Part 155

"--Kept his hat on in my wife's room, talked big, and twiddled a signet-ring he wore," went on the Major. "And, bein' quick, you know, and sharp as they make 'em, you know, my wife recognised the crest of an old acquaintance cut upon the stone. I knew the man myself"--declared Major Bingo--"and a better never stepped in leather. A brother-officer of the Chiefs, too, and a rippin' good fellow!--Dicky Mildare, of the Grey Hussars."

"Mildare!" repeated Saxham.

"You understand, Saxham, the name did it. My wife had seen the present Mrs. Saxham at Gueldersdorp, and, not knowin' that the surname of Mildare had been taken by her at the wish of her adopted mother, supposed--got the maggot into her head that the Mother-Superior's ward might possibly be a--a daughter of the man the seal-ring had belonged to, knowing--Lord! what a mull I'm making of it!--that Mildare had at one time been engaged to marry that"--the Major boggled horribly--"that uncommonly brave and noble lady, and had, in fact, thrown her over, and made a bolt of it with the wife of his Regimental C.O., Colonel Sir George Hawting."

The faint stain of colour that had showed through Saxham's dead-white skin faded. He waited with strained attention for what was coming.

"South Africa Lady Lucy and Mildare bolted to," went on Bingo, "and now you know the kind of mare's-nest her ladyship had scratched up. And," declared Bingo, "rather than have had to spin this yarn. I'd have faced a Court-Martial of Inquiry respectin' my conduct in the Field. For my wife has a kind heart and a keen sense of honour, and rather than bring harm upon Miss Mildare that was, or anyone connected with her, she'd have stood up to be shot! By G----!" trumpeted Bingo, "I know she would!"

Saxham's face was blue-white now, and looked oddly shrunken. His voice came in a rasping croak from his ashen lips as he said:

"Lady Hannah mentioned my wife to this man, thinking that she might prove to be the daughter of the owner of the ring. What could possibly lead her to infer such a relationship?"

"You must understand that the blackguard had given my wife details of Mildare's death at a farm owned by a friend of his in Natal, and that Hannah--that my wife knew poor little Lucy Hawting had had a child by Mildare," Major Bingo spluttered. "That was why she asked Van Busch outright whether the girl with the nuns at Gueldersdorp was--could be--the same child, grown up? By the Living Tinker!--I never was in such a lather in my life! The better the light I try to put the thing in, the dirtier it looks. And I'm not half through yet, that's the worst of it!"

He mopped and mopped, and took several violent turns about the room, and subsided in a chair at length, and went on, waving the large pink cambric handkerchief, now a damp rag, in the air, at intervals, to dry it.

"She says--Lady Hannah says--that the eagerness and curiosity with which the brute snapped up the hint she'd never meant to drop, warned her to shunt him off on another line, and give no more information. They got on money matters; and, seeing plain how she'd been bilked, my wife gave the welsher a bit of her mind, and he showed his teeth in a way that meant Murder. Just in time--before he could wring her neck round--and he'd started in to do it, you understand--Brounckers came stormin' and bullyin' in, to tell the prisoner she was exchanged, and would be sent down to Gueldersdorp.... They packed her back that very day.... And not a week after, the pretended runner came in from Diamond Town with the bogus letter from Mrs. Casey."

Saxham had thought. He said now:

"This man, this rascally Van Busch, acting as a spy for Brounckers, was disguised as the runner? Is that what has been proved? Did Lady Hannah see the man and recognise him?"

Bingo leaned forward to answer.

"Lady Hannah never set eyes on the man from Diamond Town. But the day the Siege Gazette came out, with a blithering paragraph in it that never ought to have appeared, announcin'"--he coughed and crimsoned--"Lord Beauvayse's formal engagement to Miss Mildare;--my wife was rung up at the Convalescent Hospital by a caller who wouldn't say where he telephoned from. And the message that came through--couched in queer, ambiguous language, and purportin' to come from an old friend--was a message for the young lady who is now Mrs. Saxham!"

Saxham's eyes flickered dangerously. He said not a word. The Major went on:

"My wife didn't then and there identify the voice with Van Busch's. She remembered the name given her as that of the owner of the farm at which Mildare died, a place which by rights was in what's now the Orange River Colony, and not Natal at all. She asked plump and plain: 'Are you So-and-So?' There was no answer to the question. But seven hours later the Mother-Superior was shot; and the nuns and Miss Mildare, on their way to the Convent, were passed by a thickset, bearded man, who ran into one of the Sisters in his hurry, and nearly knocked her down."

"That," said Saxham, "has always been regarded as a suspicious circumstance. But the man was never subsequently traced."

"No! Because," said Bingo, "the runner from Diamond Town evaporated that night."

Saxham said, with his grim under-jaw thrust out:

"Surely that circumstance, when reported to the Officer commanding the Garrison, might then have awakened his suspicions?"

"Naturally," agreed Bingo, "and therefore he kept 'em dark. As for my wife, the shock of the murder, accompanied with her own secret conviction that, in some indirect way, she'd helped to set a malicious, lurking, watchful, dangerous Force of some kind working against your wife--when she dropped that hint I've told you of--bowled her over with a nervous fever."

"I remember," said Saxham, who had been called in.

"Consequently, it wasn't until some days after the Relief--a bare hour or two before the Division--Irregular Horse and Baraland Rifles, and a company or so of Civilian Johnnies that had made believe they were genuine fightin' Tommies till they couldn't get out of the notion--marched out of Gueldersdorp for Frostenberg, that her ladyship got a chance of makin' a clean breast to the Chief. Hold on a minute, Doctor----"

For Saxham would have spoken.

"--The Chief had had his own private opinion, from the very first. He heard what my wife had to say. As you may guess, she'd worked herself up into a regular cooker of remorse and anxiety--told him she was ready to go anywhere and do anything--he'd only got to give her orders, and all that sort of thing! He charged her with the simple but difficult rôle of holdin' her tongue, and keepin' her oar out, and findin' him--if by good luck she'd got it by her--a specimen of the handwritin' of the clever scoundrel who'd played at bein' a War Intelligence Agent, and waltzed with her five hundred pounds, which sample, as it chanced, she was able to supply. And the fist of the man who'd swindled her, and the writin' of the Mrs. Casey who'd sent a letter per despatch-runner from Diamond Town to a husband who didn't exist, tallied to an upstroke and the crossin' of a 't'!"

"Is it beyond doubt that the letter from the supposed Mrs. Casey was not a genuine communication?" Saxham asked.

"Beyond doubt. As a fact, the neatly-directed envelope had simply got a sheet of blank paper inside. Another odd fact brought to light was, that the person who communicated with my wife at the Convalescent Hospital about half-past twelve on the day of the murder, rang her up on the telephone belongin' to the orderly-room at the Headquarters of the Baraland Rifles. We had up the orderly, and after some solid lyin', he owned that the man from Diamond Town had bribed him with 'baccy to let him put a message through. And that's another link in the evidence, I take it?" said Major Bingo.

"Undoubtedly!"