Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 38

He rose, and lifting Melchard's legs, made him lie at full length along the seat farthest from the engine and the motor-cyclists. Next, he drew down the little corner-blinds of each window, leaving the door-blinds up; then sat down again resuming his att.i.tude of abstraction.

In the silence which followed Amaryllis watched him until confidence crept into her unawares, and she found herself becoming sleepily interested in smaller matters than life and death. She did not believe any longer that anyone could prevail against "Limping d.i.c.k."

She smiled to herself over the strange figure he cut, forgetting her own.

His bulging pockets amused her into trying to remember all the things he had stowed away in them.

The newest seemed to be an oily piece of cotton rag, sticking out from the side pocket of his Norfolk jacket, which looked already, since she had seen it first, three years older.

At last she spoke.

"Is the little plot finished?" she asked.

"Very nearly," he replied

"And is it decorous in episode, cheerful in tone, and forcible in moral tendency?"

"All these it is, and more."

"Then--please, sir, I have a question to ask."

"Ask, maiden," said d.i.c.k.

"I want to know why you keep that filthy cloth in your pocket."

"And why this sudden curiosity about a trifle?" His hand felt the thing as if he had forgotten it.

"Because," said Amaryllis, "I can't possibly sit closer to you if you don't throw it away."

d.i.c.k rose, taking the bundle carefully from his pocket.

"It's a curio--a relic. I'll show it you some day," he said, laying it in a corner of the rack.

"Not now?"

"Not now."

And then there came over his face an expression of mixed humour and triumph.

"By the bloomin' idol made of mud!" he cried, "you've given me the climax. It makes the story more moral than ever."

And he murmured, as if only for himself: "Which side, O Bud! Which side?"

A little later he put up both windows.

"It'll be awfully hot," said Amaryllis.

"Let's be absolutely silent for a bit," said d.i.c.k. "With our ears to the part.i.tion, we might hear something."

With intense concentration, they listened for several minutes.

"It's no good," said d.i.c.k at last. "Talking, talking all the time, but the train makes too much row, and the padding's too thick."

"I heard something," said the girl. "Not words--but the different tones of two voices, arguing. One wants to do something, and the other doesn't. He's afraid, I think."

"M'm!" grunted d.i.c.k.

"The brave one's here--with his back to me. He's strong and heavy, I think, because his voice is growly, and he sits back hard now and then, and I can feel the part.i.tion bulge a little. And then--he keeps fiddling with something that clicks."

"Clicks? How? Like the hammer of an empty gun?" asked d.i.c.k, puzzled.

The girl leaned forward and touched the spring lock of the carriage door.

"No. Heavier than a pistol. Clicky and thumpy, like this lock if you pull it and let go."

d.i.c.k's face beamed with satisfaction.

"Don't touch it--I know," he said. "I suppose you'll be wanting half the proceeds, and your name as part author."

"What on earth d'you mean, d.i.c.k?"

"Collaboration. You've completed the plot."

He changed his seat to face her from the opposite corner; looked at his watch, and thereafter gazed steadily from the window with down-bent eyes for so long that Amaryllis grew bored and nervous.

"Two minutes to do a mile," he said at last, having again looked at his watch. "It's fifteen minutes since we left Harthborough--seven miles and a half. That's another seven and a half to go--Todsmoor's the station, I think. They'll try it on within five minutes, or give it up. What did you do with that snoring beast's automatic?"

Amaryllis thrust her hand deep into the Brundage pocket, rummaging.

"What an awful pouch!" he exclaimed.

"It is a bottomless pit, certainly. But it's much discreeter than yours are, d.i.c.k. They bulge so interestingly, and make you an awfuller sight than all the rest of your funny things together," she replied, laughing at him.

Successful at last, she produced the Browning pistol which Melchard had surrendered on the Roman road. "But it b.u.mped horribly when I walked--and it _would_ always knock the same place on my knee. Oh, d.i.c.k, shall we ever get into clothes that'll feel nice again?"

"To-night, damsel, shalt thou sleep in fine linen, and to-morrow, so it please you, shalt fare homeward in thy father's chariot, leaving in that progress a ravaged Marshall and Snelgrove, an eviscerated Lewis, and the house of Harrod but a warehouse of mourning."

Softly he let down both windows, fearing gla.s.s little less than bullets.

"Sit there," he said, pointing to the corner opposite to Melchard's head; and, when she was seated, gave her back the pistol.

"If anything comes, cover it with that."

"But, d.i.c.k--," she faltered, "I know I'm silly, but I--I don't want to kill anybody. I'm afraid."

"P'r'aps they'll funk it. But I've an idea they're more afraid of him--if they know we've got him--than of us." He glanced at Melchard, and then out of the window.

The train was running on an embankment with steep, gra.s.sy sides--not a house nor a highway in sight.