hotel keeper warns an officer in the Gibraltar garrison that he has been denounced, but in the same message adjures him to "play your own game." That was the single compelling fact.
Jane Gerson flushed—in anger, or was it through guilt?—when she found her lips framing the word "spy"!
Now she understood why General Crandall had put her on the grill—why he, informed, had leaped to the significance of the gift of roses and deduced her previous acquaintance with their donor. Her host was not, after all, the possessor of magical powers of mind reading. He was, instead, just the sober, conscientious protector of the Rock on whom rested responsibility for the lives of its defenders and the maintenance of England's flag there. His duty was to catch—and shoot—spies.
Shoot spies! The girl's heart contracted at the thought. No, no! She would not—she could not reveal to the governor the knowledge she had. That would be to send death to a man as surely as if hers was the finger at the trigger.
Jane Gerson was on her feet now, pacing the room. Over and over again she told herself that this man who had come into her life, obliquely enough, had no claim on her; had brought nothing to her but distress. He had deceived her even, and then, when caught in the deception, had wrested from her a promise that she would help him continue further deception against others. Against her will he had made her a party to some deep and audacious plot, whose purpose she could not guess, but which must be but a part of the huge mystery of war.
And soon this Captain Woodhouse was to come to his trial—the purpose of his invitation to tea that afternoon flashed clear as white light. Soon she would be in the same room with him; would be forced to witness the spinning of the web set to trap him. He would come unwarned, unsuspecting. He might leave that room under guard and with guns at his back—guns soon to be leveled at his heart. Yet she, Jane Gerson, possessed the power to save him—as the warning of the cigarette surely would be saving, once a clever man were put on his guard by it.
Would she speak—and betray General Crandall, her kindly host? Would she lock her lips and see a man walk blindfolded to his death?
A few minutes before five o'clock, Major Bishop was announced at Government House and received by General Crandall in the library. Before Jaimihr Khan, who had preceded the visitor through the double doors from the hall, could retire, his master stopped him.
"One minute, Jaimihr! Have a seat. Bishop; glad you've come a bit early. Come here, Jaimihr!"
The tall reedlike figure of the Indian glided to General Crandall's side. His thin ascetic features were set in their usual mold of unseeing detachment; only his dark eyes showed animation.
"Yes, my General," he said, as he stopped before the Englishman.
"I have a little commission for you, Jaimihr," General Crandall began, weighing his words with care. "The utmost discretion—you understand?"
"The utmost. I understand." Jaimihr Khan's lips moved ever so slightly, and his eyes looked steadily ahead.
"In the course of a few minutes, Captain Woodhouse, of the signal service, will be here to tea," the general began. The Indian repeated mechanically: "Cap-tain Wood-house."
"As soon as you have ushered him into this room, you will go as quickly as you can to the West Barracks. His room will be No. 36, on the second gallery. You will enter his room with a key I shall give you and search it from end to end—everything in it. Anything that is of a suspicious nature—you understand, Jaimihr, what that might be—you will bring here to me at once."
"It shall be done. General Sahib."
"No one, officer or man, must suspect your errand. No one must see you enter or leave that room."
"No one," the Indian repeated.
General Crandall went to a wall safe set by the side of the double doors, turned the combination, and opened it. He took from a drawer therein a bunch of keys, selected one, and passed it to Jaimihr Khan.
"The utmost care, remember!" he warned again.
"Is it likely I should fail you this time, General Sahib, when so many times I have succeeded?"
"Make the search complete." General Crandall ignored his servant's question. "But return as quickly as you can. I shall keep Captain Woodhouse here until you do so. You must report to me before he leaves this house."
"When the moment arrives, your servant shall fly, General Sahib," the Indian replied, and withdrew.
"I say, General, you have a great deal of faith in your Indian," Bishop ventured, accepting a cigarette from his superior's case. "Rather a delicate commission you've given him."
"Absolute faith, yes. Been with me five years—picked him up in Rangoon—have tried him many times, and found him loyal as any officer in the service." General Crandall put in his words enough emphasis to carry slight rebuke for the other's implied criticism. But the pursy little major was too sure of the fine terms of personal friendship between himself and his superior to feel embarrassment.
"About that girl, General—that cigar girl, Josepha, concerning whom your beach-comber friend sent that warning this morning from the safe ground of Spain"
"Obvious thing would have been to clap her in a cell," the governor answered. "But I have not, for the very good reason that if there's anything in this fellow's accusations against her, as well as against Woodhouse, the game will be to keep her watched and give our captain an opportunity to communicate with her. Minute he does that—why, we've got our proof against both."
"Then I take it you've put a trailer on the girl?"
"At eight o'clock to-night I'll know where she's been every hour of the day," the general returned confidently. "She can't leave the town without being arrested. Now, as to our plan for Woodhouse's reception—this affair of Craigen's wife; we might as well agree on points, so that" He heard his wife's voice in the room off the library, and broke off abruptly. "Confound it; the women are coming! Just step into my room with me, and we'll go over this little matter, Major."
General Crandall held open a small door at the left of his desk and followed Bishop through. Lady Crandall and Jane entered the library almost at the same time.
"This tea of George's is preposterous," the lady of Government House was grumbling. "Said we must have this man from Egypt here at once."
"If you were English, no tea could be preposterous," Jane countered, with a brave attempt at lightness. She felt each passing moment a weight adding to the suspense of the inevitable event.
"Well, I'm going to get it through with just as soon as I can," Lady Crandall snapped. Then Jaimihr Khan threw open the double doors and announced: "Cap-tain Wood-house, my lady!"
"Show him up!" she commanded; then in complaint to Jane: "Now where do you suppose that husband of mine went? Just like him to suggest a tea and forget to make an appearance."
Captain Woodhouse appeared between the opened doors in khaki and trim puttees. He stood very straight for an instant, his eyes shooting rapidly about the room. Lady Crandall hurried forward to greet him, and his momentary stiffness disappeared. The girl behind her followed slowly, almost reluctantly. Woodhouse grasped her extended hand.
"It was good of you to send the flowers," she murmured. The man smiled appreciation.
"Do you know," he said, "after I sent them I thought you'd consider me a bit—prompt."
"I am learning something every day—about Englishmen," Jane managed to answer, with a ghost of a smile.
"Always something good, I hope," Woodhouse was quick to retort, his eyes eagerly trying to fathom the cause of the girl's restraint.
Lady Crandall, who had been vainly ringing for Jaimihr Khan, excused herself on the necessity of looking after the tea things. Jane experienced a quick stab of dread at finding herself alone with this man. Unexpected opportunity was urging a decision which an hour of solitude in her room had failed to bring. Yet she trembled, appalled and afraid to speak, before the very magnitude of the moment's exigency. "A spy—a spy!" whispered austere duty. "He will die!" her heart cried in protest.
"Miss Gerson, it's good to see you again and know by your handclasp you have forgiven me for—for what was very necessary at the moment—last night—our meeting in the Splendide." Captain Woodhouse was standing before her now, his grave eyes looking down into hers. The girl caught a deep note of sincerity and something else—something vibrantly personal. Yet her tongue would not be loosed of its burden.
"A very pretty speech," she answered, with attempted raillery. "I shall think of it on the boat going home."
"I say, I wish you weren't always in that horrid state of mind—on your way home mentally," Captain Woodhouse challenged.
"I shall be so in reality day after to-morrow, I hope," she replied. "Away from all this bewildering war and back in comfortable little New York." The man seemed genuinely grieved at her announcement.
"New York must be worth while; but I imagine you have nothing picturesque—nothing old there. I'll wager you haven't a single converted monastery like Government House in all your city."
"Not many things in New York have been converted," she answered, with a smile. "Our greatest need is for a municipal evangelist."
False—all false, this banter! She knew it to be, and so she believed he must read it. And the man—his ease of manner was either that of innocence or of supreme nerve, the second not less to be admired than the first. Could it be that behind his serious eyes, now frankly telling her what she dared not let herself read in them, lay duplicity and a spy's cunning?
"I fancy you New Yorkers suffer most from newness—newness right out of the shop," she heard him saying. "But the old things are the best. Imagine the monks of a long-ago yesterday toasting themselves before this ancient fireplace." He waved toward the massive Gothic mantel bridging a cavernous fireplace. An old chime bell, green with weathering, hung on a low frame beside the firedogs.
"You're mistaken; that's manufactured antiquity," Jane caught him up. "Lady Crandall told me last night that fireplace is just five years old. One of the preceding governor's hobbies, it was."
Woodhouse caught at her answer with a quick lifting of the brows. He turned again to feast his eyes on the girl's piquant face, even more alluring now because of the fleeting color that left the cheeks with a tea rose's coldness.
"Miss Gerson, something I have done or said"—the man was laboring after words—"you are not yourself, and maybe I am respon"
She turned from him with a slight shudder. Her hand was extended in mute appeal for silence. He waited while his eyes followed the heaving of her shoulders under the emotion that was racking her. Suddenly she faced him again, and words rushed from her lips in an abandon of terror:
"Captain Woodhouse, I know too much—about you and why you are here. Oh, more than I want to! Accident—bad luck, believe me, it is not my seeking that I know you are a—a"
He had started forward at her outburst, and now he stood very close to her, his gray eyes cold and unchanging.
"Say it—say the word! I'm not afraid to hear it," he commanded tensely. She drew back from him a little wildly, her hands fluttering up as if to fend him off.
"You—you are in great danger this minute. You were brought here this afternoon to be trapped—exposed and made"
"I was fully aware of that when I came, Miss Gerson," he interrupted. "The invitation, coming so suddenly—so pressing—I think I read it aright."
"But the promise you made me give last night!" Sudden resentment brushed aside for the instant the girl's first flood of sympathy. "That has involved me with you. Oh, that was unfair—to make me promise I would not allude to—to our first meeting!"
"Involved you?" He closed one of her hands in his as if to calm her and force more rational speech. "Then you have been"
"Questioned by General Crandall—about you," she broke in, struggling slightly to free her hand. "Questioned—and even bullied and threatened."
"And you kept your promise?" The question was put so low Jane could hardly catch it. She slowly nodded.
"Miss Gerson, you will never have cause to regret that you did." Woodhouse pressed her hand with almost fierce intenseness, then let it go. Her face was flaming now under the stress of excitement. She knew tears stood in her eyes, and was angered at their being there; he might mistake them. Woodhouse continued, in the same suppressed tone:
"You were on the point of using a word a minute ago. Miss Gerson, which was hard for you to voice because you thought it an ugly word. You seemed sure it was the right word to fit me. You only hesitated out of—ah—decency. Yet you kept faith with me before General Crandall. May I hope that means"
"You may hope nothing!" Quick rebellion at what she divined to be coming flamed in Jane's eyes. "You have no right to hope for more from me than what you forced by promise. I would not be saying what I have to you if—if I did not feel I—that your life"
"You misunderstood," he broke in stiffly. "I was on the point of saying I hoped you would not always believe me a"
"Not believe!" Her hand went to the broad ribbon belt she wore and brought out the silver cigarette case. This she passed to him with a swift gesture.
"Almer, the Hotel Splendide man, gave me this to-day at parade, urging that I deliver it to you." She was speaking hurriedly. "By a miracle—the strangest circumstance in the world—I learned the message this cigarette case was to carry to you. Oh, no, innocently enough on my part—it came by a chance I must not take the time to explain."
"A message from—Almer to me?" Woodhouse could not conceal the start her words gave him. He took a step toward her eagerly.
"Yes, a message. You must have it to protect yourself. The message was this:
"Informer has denounced you and Louisa to"
Her voice died in her throat. Over Captain Woodhouse's shoulder she saw a door open. General Crandall and a short fat man in officer's uniform entered the library.