Grit Lawless Part 39

"I'm remembering," Lawless answered, "everything."

He turned to Hayhurst.

"Change your rig, Tom," he said quietly. "And clean your face, if you can. I may need you presently."

And to the huge delight of the Kaffir, and the further mortification of Van Bleit, Hayhurst proceeded in a business-like manner, with an occasional lapse into fooling, to divest himself of pointed shoes, skirt and blouse, corsets and artificial bust, until with an exaggerated sigh of relief he stood in his pants and s.h.i.+rt and stretched himself luxuriously.

"No, I wouldn't be a woman," he remarked,--"not even a successful woman... And I've enjoyed a fair amount of popularity in the role."

While he went to the cart for the portmanteau of male attire he had brought with him, Lawless occupied himself in going through the contents of Van Bleit's pockets, who, while a.s.serting with a contemptuous laugh that there was nothing there of the least value to anyone beside himself, seemed none the less uneasy at being searched.

"I suppose you don't believe me," he said sneeringly, "when I say that I don't carry that packet you want about with me?"

"Oh! I believe you," Lawless answered, calmly continuing the search.

"I've a great faith in your veracity."

He came upon Van Bleit's pocket-book, and withdrew a few paces to examine the contents at his leisure. He had a strong idea that if Van Bleit carried what he was looking for, he would find it somewhere between the closely packed covers. Van Bleit watched him with hardly controlled anxiety.

"I don't see what concern you have with my private papers," he remarked bitterly.

"Your vision will be clearer if I happen across what I want," Lawless replied. "If I don't it will be so much the worse for you."

He went through the contents carefully while Van Bleit looked on in almost painful interest, and Tom Hayhurst, having changed into a light-coloured suit, proceeded to remove by the aid of much grease the bloom of a complexion that had helped to Van Bleit's undoing. The grinning native held a looking-gla.s.s for him, which Hayhurst carried with his make-up box. He had studied the art of making-up from a professional for the innocent purpose of amateur theatricals at which he was remarkably clever. He had acquired his knowledge of the manners and appearance of the demi-mondaine also at first hand, and had conceived the idea of turning his knowledge to practical account as a means of retrieving his former failure and avenging his broken head.

As he stood in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves and removed the extraordinary quant.i.ty of grease paint with a soft rag, he felt satisfied that he had played a difficult part, and played it exceedingly well. Anyone but a genius might have overplayed the part and given the thing away. The finish of the game was in Grit's hands.

He had an immense admiration for Lawless. It had been aroused in the first instance by the tales Simmonds had told Colonel Grey of the man with the scar and the queer nickname and the reputation for courage.

Other accounts he had heard later had fostered it, and his subsequent personal knowledge of the man had led to a hero-wors.h.i.+p which, being shy of showing affection for his own s.e.x, he contrived fairly successfully to hide. But it was sufficiently real to allow him to contemplate without envy Lawless' final success in the matter of the letters. He was satisfied that the credit of the affair should be his. Moreover, he was curiously anxious that Colonel Grey should be forced to acknowledge the integrity of the man whose trustworthiness he seemed to doubt.

He was in the act of removing the last traces of make-up from his eyebrows when a sudden exclamation from Lawless caused him to look up from his occupation.

"Got the letters?" he asked.

Lawless stood with a slip of paper in his hand. The pocket-book and its further contents lay on the veld at his feet.

"Yes," he answered briefly.

Hayhurst whistled. Then he stared at the slip of paper in the other's possession.

"Clue to 'em, I suppose?" he said, a trifle disappointedly.

"Hurry up, Tom, and finish. I want you," Lawless returned, without vouchsafing any explanation.

Van Bleit looked at the slip of paper, and scowled darkly.

"That's no use to you," he said, with an attempt at bluff. "If you hand in that receipt they won't give you the packet."

"I know all about that," Lawless answered, and smiled quietly. "Ever since you put it into my mind to guess where those letters were I've been waiting to get hold of this. Are you ready, Tom?"

He ran his eye over the metamorphosed figure, as Hayhurst, having removed the last of the paint, came forward in response to his inquiry, and the smile on his face deepened.

"By Jove!" he said.

Hayhurst laughed.

"Old Karl don't seem to like me nearly so well," he complained, grinning at Van Bleit's scowling visage. "Don't seem to want to tickle my ribs now? ... Well, baas, what's my job?"

"Get round to the left side and keep him covered while I free his hands.

He's going to do a little writing, and if he attempts any tricks you have my orders to fire."

"You don't try that game. I'll see you to h.e.l.l first," Van Bleit shouted.

"You'll find yourself in h.e.l.l very shortly, _if_ you give trouble,"

Lawless answered grimly, as he proceeded to undo the ropes that bound his captive's arms.

Van Bleit looked green.

"You daren't do it," he stammered... "There's the n.i.g.g.e.r for a witness."

"I'll risk that. Besides, there's such a thing as sending the n.i.g.g.e.r out of it... and the boy too."

"Not much. Grit," Hayhurst interposed, with his glance on Van Bleit and his finger on the trigger. "If there's going to be any fun I'm in at the finish."

Van Bleit gritted his teeth, and finding his hands free, looked eagerly round for a means of escape. There was none. Unarmed, he was helpless against these two. The horse, hitched to the tree, was too far away to reach, the cart was not much nearer. Before he could reach either Hayhurst would shoot him down. And if he missed, Lawless was armed and could not fail to hit him. He was like a rat in a trap in sight of the water in which he was to drown. A cold sweat broke out on his brow.

Life was very sweet... And the letters! ... The loss of the letters would be almost as great a disaster as the loss of life.

"It's not a bit of use," he muttered, as Lawless produced a fountain pen and held it out to him; "the Bank won't hand the packet over to anyone but myself, even if he tender the receipt."

"Don't you exercise your mind as to what the Bank will or will not do,"

Lawless remarked. "What you have to think about is to obey orders.

You'd better concentrate all your attention on that."

Van Bleit took the pen.

"You can't make me sign," he said.

"I can't make you--no. But it amounts to this, if you refuse I send that n.i.g.g.e.r out of earshot and shoot you where you stand... And mind this, if you attempt any tricks the threat holds good. I know your signature. If you don't write it fair and square on this you're a dead man. You know me, Karl Van Bleit. I don't suppose you've any reason to imagine I shall go back on my word."

He held the Bank's receipt for the safe deposit of the sealed packet of letters on the back of a notebook which he took from his pocket, keeping his hands upon it, and holding it firmly against his chest for Van Bleit's greater convenience in writing. Van Bleit hesitated. Only the knowledge that Tom Hayhurst's revolver would go off as an inevitable consequence prevented him having a struggle for the paper.

"My patience is not inexhaustible. I give you one minute," Lawless said.

The Dutchman started, raised his pen hand nervously, and again drew back. This was slow torture.

"I'll sell to you... Give me a sum down," he muttered, thinking vainly of the handsome sum he had several times refused. "They won't part with the packet in exchange for this... But I'll sell it to you--for a sum down."

Hayhurst chuckled.