"I was directed after him there, from the house. He has been staying with relations at the address we had. A Mrs. and Miss Fleming—mother and daughter; and some sort of invisible uncle. The Copping I have just written to is a friend of the family, living somewhere in the village itself. He and the daughter may be engaged. You are to see him and the girl later."
"Whom did you talk to at the house?"
"The mother. She hinted at an obstruction on Drapier's part, so I wasted no time, but went after him; and found him dead."
"But an obstruction!"
"Your stone must have begun to fascinate him."
"One wonders how, Saltfleet. … Yet his strange behaviour has certainly pointed to an obsession. And your response to this hint from her, was it friendly, or did you permit yourself?"
"Perhaps I did, a very little. I had to make clear to her that we were in earnest."
"No threats?"
Saltfleet laughed. "None that should bring me to the dock!"
"You must know what I have in mind. You will have to give evidence at the inquest, will you not? Then, if there is to be the least ambiguity as to the meaning of your presence on that hill, you must necessarily be rather closely examined. And such a professional examination may just suffice to attract notice in high quarters; when the international trouble for us will begin. We cannot keep too quiet. Are you sure that you have gone about this business wisely, Saltfleet? You appear to have antagonised one, and to have put yourself within the hands of two or three others."
"A big cheque will cover a multitude of small deficits!" rejoined Saltfleet enigmatically. And Arsinal gave him a sharp look to discover his meaning; but simultaneously breakfast was served.
They moved to the table. No other guests were down so early; perhaps they were the hotel's only ones, and soon the waiter went from the room.
"You were to meet him personally," pursued Arsinal in his low, incisive voice. "Why need you have embarked on this affair at all with Mrs.—Fleming, I think you mentioned as the name?"
"These blunders seem fated. If I hadn't done so, I could never have followed Drapier to Devil's Tor, and what was in his fist up there might have been thrown out and lost for ever."
"That, I see, may be very true."
"Another consequence has been my acquaintance with the daughter, initiating yours, for which you should presently thank me."
"Why so?"
"For one thing, she is a girl of great character and intelligence. But her, too, we must leave till afterwards. Are you at all intimate with this district, Arsinal?"
"No, I have never been here before."
"It was a question of hers."
Arsinal ended his pretence of eating. He sat back in silence, thoughtfully regarding his companion's face.
"Who is the legal executor, Saltfleet—do you know?"
"Mrs. Fleming is, so I understand."
"Where is Drapier housed?"
"He is lying in an annex here."
"And when will be the inquest?"
"Perhaps to-morrow."
When Saltfleet was ready, the two passed upstairs.
Arsinal stared quickly and hard at the flint the other had dropped into his hand. He sat down with it, twisted it about repeatedly, and then brought out a pocket-magnifier. Through this he narrowly examined every surface of the stone. And all the time, Saltfleet, standing by, saw that his expression was falling from eager expectancy to interrogation, from interrogation to bewilderment, and from bewilderment to dismay, terminating with a sort of resigned scorn for what he held and at last mechanically set down on the table beside him, while returning the glass to his pocket. He met Saltfleet's eye.
"It isn't mine."
"Then Miss Fleming's assertion was correct. But what makes you sure?"
In the shock and newness of his disappointment, Arsinal scarcely heard the words, to draw fresh hope from their tone and sense. He took the stone up again, but replaced it immediately, afterwards wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, and getting unsteadily to his feet. Straightening his back twice or thrice according to his habit, he finally reaffirmed in a quiet voice:
"You have recovered the wrong thing."
"Is it certain?"
"Yes. … Though you were not to know, and the mistake is pardonable. And so mine must still be among Drapier's effects, and I must get round there quickly."
"Will you indicate to me where the difference lies?"
"The differences are very marked. The shapes are unlike. If you would bisect a rather long hen's egg, mine would resemble its broad end, this its narrow." For the third time he took the stone in his hand. …"Then the fracture surface of mine has a convex tendency; this, you may see for yourself, is towards a concave. And the discoloration of the worn surface—here the pale predominates so very distinctly, whereas in mine there is little pale at all. The surfaces have been exposed to different actions. … Be quite sure that I was meticulously careful to stamp the smallest details of mine very thoroughly on my memory for future identification. The precaution was especially dictated by the circumstance that it was immediately to pass out of my hands again. You may really receive it from me, Saltfleet, that there can be no dispute on the point. There is a superficial resemblance—possibly too close to be accidental. Drapier must have procured this fragment for the purpose of deceiving me."
"So I thought. Only, it was the other that I believed to be the fraud. However, now that you have had a first look at it, all this is merely preliminary. Now I want you to study the fracture in darkness. … I will draw the curtains, while you might turn your back a shade more to the window. The idea is to cut off all the light from it you can. Stare steadily down on the broken surface for about two minutes. You didn't see this before?"
Arsinal threw him a swift glance.
"This has a property?"
"Unless my eyes have deceived me."
He pulled the curtains to meet. Outside was still the fog, and the light of the room was effectually obscured.
"Last night, for my sins, I had more than enough time for it!"
"Say what I must expect, Saltfleet."
"I want the independent confirmation."
And while Arsinal sat bent to his task of peering for he knew not what, the other stood over him, erect and looking away, his spirit composed to patience, as though he had been a tutor awaiting the laboured performance of some too-familiar crude exercise.
Thus the two minutes crawled by for him; yet long before then the compound of the archaeologist's trained quick perception and fine interpretative understanding had enabled him to discern as real, not optical merely, first the slow progress across the flint's face of the massing and scattering clouds, and next, beneath all that, those infinitely tiny sisters of stars, conveying no idea of magnitude, but merely of fixity and scintillation. … When, however, he had sufficiently satisfied himself of this first actual character of the vision, he would indulge his risen feelings no more as at that time, for now he knew that very urgent matters awaited him outside—of interrogation, discussion, and practical action.
He got up, and Saltfleet threw back the curtains.
"Is it good, Arsinal?"
"Yes. I got it."
"And do you still insist the thing is not yours?"
Arsinal slipped the stone into his pocket. Then he stood gripping the edge of the table, as if he needed its support.
"I think you must be anticipating my answer. You have tried me purposely—a little unkindly, perhaps, Saltfleet!"
"I wished it from your own lips. This, you would say, though not yours, is as good as yours?"
"You cannot be ignorant what it is you have put into my hands."
Saltfleet turned his back, to draw a cigar from his case, bite off its end, and eject it into the empty grate. He lit the cigar, afterwards facing Arsinal again.
"Miss Fleming is the one to be thanked," he said. "The inspiration has been hers."
"The counterpart—mine—is still at that
house?"
"Yes."
"I would give much to learn how Drapier contrived to procure this as well."
"The supposition is that he picked it up in a prehistoric tomb on Devil's Tor—opened by the crashing of its covering pile during a thunderstorm on Tuesday of the present week, and re-closed, presumably for ever, by an earth shock on the following day. Yesterday Drapier met his fate, and still Friday is only beginning. If Miss Fleming is inclined to be superstitious about it all, it is little to be wondered at."
"But the finding it there is supposition only? It was not announced by Drapier?"
"No, but the girl—who, I think, is his cousin—has satisfied herself that it probably was so. The other was temporarily mislaid, and the theory is that he confounded this with that, and never knew he had two."
"However it may be, it is clearly destiny. … Is she aware of the inherent strangeness of these stones?"
"I fancy she has not seen what we have, but with both of them she has heard a loud sound of rushing waters."
"Rushing waters! ... Yes, I begin to understand that I must meet her. And it was this that gave her the connection?"
"No doubt."
"And so she has handled both?"
"Yes, on different occasions. She came here last evening with Copping, to return me the stone they hold. Drapier left directions to that effect. But, imagining that I already had yours, I told them so."
"It continues available?" demanded Arsinal quickly.
"To you? That is just what is to be settled at the meeting you are attending. They very rightly maintain that you cannot claim both. Nevertheless, if you can show Miss Fleming your superior interest, it will do."
"It will not be hard—though it is a pity the need for this favour has arisen. It is a pity you could not somehow have secured both. Of course, you were not to have grasped the true facts of the case until too late. … Pray, Saltfleet, have the two been actually fitted?"
"No; theirs was left at home."
"Yet they came to return it."
"Miss Fleming forgot it."
"Is she so casual?"
"This is a very abnormal time for her."
"These coincident activities of Devil's Tor?"
"Yes—and Drapier’s death under intense circumstances. I was actually with her yesterday, while he must have been still alive and well, when she manifested a rather strong anxiety concerning his safety. She urged me after him."
"Then she should have the occult gift?"
"We may think so."
"She has impressed you generally, Saltfleet?"
"She will impress you too."
"It is she, not her mother, who will have the voice?"
"So she has said; and I believe her."
"What is her age, that she should already possess such a remarkable force of character?"
"Quite young. Twenty-two or three."
"And her appearance, Saltfleet?"
"She is beautiful."
"Since it seems I'm to conciliate her, won't you throw a little more light on her disposition and interests for me? What arguments should I use?"
"I can tell you at once. She requires you to show your superior supernatural right to the stone—that was in my pocket and now is in yours; though I would also mention, Arsinal, that I have not formally passed it to you. In case no agreement is struck, it goes back to them, in exchange for yours. … So if you can persuade her mystical fancy, you will get both. And my own view is that she is easily reasonable and persuadable, but no fool. She has, if I mistake not, a rather uncanny mental divining-rod for the ascertainment of the truth. Don't add to anything."
Arsinal meditated for several moments.
"My supernatural claim may be set forth thus," he said at last slowly. "I have not made you acquainted with the connecting circumstance before, but it is not now invented or exaggerated. Everything turns on just that encounter of ours with Drapier in Tibet. For it is he only who, having relations here, could have hit upon Devil's Tor, of all the heights of western Europe, almost by happy accident. And but for his running into us quite unexpectedly, he never would have left India so hurriedly, in order to escape our demand for the return of the flint entrusted to him; accordingly, he could not have reached this tomb in time to be at its brief opening. The hypothesis that it was found there—the counterpart flint—is her own, and therefore I shall not be called upon to labour it. You tell me the tomb is wrecked again, probably permanently. Therefore, if Drapier had not found the stone when he did, it must have remained buried throughout eternity; while I must have gone on burrowing painfully among the records and collections of the ancient world for the rest of my days.
"So our meeting in Tibet was from fate; and I have never yet told you in what manner it came about. Until now, its fateful character being unguessed by me, I have scarcely dwelt upon the extraordinariness of the intervention, even in my moments of idle dreaming. But just as you and I, Saltfleet, were thrown together by a psychic phenomenon, so Drapier and I were. … For, originally, it was my quite unwonted apathy and listlessness at Darjiling that arrested my penetration of Tibet by way of Nepal; and much later, after we were actually across the Ladak frontier and a considerable number of marches towards Alung, you remember, don't you? how in camp at Nyak-tso one evening we debated between two routes for the next day—the one easier, the other shorter—and at last agreed upon the longer and less difficult. But in the morning again, you will further recall, I insisted very emphatically on reversing the decision thus come to—to your expressed astonishment and not a little disgust, I fear. And had the original plan held, you know we must have missed Drapier, who proved to be within a couple of marches of us, approaching by the shorter route; whereas we were quite unaware of his presence in that part of the world at all, and indeed of his existence.
"Well, Saltfleet, would you care to hear what impelled me thus to change roads overnight? In a soul-startling dream, that was a vision, in the small hours, I saw a tall, shadowy, shrouded female form, standing somewhat removed outside our tent, having her back turned to me, and an arm outstretched before her, the hand's forefinger pointing away into the distance. The phantom was past human stature, but, apart from this, my trembling of horror certified to me that she was not of the world. And she pointed towards the spur crossed by the road we had agreed to reject.
"Hitherto I have not dared to entertain the theory that this apparition could be identical with the divine one of my boyhood. It was possible, yet there was no necessary association. I did not see her very distinctly—her back was turned, and she was also in shade. And still, you will consider that it is always a female—twice with me, and once with yourself ... This, Saltfleet, might nearly be my supernatural claim with Miss Fleming, should you find the story sufficiently credible. You could support its enclosing outline."
"Am I to say what I think, Arsinal?"
"Surely."
"Then the story is believable enough, and she may be perfectly prepared to concede your sincerity throughout, and all the same, the fete in it may not necessarily be appropriable by you."
Arsinal viewed his associate, with a slight wrinkling of his brow. Some indefinable new note of independence and challenge in Saltfleet's objection struck upon his ear like a very feint discord.
And so finely organised was his sensitive system that its small disturbance immediately became a thought; and the thought was this Miss Fleming must already and so soon be obtruding an alien influence upon a man he had always deemed quite insusceptible. … It was absurd, however; and Saltfleet could be no more than stating a positive standpoint rather roughly.
"If not by me, by whom?" he asked.
"You had better confess to her your practical aim in this life-long pursuit of yours. You have never told me. A sequence of visions occurring to a person merely for his own purposes, she might not consider an outside title."
Arsinal flushed.
"You have for some time wished to have this out with me, I fancy. … And
I appreciate your tact, Saltfleet, in leaving the question unasked for as long as it was essential for us to remain on terms together. Another man might perpetually have crucified me by attacks that I must have found impertinent; but I could not have invited your co-operation had I not felt you to be a gentleman. We should now be soon to part, and so you find that you may allow yourself at last. I still don't know if I can satisfy you."
"I have made no such request. We are discussing Miss Fleming's attitude."
"Then I apologise. … Nevertheless, she may not put it in just that form."
"I think she will. It is her whole case. She herself can find an interesting and instructive use for the stone in dispute. Are your aims more special?"
"It is hardly so vulgarly practical."
Arsinal began to pace the room in perturbed thought, his hands clasped behind his back. Then he came to a stand again before his friend.
"You are waiting, are you not? for an answer to your note sent round. When do you imagine this meeting will be?"
"Perhaps this morning, perhaps this afternoon."
"We appear to have only too much time on our hands, and I am wondering if I could attempt a sketch. If I am to open myself to this girl, Saltfleet, our long association deserves that I should first be as candid with you. Then, without a certain disloyalty, you could scarcely refuse to throw in your weight. … Yet I must add how little I ever expected that such a bribe would be necessary. I am convinced by my feelings that some change has taken place inside you since we parted at Oxford. You are perhaps becoming tired of the whole business? A new person, a new point of view, has corrected your vision of it. It no longer seems of importance... or your sympathies are rather suddenly transferred? I feel the advance of this cloud over our excellent relations hitherto. Not to suggest anything feeble or banal, is it that girl? Has she presented a view of ownership that happens to have caught your imagination? Tell me!"
"Far from getting tired of the business, it is just beginning really to interest me, Arsinal. The girl—yes! she does represent a new feature. Is there a change in me? There may be. But it would not be a transference of sympathies, but a broadening. An affair appears to be going on. Drapier was three times aimed at."
Devil's Tor Page 32
