Grit Lawless Part 32

Lawless regarded her earnestly.

"How will you get on his trail?" he asked.

She smiled significantly.

"I'm going to turn up in the same town; then, if I know anything of him, the pursuit will be all on his side. You must give me a cheque for something killing in the way of a trousseau... I'll manage the rest."

He appeared not altogether pleased with the arrangement.

"You'll overplay the part," he objected.

"You trust me," she answered confidently.

"Besides, he doesn't carry the letters on him... He boasted this morning that they were safely out of reach."

She turned round from the gla.s.s to stare at him.

"Then what's the good--Well, in any case," she finished, in the manner of one who clinches an argument, "there's got to be a settlement over that bashed face of yours."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

Late that afternoon, with their scant belongings, Lawless and his companion drove into Stellenbosch in the broken-springed buggy which, after much persuasion, they had induced the owner of the farm to which the Zulu woman had led them to hire out to them.

The difficulty had arisen, not from disinclination to oblige a stranger, but on account of having no spare hand to act as driver. In the end the farmer drove them himself, not because he could best spare the time, but because he knew he was least likely to waste it. He and a small son of the house harnessed the horse, while Lawless looked on, and Tottie waited in the shade of the stoep where the farmer's wife sewed, and eyed her askance, responding distantly to her tentatives towards conversation.

Afterwards she observed to her husband: "I was glad you gave in over the buggy. It was a relief when that woman was out of sight. One could have grown a crop of mealies in the dirt on her face, only nothing so wholesome could thrive in such rubbish. I didn't see her left hand because she kept her gloves on; but if there was a wedding-ring on every finger, I'd know she wasn't married to that man. It's one of those cases one recognises by instinct."

"The man's no good either," the farmer answered... "Been fighting-- unless he drinks, and she mauled him like that when he couldn't defend himself. She looks capable of it... She's fond of him too. Did you notice how she helped him into the cart, seeing he was a bit sick?"

"Oh, that!" The wife looked unconvinced. "She's probably afraid of him when he's sober; he's a savage-looking man."

"Well, I'm glad we're quit of them," he returned. "One's best without neighbours if one can't have them respectable... But they paid me well."

"Ah! he's one of that sort," she responded... "more money than morals.

The want of money's a curse, and the having it is a curse as often as not."

"The latter," her husband said, smiling, "is a curse that would be to my taste."

She smiled too.

"That's because you know you'll never have it, you old stodger, you."

Lawless learnt on inquiry after arriving in Stellenbosch that Denzil and Van Bleit had separated, the former having departed earlier for the coast, while Van Bleit had left only a quarter of an hour before they arrived. He had taken a ticket for Worcester.

"That, then, is my destination," Tottie announced, when he told her the result of his investigations.

"Better take a ticket for a couple of stations beyond, and work your way back to Worcester," he advised.

"Not a bad idea," she returned readily. "But I'm going to stay a couple of days here with you before running after Karl."

"What for?" he asked. "It's losing time."

"You're a bit keen to get rid of me, Grit," she said.

He wheeled round abruptly and took her by the arm.

"Don't get any of those fool ideas into your head," he said quickly.

"When we've put this job successfully through, we'll go on the spree together--to Jo'burg, or anywhere you've a fancy for. You're a first-cla.s.s chum."

She flushed with pleasure even through the paint, and emitted a little awkward laugh.

"I'd enjoy that more than enough. Just ourselves, and no need for this fooling round. But I'd like to stay and do first aid for twenty-four hours, anyhow... You won't go down to the coast with your face like that?"

"Then, stay," he said, giving in with the spiritless manner of a man unequal to further contention. "I'll be glad enough of your company.

I'm stiff and sore and jolly well out of conceit with myself. If anyone can reinstate me in my own opinion it's you."

They put up at the hotel, and Tottie, whose ideas of first aid were practical if crude, was only deterred from putting them into effect by Lawless' irritable refusal to be touched. He bathed his sore and swollen face himself with warm water, and swore at the stiffness and its unfamiliar contours. In the morning the face was even less comfortable than on the day of a.s.sault, and he could not see out of one eye. But he was firm in insisting that Tottie should start on her journey. He bought her ticket and saw her off by the train. She parted from him reluctantly, and leaning half-way out of her compartment as the train was moving out, called to him:

"Go and see a doctor, Grit. I don't like that eye of yours."

He nodded to her, and because he was in haste to be rid of the inconvenience of his injury, took her advice; and for the next few days was forced to go about wearing a shade, to his no small discomfort and disgust.

As soon as he was able to dispense with the shade he started for Cape Town.

A strong south-east was blowing when he reached the capital. The pavements were greasy and wet, and the sticky thickness of the atmosphere, laden with salt and a mist that swept in from the sea, clung to his garments, and wetted his face and hair as with fine rain. He took a cab and drove to his hotel. The management seemed relieved to see him back. There had been several inquiries, and one or two letters had arrived during his absence. These they could not forward, having no address.

He took the letters and went to his room with them. They were for the greater part unimportant, bills most of them. There were one or two personal communications, and one imperative epistle marked, "Private.

Please Forward," from Colonel Grey. The wording of it was brief:

"Dear Mr Lawless,--I stand in urgent need of your services and advice. Kindly report yourself at the earliest possible.--Yours faithfully, F.W. Grey."

Lawless glanced at the date of the letter; it was more than a month old.

He smiled drily. Doubtless Colonel Grey would consider it a tardy response were he to present himself at the bungalow that night, and yet there could be no more prompt compliance with a command.

He changed his dusty garments, dined, and having no inclination for walking on so damp and boisterous a night, hired a taxi and drove the mile and a half to the quiet road where Colonel Grey's bungalow stood in its wild, luxuriant garden behind the undipped hedges of plumbago. He dismissed the taxi, and walking up the path to the stoep made for a window where a light was burning, and tapped upon the gla.s.s. There was an immediate response from within. Lawless heard someone move and walk heavily across the floor, then the French window was flung wide, and Colonel Grey himself stood in the aperture facing him with an expression of cold surprise and inquiry in his look.

"I got your letter," Lawless explained, "to-night. I am here in accordance with the request contained in it."

"Come inside."

Colonel Grey moved aside for him to pa.s.s, and, closing the window, sat down. It was not the same room in which Lawless had been received before; that, on the other side of the hall, had been locked since the shooting affray. He dropped into an easy-chair opposite his host. He was tired with travelling and was glad to stretch his limbs, but the older man, with his ingrained ideas of discipline, taking note of the relaxed att.i.tude, drew his own inference. He frowned as he sat straighter himself.

"After all this while I had given up every expectation of seeing you again," he said in a curt manner that betrayed his disapprobation. "You have not, I imagine, brought me any special news?"

"I have not," Lawless answered. "All the happenings have been going forward here during my absence. I have come to receive, not to give, explanations."

The frown on the Colonel's brow showed heavier and more fierce. He sat forward and stared at the speaker, who, still relaxing his inert muscles, lay indolently back in his chair.