Last Conflict

by John Russell Fearn

  “But, Bruce, I was—”

  “Get in!” Bruce commanded, and at that she turned reluctantly and drifted away up the drive, a dim ghost of a girl with her hair and raiment flowing. Bruce swung, looking at Anderson’s dogged face in the moonlight.

  “You’re a damned suspicious devil, aren’t you?” Anderson demanded. “I’d never have thought it of you!”

  “That cuts both ways! Verona is my wife, Jack, and if you must see her make it at a decent hour next time! And I’d much prefer that there never is a next time! Good night!”

  Bruce did not stay to see the effect of his words. He went back into the house, closed the door quietly, and then caught up with Verona in the bedroom. She was seated in the chair by the window, crying softly to herself.

  “Now what?” Bruce demanded brutally.

  “Nothing...except that I wish you didn’t distrust me so! There was nothing wrong in seeing Jack!”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. It just so happens, Verry, that there are some things that just aren’t done—and meeting an ex-lover at three in the morning on the driveway is one of them.”

  “I didn’t ask him to come, did I?”

  “I wouldn’t know. He says not—but I wouldn’t put anything past Jack.”

  Inwardly Bruce wondered why he said such a thing. He could only put it down to the insane jealousy that was consuming him. Before knowing Verona he would have trusted Jack Anderson with his life....

  Then Verona got up slowly and, still weeping gently to herself, tumbled back into bed and remained there, her shoulders quivering at intervals. Bruce looked at her in the moonlight, muttered something under his breath, then returned to his own bed.

  “You had the best idea of any when you said we should go back to France,” he growled. “At least it will put a stop to this kind of monkey-business.”

  But just the same, the return to the French villa could not be accomplished immediately. There were things to be done in London first—as far as Bruce was concerned—particularly in regard to selling this city residence that he had been at pains to acquire.

  “It may take a day or so to finish up my affairs in the city,” Bruce said, at breakfast next morning. “Once that’s done, we’ll be on our way.”

  Verona did not reply. Pale and ghostly she sat at the other side of the table, lost in her thoughts. That brief mood of gaiety she had possessed the previous evening had utterly gone. She was again the despondent, cheerless, washed-out creature that impetuous Bruce found so difficult to understand.

  “Did you hear what I said?” he asked deliberately, after a while.

  “I heard. When you’re ready to go, I am.”

  “All right. In the meantime, whilst I have to be absent, don’t get up to any tricks. You don’t know enough yet about our ways to be left to your own devices.”

  Verona gave one look, and it had such scorn in it that he felt himself writhe. He knew he must sound unnecessarily harsh, but most of it was engendered by his fear of losing her. Deep down there was nobody he loved more than Verona, and the very thought of Jack Anderson muscling in made him bristle.

  It was towards ten o’clock when Bruce left the house in his sports car to make the necessary arrangements in the city for the disposal of his house. This, together with a few business calls, kept him occupied until towards noon, at which time his thoughts turned towards lunch. No use going home and driving back to the city centre, for he had still a few things to finish off.

  Rather than use his car in the congested city streets he walked the distance to the Owl Café, one of his favourite haunts, but it was just as he was passing the end of one of the multitudinous side streets that he noticed something. He saw it, went a few paces, and then realised what he had seen. He went back to make sure and from a distance found himself looking at Captain Jack Anderson’s enormous red sports car. It was on the point of halting at the kerb, its exhausts purring. Then it came to a stop.

  Bruce watched, that old tide of suspicion sweeping back over him. He found himself becoming rigid as from the car there stepped Anderson himself, then a slim, golden girl with ebon hair. That it was Verona there was no doubt. There was no other woman quite like her.

  Bruce, his eyes narrowed, waited until the pair had vanished in the doorway opposite the car, then he idled forward to investigate. The place was an exclusive restaurant, such as abound in the city centre. And Jack Anderson and Verona were together—again!

  What happened to him then Bruce was not quite sure. He did not stop to reason the thing out. Instead he plunged straight across the road, through the sumptuous open doorway and into the midst of the soft-carpeted, low-lighted expanse, nearly bowling over an immaculate waiter in his cyclonic entry. There were few diners, but those who were present stared in amazement at this sudden intrusion in the opulence,

  Bruce ignored them and brought up short at the table where Verona and Jack Anderson had only just seated themselves.

  “Well, if it isn’t Bruce!” Anderson exclaimed cordially, getting to his feet. “Quite a—”

  He was going to say ‘coincidence’ but the next thing he knew he was crashing backwards into the next table—fortunately empty—his mouth salty with blood and his head spinning.

  “Bruce!” Verona cried, horrified.

  “Out you get!” he said curtly, gripping her arm fiercely. “There’s going to be no more of this!”

  “But Bruce, I was only—”

  Bruce did not give the girl a chance to explain. He gripped even more savagely, gave a brief glance back towards Anderson as he struggled to his feet, and then bundled the girl out ahead of him through the open doorway. From the restaurant there were amazed stares.

  “For heaven’s sake, you madman, let me go!” Verona insisted, trying to drag free. “What in the world’s come over you?”

  “Common sense, if anything. Jack Anderson’s playing the game a bit too freely for my liking! In you get!”

  Verona struggled and protested, but against Bruce she was powerless. He bundled her into his racer, slid in beside her, and then slammed the door. In a matter of seconds his ideas of lunch forgotten, he was weaving into the midst of the city traffic and. rather to his surprise, there was no sign of Anderson’s red sports car following in the rear.

  “Very clever,” Bruce said at length, with a bitter glance towards the silent, pale-faced girl. “The moment my back’s turned off you go with Anderson again! Can’t you get it through your head that you’re married to me—not him!”

  “Even a married woman can have men friends—and does!” Verona retorted hotly. “I’ve learned that much about your laws, anyhow!”

  “Oh, so it’s just a friendship!” Bruce sneered. “Sneaking down back streets into classy restaurants, into one where there wasn’t the remotest chance of my finding you, except by coincidence—which in this case came off.”

  “There was no sneaking about it. Jack called not ten minutes after you’d gone this morning, and finding me all alone, he did what any decent friend would do and asked me out to dinner. If you think that was arranged, think again! He couldn’t possibly have known that you’d be in town on business.”

  True enough, he couldn’t have known—but Bruce saw no reason to admit the fact, even to himself. He was firmly obsessed with the idea that something was going on between Verona and Jack Anderson, and it had got to be stopped.

  “Anyway, it won’t happen again,” he snapped. “We’re leaving for France by the five o’clock plane and with luck we’ll be at the villa by late this evening. And if Jack turns up again, I’ll break his blasted neck.”

  Verona glanced. “You’ve finished all your city business, then?”

  “Everything needful. Other odds and ends can wait. It’s you I’ve got to keep my eye on!”

  Verona relaxed and said no more, but there seemed to be something pretty close to tears in her eyes. Bruce noticed them when he stole an occasional look at her during driving, but he did not soften his attitude one
fraction. Ruled by insane jealousy as he was, he just could not consider the situation impartially. His love for Verona was of the fiercely possessive type, which set everything else at naught.

  Once they arrived home again he wasted no time in booking seats on the five o’clock plane for Southern France. That done, he had his belated lunch, then got the servants to work with the packing. All the time, through the remainder of the afternoon, he expected Jack Anderson to turn up and say his piece, but there was no sign of him. This more than ever satisfied Bruce that Anderson was in the wrong and evidently was not going to commit himself—unless of course he intended later to bring an action for assault.

  Whatever the machinations behind the scenes, Bruce kept to his original plan, and he and Verona were on the five p.m. plane—and, as he had hoped, the airport taxi brought them to their closed villa towards eight o’clock that same evening. As he unlocked the front door Bruce looked about him on the warm calm of the summer evening. For miles there was nothing but an expanse of misty emptiness terminated eventually by the line of the sea.

  “Here perhaps,” Bruce said, “we’ll get a bit of peace! We ought never to have left it in the first place.”

  He held the door open, and without a word Verona went ahead of him. Once they were in the lounge, the soft lights switched on to dispel the advancing twilight, Bruce felt that Verona reminded him very much of a frightened child. Her great eyes were staring at him, and her face seemed unusually pale.

  “Even if you hadn’t suggested coming here I would have done,” he said. “You’ve a lot to learn, my dear, before I dare let you out into the world again. Should be plenty of time to do it here—no servants, no neighbours. Just ourselves. See what you can do to get a meal together whilst I take the bags upstairs.”

  Bruce picked the bags up and turned towards the door; then a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He looked back at the girl.

  “Come to think of it, just in case you decide to break away, or on the chance that Jack Anderson might guess we’re here and come after you, it might be a good idea to have the place guarded. I’ll ring up the local gendarmerie and see what I can do.”

  “I’m your wife, Bruce, not a prisoner!” Verona declared passionately.

  “That you’re my wife is something that you and Jack conveniently forget! I’m going to stop that right now.”

  Bruce went on his way into the hall and picked up the phone. With his world-famous reputation, he had no difficulty in fixing it with the local prefect of police to have a couple of guards to watch the villa. Bruce’s reasons sounded cogent enough—fear of burglary from those wanting to steal some of his valuable artefacts. Possibility of scientists trying to kidnap his wife for anthropological study— Yes, definitely. Two gendarmes would be sent immediately for night duty and two others would relieve them by day. Bruce smiled grimly to himself and went on his way up the staircase....

  * * * *

  In half an hour the gendarmes were in position outside the villa, well concealed. When Bruce told her of their arrival, Verona made no comment. Nor indeed did she say a word throughout the remainder of the evening. It made Bruce fume inwardly to be thus treated, even though he reflected inwardly that he probably deserved it. He could not understand whether the girl was being deliberately sulky or whether she was once again reverting to that mysterious apathy which had possessed her before he had suggested she should move to city life.

  In any event, the evening closed without her saying a word, and still without commenting she retired to bed. When Bruce went upstairs half an hour later he could not be sure whether she was asleep or not. Either way she did not say anything to him.

  Verona was not asleep, anything but. She lay motionless until she was reasonably satisfied that Bruce had dozed off, then she very silently slid out of her own bed on the far side and quietly donned robe and slippers. Without making a sound she glided out of the room, closed the door gently, the hurried swiftly along the corridor and down the staircase.

  The moment she opened the front door the shadow figures of the gendarmes loomed. They both saluted respectfully in the starlight.

  “A lovely night, officers,” Verona said lightly. “To lovely to sleep. It is a night for walking.”

  “Oui, madame,” one of the officers agreed, but he seemed to hesitate. So Verona moved gracefully towards him.

  “Can I persuade you two gentlemen to say nothing to my husband if I take a stroll?” she asked gently. “Then perhaps, afterwards, I shall be able to sleep.”

  Without waiting for the answer Verona began to move on her way, but to her surprise her arm was grasped and the gendarme looked down upon her seriously.

  “With regret, madame,” he said, in awkward English. “Your husband insisted nobody enter villa—and nobody leave. Not even you, madame!”

  “What!” Verona gazed in anger. “You mean to tell me even I cannot—”

  “Orders, madame. Please do not make it difficult for us.”

  There was more than anger in Verona’s eyes now: it was very near consternation, but just the same she had the sense to realise that the gendarmes would use force if necessary. So, controlling herself as best she could, she returned to the villa and closed the front door. On re-entering the room she paused for a moment, aware of Bruce standing in his dressing gown beside the window. Though the lights were not on his silhouette was plain enough.

  “Wandering around again, eh?” he asked dryly. “I’ll bet you didn’t get far, either!”

  “Just what sort of a woman do you think I am?” Verona demanded angrily, striding across to him. “How dare you keep me a prisoner in my own home?”

  “Our home, Verry. I’m as much entitled to it as you are.... I’m not keeping you a prisoner. I’m simply protecting you from the attentions of the unwanted. There’s a moral code existing in our society and you’re going to learn it, even if it’s the hard way!”

  “All I wanted to do was go for a walk in the night! What’s wrong with that?”

  “Of itself, nothing, only the unfortunate fact is that I don’t trust you to let it end there. For all I know you may have some secret arrangement with Jack Anderson—or even some other man for all I know—and I’m not taking the risk. Until I am sure that you have the right idea about our conventions, you’ll remain in this villa, and nobody will see you unless I’m present.”

  Verona clenched her fists. “You’ll regret it, Bruce—How you’ll regret it! If you won’t allow me freedom to go outside, I’ll—”

  “Well, what?” Bruce asked coldly.

  Verona did not answer. She turned away, and there was a curious droop to her shoulders. It struck Bruce transiently that her reaction to being held a virtual prisoner was more profound than he had expected, but that still did not make him yield. He was determined to jealously guard Verona, to the death if need be.

  So resolute was his decision he did not attempt to go to bed again. He remained on a semi-dozing sentry duty, ready to act if the girl showed signs of trying to escape somehow—but she made no attempt to do so. She slept fitfully and awoke with the dawn, a look of utter and haggard desperation on her elfin face. It was so abject even Bruce was inwardly disturbed.

  “If you must go out, if only for exercise, I’ll come with you,” he volunteered. “That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

  All he got was a faraway look, as though Verona did not even see him. It was not contempt, or hatred: it was something he could not fathom. He muttered something to himself and stalked from the room to prepare for shaving....

  Since there were no servants present, Verona herself got the breakfast together, but she ate hardly anything. Most of the time throughout the meal she sat with her chin on her hand, her peculiar eyes looking through Bruce with an unnerving stare.

  “Oh, for heavens’ sake!” he exploded at last. “Let’s go and take a walk, then maybe you’ll stop sulking!”

  “If anything happens to me, Bruce,” Verona said in a remote kind of voice. “you’
ll be entirely responsible.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that if I am not allowed freedom to wander as I choose, I shall die. It’s as simple as that. There’s a biological reason why I must have freedom.”

  “Very unconvincing,” Bruce growled. “Your people are no different to ours, except in a few physical points. That excuse won’t work, Verona.”

  She shrugged. “Very well. Don’t say I haven’t warned you!”

  After which she closed up into one of those utter silences of hers, and Bruce did not know what to think. He was pretty sure she was up to some kind of subterfuge, but on the other hand she did look ghostly and strange, as though she was somehow mysteriously wasting away. Just because she couldn’t wander about alone? Ridiculous!

  The morning, crushing in its silence, passed slowly. Bruce wandered in and out of the villa in the bright sunlight, and the day-duty gendarmes eyed him respectfully. Verona remained in the lounge, sprawled on the divan, staring into space. Since she made no effort to remove the breakfast traces, Bruce finally did it himself, his temper by no means sweet.

  When it came to lunch Verona refused it—and the same thing happened again in the evening after Bruce had spent an infuriating afternoon devising something for the evening meal.

  “What’s the idea?” he asked bluntly. “Going on a hunger strike because I won’t let you go out? It would be more to the point if you’d look after the domestic details instead of mooning the hours away on that divan!”

  “Be still more to the point if you’d get the servants back,” Verona responded, breaking silence at last. “The same ones we had before.... As for the hunger strike conception, it isn’t that. I just cannot eat until I’ve taken a walk—”

  “Outside and alone!” Bruce finished for her, nodding grimly. “Well you’re not doing, so forget it!”

  Silence. Verona relaxed again on the divan, her face deathly pale and one arm dangling limply so her fingers just touched the carpet. In spite of himself, Bruce was troubled. In one way she seemed to be ill: in another she might be capable of clever acting. No! He set his jaw. This issue had to be fought out to a finish. Verona had to realise, even by suffering if necessary, that he was the absolute master of their union.