Last Conflict

by John Russell Fearn

“God knows, I’m trying to, but— Oh well, all right.” Bruce gave a shrug. “I don’t pretend to be able to understand the mind of a woman, Just as long as you put yourself right, I don’t mind what happens. Come to think of it, I’ve quite a bit of unfinished business to attend to up in Scotland concerning the expedition. Suppose I go and attend to it and leave you alone. That suit?”

  For once an eager brightness came into Verona’s eyes. Bruce did not know whether he approved of it or not.

  “That would solve everything, Bruce! You do that, and when you come back I’ll have all the snarls in my mind straightened out.”

  “Okay, but—I don’t altogether like leaving you alone except for the servants, that is. Shall I have some of the gang look in on you from time to time? Jack Anderson and some of the girls, maybe—?”

  “No, Bruce! No! You can’t straighten out a mental upheaval when others are around. I’ll be all right with just the servants.”

  Which had to suffice. Bruce made the necessary arrangements and. the following day, departed for Scotland. Deliberately, he made no contact with home, in any form whatever. He felt vaguely peeved when Verona did not contact him either, but mollified himself with the thought that she was sticking to her intention to preserve splendid isolation.

  By and large, he was thankful when the fortnight was up, and wasted no time getting home. To his inner joy he found a radiant Verona awaiting him, a girl looking so happy a carefree it was somehow impossible to associate her memory with the moody almost estranged creature he had left behind.

  “Better, darling?” Bruce asked, sweeping her up in his big arms.

  “Completely, dearest!” Her feet kicked gently against his shins. “Everything that was worrying me has evaporated. I’m acclimatised now. I’m the laughing Verona you married.”

  Bruce set her down and looked at her seriously. “That’s wonderful! I’ve been fretting myself to pieces in this past fortnight, wondering how you were getting on.”

  “Well—” She gave her pert smile. “Now you have to worry no more.”

  She wandered across to the settee and settled herself. Bruce followed her up after a moment and sat down beside her.

  “Anybody come whilst I was away?” he asked. “Any of the original expedition, to keep you company?”

  “No.... As I told you, I wanted to be alone.”

  “Uh-huh.” Bruce accepted the answer calmly enough, but he had the curious, niggling suspicion at the back of his mind that Verona was not entirely speaking the truth. He could imagine why he should think such a thing. Perhaps he was abnormally jealous of her. Yes, that might be it. The very thought of any other man claiming her attention in the merest degree was too much for him.

  “And you?” Verona asked. “How did things go up in Scotland?”

  “Oh, so-so. It wasn’t anything important anyway.”

  “I’m interested just the same.”

  So the conversation drifted into irrelevancies, and all the time Bruce kept thinking how incredibly changed Verona was. She was the very essence of life and vitality, her entire personality sparkling like champagne. The process of her acclimatisation to Western ways seemed indeed to be complete.

  Then came the evening meal, over which the conversation still continued, until it was interrupted by a phone call. Hudson, the manservant, entered the dining room with grave calm.

  “Captain Anderson is calling on the line, sir....” He glanced at Bruce. “Are you at home?”

  “You bet I am,” Bruce grinned, getting up. “Thanks, Hudson.”

  He hurried out into the hall and picked up the instruments. “Hello there, Jack! How’s tricks?”

  “Might ask you the same question,” came Jack Anderson s matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve been trying to talk to you, or your wife, for the past fortnight. I was beginning to wonder where you’d both gone to.”

  “Past fortnight?” Bruce repeated, surprised. “I don’t quite understand that. Verry’s been here even though I’ve been up in Scotland. Anyway, skip that. Why the ring? Anything on your mind?”

  “Nothing particular. I simply wondered how long it was going to be before we have another of our get-togethers? Last time we met, you shut the doors on everybody because Verry wasn’t feeling too good. Doesn’t have to stay that way, does it?”

  “Not anymore,” Bruce laughed. “She’s completely got over all that and sorted herself out, particularly during the last fortnight.”

  “Good! When do we all meet again, then? I need hardly tell you that I’m more than anxious to see Verry again.”

  “Yes, I’ve little doubt of that,” Bruce responded dryly, “But don’t forget that you lost the race for her and I won it— A get-together? By all means, but I’d better see what Verry says first. Hold it over for the moment, and I’ll ring you back later this evening.”

  “Fair enough! Give Verry my love.”

  Anderson rang off, and Bruce put the phone back slowly on to its cradle, frowning to himself. Abruptly he caught sigh of Hudson drifting across the lower end of the hall.

  “Hudson—a moment.”

  The manservant silently approached. “Sir?”

  “That was Captain Anderson on the phone, as you’re aware. He tells me he has been trying to communicate either with me or Mrs. Langden for the past fortnight, without result. Is that correct?”

  Hudson hesitated imperceptibly. “That is correct, sir.”

  “But surely you told my wife that he was on the phone?”

  “I—er—was given instructions that she was not to be disturbed, sir.”

  Bruce looked at the manservant searchingly, and he seemed to very slightly flinch.

  “You mean,” Bruce said deliberately, “that you allowed Captain Anderson to keep ringing up and did not once inform the mistress?”

  “I had my instructions, sir, and endeavoured to carry them out.”

  “I appreciate that, but it seems to me you put too literal an interpretation on the matter. My wife could never have meant that she was not to be disturbed all the time.”

  Hudson was silent, plainly ill at ease. There was relief in his hatchet-face as Bruce, with a jerk of the head, dismissed him. Then he returned into the dining room.

  “Well?” Verona glanced towards him, smiling brightly. “What did Jack want?”

  “Chiefly to know where you and I have been in the last fortnight. He rang up several times.”

  Verona shrugged. “I gave Hudson orders that I wasn’t to be disturbed. Didn’t matter who it was.”

  “I see. Suppose it had been me?” Bruce sat down again at the table.

  “You would have been the exception, only I felt pretty sure you wouldn’t ring.”

  “Jack Anderson,” Bruce said deliberately, “is too dear a friend of ours to be brushed off like that. Quite frankly, Verry, I find it hard to credit that you were brooding alone all the time.”

  “What else do you suppose I was doing?”

  “No idea. Things just don’t ring true somehow.”

  Verona gave a very direct look. “There are times, Bruce, when I think you have a very suspicious nature.”

  He smiled rather tautly. “It’s not that. It’s simply that I feel it’s part of my duty to keep a constant eye on you. You are not well versed in our laws even yet, and I never know what you might do next.”

  Verona got to her feet abruptly, her eyes flashing. “Well, thanks very much! Because I choose to have a fortnight entirely to myself, you conjure up all sorts of dark notions, is that it?”

  She did not wait to hear the answer to her question. Instead she stalked angrily from the room and slammed the door behind her. Bruce compressed his lips and looked moodily at his half-finished meal. Hudson, who had evidently observed Verona’s swift departure, came in quietly to clear what remained of her meal. Bruce eyed him for a moment or two, then put his thoughts into words.

  “Hudson, I have every respect for your integrity, and you have been an excellent servant since you came here.”<
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  “Thank you, sir. I do my utmost.”

  “Then tell me something. What did my wife do in the fortnight whilst I was away? Did she stay in her room all the time? Day and night?”

  Hudson was silent, apparently trying to make up his mind over something.

  “Out with it, man!” Bruce snapped, getting up. “I am the master of this house, remember, not my wife. You know as well as I do that she isn’t used to our ways, and that demanded I keep a constant watch on her. Was she in her room throughout the fortnight?”

  “No, sir.” Hudson seemed relieved. “She was not even in the house.”

  “What!” Bruce stared blankly.

  “I am rather glad you have pressed the point to an issue, sir. I dislike having to keep up a deception, because I have respect for you as a world explorer as well as being my employer, and I—”

  “Come to the point, man! About my wife!”

  “Well, sir, she left here two hours after you had departed for Scotland and she only returned yesterday, knowing, of course, that you would be back today. Before she left she gave me a—er—certain monetary consideration and the instruction that I was to say she was not to be disturbed.”

  “I—see. You have no idea where she went during that time, Hudson?”

  “No idea at all, sir.” Hudson waited for a moment, then the telephone again rang in the hall, and he went out. After a moment his voice broke in on Bruce’s troubled thoughts.

  “The Evening Echo would like a word with you, sir.”

  Evening Echo? What the devil could they want? Bruce wandered out to the phone and picked it up.

  “Yes? Bruce Langden speaking.”

  “Oh, good evening, Mr. Langden. We’d just like an exclusive from you if we can. This is the city editor speaking.”

  “Exclusive? Concerning what?”

  “Your private jet—the one in which you made the expedition to South America. Is there any truth in the rumour that you secretly made another flight, or isn’t that for publication?”

  With an effort Bruce tried to make himself think clearly.

  “Secret flight? What on earth are you talking about, man? There’s been no attempt to make any trips since we returned from South America, nor will there be until everything is planned out neat and tidy. Where did this rumour spring from?”

  “Er—” The city editor hesitated; then: “Your plane is in the hangar where you left it after the return from South America. That right?”

  “Quite right. In the city centre.”

  “Yes—but about a fortnight ago your plane took off from that hangar, and it returned yesterday evening. Couldn’t be any mistake about either occurrence, because it was witnessed by ground crews and many members of the public. I tried in the last fortnight to get in touch with you, without success, so of course no news was printed. But since your plane came back yesterday I think it’s time you satisfied public curiosity. You’re a very famous man, Mr. Langden.”

  Bruce stood thinking, looking straight before him.

  “I said you’re a—”

  “Yes, yes, I heard you,” Bruce interrupted. “Just give me a little while—an hour maybe—and I’ll ring you back. There’s something I must straighten out concerning this business, but I can tell you right now that I personally had nothing to do with such a flight. I’ll look into it.”

  “Very well, sir, I’ll wait on you—but we must have some kind of answer quickly.”

  Bruce put the phone down and, grim-faced, hurried up the staircase and into the bedroom. Verona was seated at the broad window, gazing out into the gathered twilight. She turned briefly as Bruce entered.

  “I want a word with you,” he said bluntly, and dragging up a chair he sat down beside her.

  “Well?” Her queer eyes with their now enormously distended pupils gazed at him dispassionately. She was now in one of those moods when he felt he did not know her, when the alien barrier between their different cultures had dropped.

  “In the past fortnight the plane has been used,” Bruce said deliberately. “Only the members of the expedition know the code of the hangar lock and how to control the vessel. Jack Anderson certainly didn’t use the machine because he’s been ringing up here. In the fortnight I was away you were not in this house. I have that information from Hudson.”

  Verona’s lips tightened slightly, and Bruce was not slow to notice the fact.

  “You left here the day I went to Scotland and returned yesterday. I’ll make one guess: you went somewhere in the plane.”

  Long silence. Verona stirred restlessly. That immense vitality she had seemed to possess earlier in the evening had vanished now.

  “All right, I did,” she admitted at last. “I hired a pilot to fly me there and back. Nothing wrong in it, is there? I’m as much a member of the expedition as the rest of you are, and I have my own money after the sale of some of my people’s artefacts I brought with me.”

  “Certainly you are, but why couldn’t you tell me? I could even have flown you myself.”

  “I couldn’t see that it was really necessary that I should, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

  Bruce drummed his fingers on his knees. “I suppose I’ll have to put that down to ignorance of our ways. The fact remains you—or at least the plane—was seen both going and returning. No news of it has leaked out yet, which is one reason why I didn’t know about it. But the press wants the facts. What am I supposed to tell them?”

  Verona shrugged. “The truth, I suppose. In that time I flew to South America and back. I had to—I was so desperately homesick I couldn’t stand it any longer. I couldn’t see that it mattered. Had I told you beforehand what I intended doing, you’d have flown the plane, or had Jack Anderson do it. I didn’t want that. I wanted to get my tangled thoughts straightened out a bit. I didn’t have long to stay with my own people, of course, but it was enough to satisfy me. Then I came back.”

  Bruce relaxed slowly and then smiled. His arm stole about Verona’s shoulders and drew her to him.

  “I’m sorry, Verry,” he muttered. “I’m too damned impulsive, that’s what it is—and too suspicious. But it’s only because I love you so much. Nothing wrong in what you did: entirely understandable. I’ll tell the press it was just an experiment. Anything as long as you are contented and happy.”

  “I’d be happier,” Verona whispered, “if we could go back to our villa in France. I know it’s quiet, but—well, somehow I’d prefer it. You didn’t sell it, did you?”

  “No. I thought we’d need it—sometime. You’re sure about this?”

  Verona nodded, and Bruce remained silent. Though he was willing to do anything she wanted, he did find the thought of a return to that lonely villa inordinately depressing....

  Verona did not return downstairs again that evening. Bruce finally left her, still at the window, and re-contacted the Evening Echo. His brief explanation that his wife had made a flying visit to assuage home-sickness was taken with some disbelief by the city editor, but since that was the story, it was up to him to print it, without trimmings.

  By the time he had dealt with this, Bruce discovered it was not far from midnight, so he returned upstairs—to find Verona already in bed, and apparently asleep. Before long he, too, was dozing, to awaken again abruptly in the dead of night.

  Everything was deathly still with only the pale ghost of moonlight to diffuse the shadows. He lay still for a moment or two, wondering what had awakened him—then as he turned his head it dawned on him that Verona was missing. Her twin bed next to his was empty. Instantly he was awake and struggling into his dressing gown. Scuffing into his slippers he hurried from the room and down the broad corridors of the great house, switching on the lights as he went. He did not call Verona by name for fear of awakening the domestics. This, he felt, was a matter that he alone must deal with.

  Upstairs, Verona was nowhere to be found. Bruce hurried down the staircase, and the front door swinging open told its own story. He hurried out int
o the warmth of the summer night and looked about him anxiously, almost immediately catching sight of two dim figures a little way down the drive and apparently seated on the grass at one side of it.

  “Verry!” Bruce called urgently, as he hurried forward. “Is it you, Verry?”

  It was. She got to her feet slowly and, as he came nearer, Bruce could see she was still in her night attire with a robe sashed about it and her masses of dark hair flowing free. Her eyes looked enormous in the moonlight, and lent her an ethereal aspect. But there was nothing ethereal about the figure that arose beside her. With inward amazement Bruce instantly recognised the big, burly frame of Jack Anderson.

  “Bet this looks pretty bad, eh?” Anderson grinned, holding out his hand.

  “That’s an understatement,” Bruce retorted, keeping his own hand at his side. “What’s the idea of this, Verry? Or don’t you know it’s not far from three o’clock?”

  She gave that little shrug of hers. “I couldn’t sleep. Too many things disturbing my mind. I heard somebody banging on the front door, so I went down to investigate, since you and the servants were asleep.”

  “And found Jack? At this hour?” Bruce could not keep the scorn out of his voice.

  “Queer though it may seem, yes,” Jack Anderson snapped. “I know it’s an unconventional hour, but then I’m an unconventional fellow.”

  “So it seems!”

  “Hear me out, can’t you? You promised to ring me back about our having a get-together, but nothing happened. So I decided to stroll along and see for myself. I didn’t leave the Aero-Club until around half-past two, and I know your sleeping hours are pretty erratic anyway. So I took the chance. That Verry happened to open the door wasn’t my fault. We strolled down the drive and talked.”

  Bruce was silent, all the old sense of suspicion and jealousy devouring him. He had never been able to forget that Jack Anderson had been his greatest rival for Verona’s hand.

  “That’s the truth,” Verona said simply. “Anything wrong with it? Or don’t you trust your best friend?”

  “Obviously,” Bruce said, “you have still a lot to learn in regard to our conventions, Verry. Get in the house.”