The Man from Brodney's Part 12

"Leave 'em to me--leave 'em to me," exclaimed Britt impatiently. His lords.h.i.+p stiffened but could find no words for instant use. "Now let me tell you something. This lawyer of theirs is a smooth party. He's here to look out for their interests and they know it. It's not to their interest to a.s.sa.s.sinate you or to do any open dirty work. He is too clever for that. I've found out from Mr. Bowles just what the fellow has done since he landed, three days ago. He has gone over all of the company's accounts, in the office and at the mines, to see that we, as agents for the executors, haven't put up any job to mulct the natives out of their share of the profits. He has organised the whole population into a sort of constabulary to protect itself against any shrewd move we may contemplate. Moreover, he's getting the evidence of everybody to prove that Skaggs and Wyckholme were men of sound mind up to the hour of their death. He has the depositions of agents and dealers in Bombay, Aden, Suez and three or four European cities, all along that line. He goes over the day's business at the bank as often as we do as agents for the executors. He knows just how many rubies and sapphires were washed out yesterday, and how much they weigh. It's our business, as your agents, to sc.r.a.pe up everything as far back as we can go to prove that the old chaps were mentally off their base when they drew up that agreement and will. I think we've got a shade the best of it, even though the will looks good. The impulse that prompted it was a crazy one in the first place." He hesitated a moment and then went on carefully.

"Of course, if we can prove that insanity has always run through the two families it--"

"Good Lord!" gasped Browne nervously.

"--it would be a great help. If we can show that you and Mrs.--er--Lady Deppingham have queer spells occasionally, it--"

"Not for all the islands in the world," cried Lady Deppingham. "The idea! Queer spells! See here, Mr. Britt, if I have any queer spells to speak of, I won't have them treated publicly. If Lord Deppingham can afford to overlook them, I daresay I can, also, even though it costs me the inheritance to do so. Please be good enough to leave me out of the insanity dodge, as you Americans call it."

"Madam, G.o.d alone provides that part of your inheritance--" began Britt insistently, fearing that he was losing fair ground.

"Then leave it for G.o.d to discover. I'll not be a party to it. It's utter nonsense," she cried scathingly.

"Rubbis.h.!.+" a.s.serted Mr. Saunders boldly.

"What?" exclaimed Britt, turning upon Saunders so abruptly that the little man jumped, and immediately began to readjust his necktie.

"What's that? Look here; it's our only hope--the insanity dodge, I mean.

They've got to show in an English court that Skaggs and--"

"Let them show what they please about Skaggs," interrupted Bobby Browne, "but, confound you, I can't have any one saying that I'm subject to fits or spells or whatever you choose to call 'em. I don't have 'em, but even if I did, I'd have 'em privately, not for the benefit of the public."

"Is it necessary to make my husband insane in order to establish the fact that his grandfather was not of sound mind?" queried pretty Mrs.

Browne, with her calmest Boston inflection.

"It depends on your husband," said Britt coolly. "If he sticks at anything which may help us to break that will, he's certainly insane.

That's all I've got to say about it."

"Well, I'm hanged if I'll pose as an insane man," roared Browne.

"Mr. Saunders hasn't asked _me_ to be insane, have you, Mr. Saunders?"

asked Lady Agnes in her sweetest, scorn.

"I don't apprehend--" began Saunders nervously.

"Saunders," said Britt, calculatingly and evenly, "next thing we'll have to begin hunting for insanity in your family. We haven't heard anything from you on this little point, Lord Deppingham."

"I don't know anything about Mr. Saunders's family," said Deppingham stiffly. Britt looked at him for a moment, puzzled and uncertain. Then he gave a short, hopeless laugh and said, under his breath:

"Holy smoke!"

He immediately altered the course of the discussion and harked back to his original declaration that spies abounded in the chateau. When he finally called the conference adjourned and prepared to depart, he calmly turned to the stenographer.

"Did you get all this down, Miss Pelham?"

"Yes, Mr. Britt."

"Good!" Then he went away, leaving the quartette unconsciously depressed by the emphasis he placed upon that single word.

The next day but one, it was announced that the Enemy had moved into the bungalow. Signs of activity about the rambling place could be made out from the hanging garden at the chateau. It was necessary, however, to employ the binoculars in the rather close watch that was kept by the interested aristocrats below. From time to time the grey, blue or white-clad figure of the Enemy could be seen directing the operations of the natives who were engaged in rehabilitating Wyckholme's "nest."

The chateau was now under the very eye of the Enemy.

CHAPTER X

THE AMERICAN BAR

"You're wanted at the 'phone, Mr. Britt," said Miss Pelham. It was late in the evening a day or two afterward. Britt went into the booth. He was not in there long, but when he came out he found that Miss Pelham had disappeared. The coincidence was significant; Mr. Saunders was also missing from his seat on the window-sill at the far end of the long corridor. Britt looked his disgust, and muttered something characteristic. Having no one near with whom he could communicate, he boldly set off for the hanging garden, where Deppingham had installed the long-idle roulette paraphernalia. The quartette were placing prospective rubies and sapphires on the board, using gun-wads in lieu of the real article.

Britt's stocky figure came down through the maze of halls, across the vine-covered bridge and into the midst of a transaction which involved perhaps a hundred thousand pounds in rubies.

"Say," he said, without ceremony, "the Enemy's in trouble. Bowles just telephoned. There's a lot of excitement in the town. I don't know what to make of it."

"Then why the devil are you breaking in here with it?" growled Deppingham, who was growing to hate Britt with an ardour that was unmanageable.

"This'll interest you, never fear. There's been a row between Von Blitz and the lawyer, and the lawyer has unmercifully threshed Von Blitz. Good Lord, I'd like to have seen it, wouldn't you, Browne? Say, he's all right, isn't he?"

"What was it all about?" demanded Browne. They, were now listening, all attention.

"It seems that Von Blitz is in the habit of licking his wives," said Britt. "Bowles was so excited he could hardly talk. It must have been awful if it could get Bowles really awake."

"Miraculous!" said Deppingham conclusively.

"Well, as I get it, the lawyer has concluded to advance the American idiosyncrasy known as reform. It's a habit with us, my lady. We'll try to reform heaven if enough of us get there to form a club. Von Blitz beats his Persian wives instead of his Persian rugs, therefore he needed reforming. Our friend, the Enemy, met him this evening, and told him that no white man could beat his wife, singular or plural, while he was around. Von Blitz is a big, ugly chap, and he naturally resented the interference with his divine might. He told the lawyer to go hang or something equivalent. The lawyer knocked him down. By George, I'd like to have seen it! From the way Bowles tells it, he must have knocked him down so incessantly in the next five minutes that Von Blitz's attempts to stand up were nothing short of a stutter. Moreover, he wouldn't let Von Blitz stab him worth a cent. Bowles says he's got Von Blitz cowed, and the whole town is walking in circles, it's so dizzy. Von Blitz's wives threaten to kill the lawyer, but I guess they won't. Bowles says that all the Persian and Turkish women on the island are crazy about the fellow."

"Mr. Britt!" protested Mrs. Browne.

"Beg pardon. Perhaps Bowles is wrong. Well, to make it short, the lawyer has got Von Blitz to hating him secretly, and the German has a lot of influence over the people. It may be uncomfortable for our good-looking friend. If he didn't seem so well able to look out for himself, I'd feel mighty uneasy about him. After all, he's a white man and a good fellow, I imagine."

"If he should be in great danger down there," said her ladys.h.i.+p firmly--perhaps consciously--"we must offer him a safe retreat in the chateau." The others looked at her in surprise. "We can't stand off and see him murdered, you know," she qualified hastily.

The next morning a messenger came up from the town with a letter directed to Messrs. Britt and Saunders. It was from the Enemy, and requested them to meet him in private conference at four that afternoon.

"I think it will be for the benefit of all concerned if we can get together," wrote the Enemy in conclusion.

"He's weakening," mused Britt, experiencing a sense of disappointment over his countryman's fallibility. "My word for it, Saunders, he's going to propose an armistice of some sort. He can't keep up the bluff."

"Shocking bad form, writing to us like this," said Saunders reflectively. "As if we'd go into any agreement with the fellow. I'm sure Lady Deppingham wouldn't consider it for a moment."

The messenger carried back with him a dignified response in which the counsellors for Mr. Browne and Lady Deppingham respectfully declined to engage in any conference at this time.

At two o'clock that afternoon the entire force of native servants picked up their belongings, and marched out of the chateau. Britt stormed and threatened, but the inscrutable Mohammedans shook their heads and hastened toward the gates. Despair reigned in the chateau; tears and lamentations were no more effective than blasphemy. The major-domo, suave and deferential, gravely informed Mr. Britt that they were leaving at the instigation of their legal adviser, who had but that hour issued his instructions.

"I hope you are not forgetting what I said about the American gunboats,"

said Britt ponderously.