Inside the Lines (Biggers and Ritchie)/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
HER COUNTRY'S EXAMPLE
"DO YOU know, my dear, Cynthia Maxwell is simply going to die with envy when she sees me in this!"
The plump, little mistress of Government House, standing before a full-length mirror, in her boudoir, surveyed herself with intense satisfaction. Her arms and neck burst startlingly from the clinging sheath of the incomparable Doeuillet gown that was Jane Gerson's douceur for official protection; in the flood of morning light pouring through the mullloned windows Lady Crandall seemed a pink and white—and somewhat florid—lily in bloom out of time. Hildebrand's buyer, on her knees and with deft fingers busy with the soft folds of the skirt, answered through a mouthful of pins:
"Poor Cynthia; my heart goes out to her."
"Oh, it needn't!" Lady Crandall answered, with a tilting of her strictly Iowa style nose. "The Maxwell person has made me bleed more than once here on the Rock with the gowns a fond mama sends her from Paris. But, honestly, isn't this a bit low for a staid middle-aged person like myself? I'm afraid I'll have trouble getting my precious Doeuillet past the censor." Lady Crandall plumed herself with secret joy.
Jane looked up, puzzled.
"Oh, that's old Lady Porter—a perfect dragon," the general's wife rattled on. "Poor old dear; she thinks the Lord put her on the Rock for a purpose. Her own collars get higher and higher. I believe if she ever was presented at court she'd emulate the old Scotch lady who followed the law of décollete, but preserved her self-respect by wearing a red flannel chest protector. You must meet her."
"I'm afraid I won't have time to get a look at your dragon," Jane returned, with a little laugh, all happiness. "Now that Sir George has promised me I can sail on the Saxonia Friday "
"You really must" The envious eyes of Lady Crandall fell on the pile of plans—potent Delphic mysteries to charm the heart of woman—that lay scattered about upon the floor.
Jane sat back on her heels and surveyed the melting folds of satin with an artist's eye.
"If you only knew—what it means to me to get back with my baskets full of French beauties! Why, when I screwed up my courage two months ago to go to old Hildebrand and ask him to send me abroad as his buyer—I'd been studying drawing and French at nights for three years in preparation, you see—he roared like the dear old lion he is and said I was too young. But I cooed and pleaded, and at last he said I could come—on trial, and so"
"He'll purr like a pussy-cat when you get back," Lady Crandall put in, with a pat on the brown head at her knees.
"Maybe. If I can slip into New York with my little baskets while all the other buyers are still over here, cabling tearfully for money to get home or asking their firms to send a warship to fetch them—why, I guess the pennant's mine all right."
The eternal feminine, so strong in Iowa's transplanted stock, prompted a mischievous question:
"Then you won't be leaving somebody behind when you sail—somebody who seemed awfully nice and—foreigny and all that? All our American girls find the moonlight over on this side infectious. Witness me—a 'finishing trip' abroad after school days—and see where I've finished—on a Rock!" Lady Crandall bubbled laughter. A shrewd downward sweep of her eye was just in time to catch a flush mounting to Jane's cheeks.
"Well, a Mysterious Stranger has crossed my path," Jane admitted. "He was very nice, but mysterious."
"Oh!" A delighted gurgle from the older woman. "Tell me all about it—a secret for these ancient walls to hear."
Jane was about to reply when second thought checked her tongue. Before her flashed that strange meeting with Captain Woodhouse the night before—his denial of their former meeting, followed by his curious insistence on her keeping faith with him by not revealing the fact of their acquaintance. She had promised—why she had promised she could no more divine than the reason for his asking; but a promise it was that she would not betray his confidence. More than once since that minute in the reception room of the Hotel Splendide Jane Gerson had reviewed the whole baffling circumstance in her mind and a growing resentment at this stranger's demand, as well as at her own compliance with it, was rising in her heart. Still, this Captain Woodhouse was "different," and—this Jane sensed without effort to analyze—the mystery which he threw about himself but served to set him apart from the common run of men. She evaded Lady Crandall's probing with a shrug of the shoulders.
"It's a secret which I myself do not know. Lady Crandall—and never will."
Back to the o'erweening lure of the gown the flitting fancy of the general's lady betook itself.
"You—don't think this is a shade too young for me, Miss Gerson?" Anxiety pleaded to be quashed.
"Nonsense!" Jane laughed.
"But I'm no chicken, my dear. If you would look me up in our family Bible back in Davenport you'd find"
"People don't believe everything they read in the Bible any more," Jane assured her. "Your record and Jonah's would both be open to doubt."
"You're very comforting," Lady Crandall beamed. Her maid knocked and entered on the lady's crisp: "Come!"
"The general wishes to see you, Lady Crandall, in the library."
"Tell the general I'm in the midst of trying on" Lady Crandall began, then thought better of her excuse. She dropped the shimmering gown from her shoulders and slipped into a kimono.
"Some stuffy plan for entertaining somebody or other, my dear"—this to Jane. "The real burden of being governor-general of the Rock falls on the general's wife. Just slip into your bonnet, and when I'm back we'll take that little stroll through the Alameda I've promised you for this morning." She clutched her kimono about her and whisked out of the room.
General Crandall, just rid of the dubious pleasure of Billy Capper's company, was pacing the floor of the library ofRce thoughtfully. He looked up with a smile at his wife's entrance.
"Helen, I want you to do something for me," he said.
"Certainly, dear." Lady Crandall was not an unpleasing picture of ripe beauty to look on, in the soft drape of her Japanese robe. Even in his worry. General Crandall found himself intrigued for the minute.
"There's a new chap in the signal service—just in from Egypt—name's Woodhouse. I wish you would invite him to tea, my dear."
"Of course; any day."
"This afternoon, if you please, Helen," the general followed.
His wife looked slightly puzzled.
"This afternoon? But, George, dear, isn't that—aren't you—ah—rushing this young man to have him up to Government House so soon after his arrival?" She suddenly remembered something that caused her to reverse herself. "Besides, I've asked him to dinner—the dinner I'm to give the Americans to-morrow night before they sail."
General Crandall looked his surprise.
"You didn't tell me that. I didn't know you had met him."
"Just happened to," Lady Crandall cut in hastily. "Met him at the Hotel Splendide last night when I brought Miss Gerson home with me."
"What was Woodhouse doing at the Splendide?" the general asked suspiciously.
"Why, spending the night, you foolish boy. Just off the Princess Mary, he was. I believe he did Miss Gerson some sort of a service—and I met him in that way—quite informally."
"Did Miss Gerson—a service—hum!"
"Oh, a trifling thing! It seemed she had only French money, and that cautious Almer fellow wouldn't accept it. Captain Woodhouse gave her English gold for it—to pay her bill. But why"
"Has Miss Gerson seen him since?" General Crandall asked sharply.
"Why, George, dear, how could she? We haven't been up from the breakfast table an hour."
"Woodhouse was here less than an hour ago to pay his duty call and report," he explained. "I thought perhaps he might have met our guest somewhere in the garden as he was coming or going."
"He did send her some lovely roses." Lady Crandall brightened at this, to her, patent inception of a romance; she doted on romances. "They were in Miss Gerson's room before she was down to breakfast."
"Roses, eh? And they met informally at the Splendide only last night." Suspicion was weighing the general's words. "Isn't that a bit sudden? I say, do you think Miss Gerson and this Captain Woodhouse had met somewhere before last night?"
"I hardly think so—she on her first trip to the Continent and he coming from Egypt. But"
"No matter. I want him here to tea this afternoon." The general dismissed the subject and turned to his desk. His lady's curiosity would not be so lightly turned away.
"All these questions—aren't they rather absurd? Is anything wrong?" She ran up to him and laid her hands on his shoulders.
"Of course not, dear." He kissed her lightly on the brow. "Now run along and play with that new gown Miss Gerson gave you. I imagine that's the most important thing on the Rock to-day."
Lady Crandall gave her soldier-husband a peck on each cheek, and skipped back to her room. When he was alone again. General Crandall resumed his restless pacing. Resolution suddenly crystallized, and he stepped to the desk telephone. He called a number.
"That you. Bishop?… General Crandall speaking.… Bishop, you were here on the Rock seven years ago?… Good! … Pretty good memory for names and faces, eh?… Right!… I want you to come to Government House for tea at five this afternoon. … But run over for a little talk with me some time earlier—an hour from now, say. Rather important.… You'll be here.… Thank you."
General Crandall sat at his desk and tried to bring himself down to the routine crying from accumulated papers there. But the canker Billy Capper had implanted in his mind would not give him peace. Major-general Crandall was a man cast in the stolid British mold; years of army discipline and tradition of the service had given to his conservatism a hard grain. In common with most of those in high command, he held to the belief that nothing existed—nothing could txist—which was not down in the regulations of the war office, made and provided. For upward of twenty-five years he had played the hard game of the service—in Egypt, in Burma, on the broiling rocks of Aden, and here, at last, on the key to the Mediterranean. During all those years he had faithfully pursued his duty, had stowed away in his mind the wisdom disseminated in blue-bound books by that corporate paragon of knowledge at home, the war office. But never had he read in anything but fluffy fiction of a place or a thing called the Wilhelmstrasse, reputed by the scriveners to be the darkest closet and the most potent of all the secret chambers of diplomacy. The regulations made no mention of a Wilhelmstrasse, even though they provided the brand of pipe clay that should brighten men's pith helmets and stipulated to the ounce an emergency ration. Therefore, to the official military mind at least, the Wilhelmstrasse was non-existent.
But here comes a beach-comber, a miserable jackal from the back alleys of society, and warns the governor-general of the Rock that he has a man from the Wilhelmstrasse—a spy bent on some unfathomable mission—in his very forces on the Rock. He says that an agent of the enemy has dared masquerade as a British officer in order to gain admission inside the lines of Europe's most impregnable fortress, England's precious stronghold, there to do mischief!
General Crandall's tremendous responsibility would not permit him to ignore such a warning, coming even from so low a source. Yet the man found himself groping blindly in the dark before the dilemma presented; he had no foot rule of precept or experience to guide him.
His fruitless searching for a prop in emergency was broken by the appearance of Jane Gerson in the door opening from Lady Crandall's rooms to the right of the library. The girl was dressed for the out-of-doors; in her arms was a fragrant bunch of blood-red roses, spraying out from the top of a bronze bowl. The girl hesitated and drew back in confusion at seeing the room occupied; she seemed eager to escape undetected. But General Crandall smilingly checked her flight.
"I—I thought you would be out," Jane stammered, "and"
"And the posies" the general interrupted.
"Were for you to enjoy when you should come back." She smiled easily into the man's eyes. "They'll look so much prettier here than in my room."
"Very good of you, I'm sure." General Crandall stepped up to the rich cluster of buds and sniffed critically. Without looking at the girl, he continued: "It appears to me as though you had already made a conquest on the Rock. One doesn't pick these from the cliffs, you know."
"I should hardly call it a conquest," Jane answered, with a sprightly toss of her head.
"But a young man sent you these flowers. Come—confess!" The general's tone was bantering, but his eyes did not leave the piquant face under the chic summer straw hat that shaded it.
"Surely. One of your own men—Captain Woodhouse, of the signal service." Jane was rearranging the stems in the bowl, apparently ready to accept what was on the surface of the general's rallying.
"Woodhouse, eh? You've known him for a long time, I take it."
"Since last night. General. And yet some people say Englishmen are slow." She laughed gaily and turned to face him. His voice took on a subtle quality of polite insistence:
"Surely you met him somewhere before Gibraltar."
"How could I, when this is the first time Captain Woodhouse has been out of Egypt for years?"
"Who told you that?" The general was quick to catch her up. The girl felt a swift stab of fear. On the instant she realized that here was somebody attempting to drive into the mystery which she herself could not understand, but which she had pledged herself to keep inviolate. Her voice fluttered in her throat as she answered:
"Why, he did himself. General."
"He did, eh? Gave you a bit of his history on first meeting. Confiding chap, what! But you, Miss Gerson—you've been to Egypt, you say?"
"No, General."
Jane was beginning to find this cross-examination distinctly painful. She felt that already her pledge, so glibly given at Captain Woodhouse's insistence, was involving her in a situation the significance of which might prove menacing to herself—and one other. She could sense the beginnings of a strain between herself and this genial elderly gentleman, her host.
"Do you know. Miss Gerson"—he was speaking soberly now—"I believe you and Captain Woodhouse have met before."
"You're at liberty to think anything you like, General—the truth or otherwise." Her answer, though given smilingly, had a sting behind it.
"I'm not going to think much longer. I'm going to know!" He clapped his lips shut over the last word with a smack of authority.
"Are you really, General Crandall?" The girl's eyes hardened just perceptibly. He took a turn of the room and paused, facing her. The situation pleased him no more than it did his breezy guest, but he knew his duty and doggedly pursued it.
"Come—come. Miss Gerson! I believe you're straightforward and sincere or I wouldn't be wasting my time this way. I'll be the same with you. This is a time of war; you understand all that implies, I hope. A serious question concerning Captain Woodhouse's position here has arisen. If you have met him before—as I think you have—it will be to your advantage to tell me where and when. I am in command of the Rock, you know."
He finished with an odd tenseness of tone that conveyed assurance of his authority even more than did the sense of his words. His guest, her back to the table on which the roses rested and her hands bracing her by their tense grip on the table edge, sought his eyes boldly.
"General Crandall," she began, "my training in Hildebrand's store hasn't made me much of a diplomat. All this war and intrigue makes me dizzy. But I know one thing: this isn't my war, or my country's, and I'm going to follow my country's example and keep out of it."
General Crandall shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the girl's defiance.
"Maybe your country may not be able to do that," he declared, with a touch of solemnity. "I pray God it may. But I'm afraid your resolution will not hold, Miss Gerson."
"I'm going to try to make it, anyway," she answered.
Gibraltar's commander, baffled thus by a neutral—a neutral fair to look on, in the bargain—tried another tack. He assumed the fatherly air.
"Lady Crandall and I have tried to show you we were friends—tried to help you get home," he began.
"You've been very good to me," Jane broke in feelingly.
"What I say now is spoken as a friend, not as governor of the Rock. If it is true that you have met Woodhouse before—and our conversation here verifies my suspicion—that very fact makes his word worthless and releases you from any promise you may have made not to reveal this and what you may know about him. Also it should put you on your guard—his motives in any attentions he may pay you can not be above suspicion."
"I think that is a personal matter I am perfectly capable of handling." Jane's resentment sent the flags to her cheeks.
General Crandall was quick to back-water: "Yes, yes! Don't misunderstand me. What I mean to say is"
He was interrupted by his wife's voice calling for Jane from the near-by room. Anticipating her interruption, he hurried on:
"For the present. Miss Gerson, we'll drop this matter. I said a few minutes ago I intended shortly to—know. I hope I won't have to carry out that—threat."
Jane was withdrawing one of the buds from the jar. At his last word, she dropped it with a little gasp.
"Threat, General?"
"I hope not. Truly I hope not. But, young woman"
She stooped, picked up the flower, and was setting it in his buttonhole before he could remonstrate.
"This one was for you, General," she said, and the truce was sealed. That minute, Lady Crandall was wafted into the room on the breeze of her own staccato interruption.
"What's this—what's this! Flirting with poor old George—pinning a rose on my revered husband when my back's turned? Brazen miss. I'm here to take you off to the gardens at once, where you can find somebody younger—and not near so dear—to captivate with your tricks. At once, now!"
She had her arm through Jane's and was marching her off. An exchange of glances between the governor and Hildebrand's young diplomat of the dollar said that what had passed between them was a confidence.
Jaimihr Khan announced Major Bishop to the general a short time later. The major, a rotund pink-faced man of forty, who had the appearance of being ever tubbed and groomed to the pink of parade perfection, saluted his superior informally, accepted a cigarette and crossed his plump legs in an easy chair near the general's desk. General Crandall folded his arms on his desk and went direct to his subject:
"Major, you were here on the Rock seven years ago, you say?"
"Here ten years, General. Regular rock scorpion—old-timer."
"Do you happen to recall this chap Woodhouse whom I sent to you to report for duty in the signal tower to-day? Has transfer papers from Wady Halfa."
"Haven't met him yet, though Captain Carson tells me he reported at my office a little more than an hour ago—see him after parade. Woodhouse—Woodhouse" The major propped his chin on his fingers in thought.
"His papers—army record and all that—say he was here on the Rock for three months in the spring of nineteen-seven," General Crandall urged, to refresh the other's memory.
Major Bishop stroked his round cheeks, tugged at one ear, but found recollection difficult.
"When I see the chap—so many coming and going, you know. Three months—bless me! That's a thin slice out of ten years."
"Major, I'm going to take you into my confidence," the senior officer began; then he related the incident of Capper's visit and repeated the charge he had made. Bishop sat aghast at the word "spy."
"Woodhouse will be here to tea this afternoon," continued Crandall. "While you and I ask him a few leading questions, I'll have Jaimihr, my Indian, search his room in barracks. I trust Jaimihr implicitly, and he can do the job smoothly. Now, Bishop, what do you remember about nineteen-seven—something we can lead up to in conversation, you know?"
The younger man knuckled his brow for a minute, then looked up brightly.
"I say, General, Craigen was governor then. But—um—aren't you a bit—mild; this asking of a suspected spy to tea?"
"What can I do?" the other replied, somewhat testily. "I can't clap an officer of his majesty's army into prison on the mere say-so of a drunken outcast who has no proof to offer. I must go slowly, Major. Watch for a slip from this Woodhouse. One bad move on his part, and he starts on his way to face a firing squad."
Bishop had risen and was slowly pacing the room, his eyes on the walls, hung with many portraits in oils.
"Well, you can't help admiring the nerve of the chap," he muttered, half to himself. "Forcing his way on to the Rock—why, he might as well put his head in a cannon's mouth."
"I haven't time to admire," the general said shortly. "Thing to do is to act."
"Quite right. Nineteen-seven, eh? Um" He paused before the portrait of a young woman in a Gainsborough hat and with a sparkling piquant face. "By George, General, why not try him on Lady Evelyn? There's a fair test for you, now !"
"You mean Craigen's wife?" The general looked up at the portrait quizzically. "Skeleton's bones. Bishop."
"Right; but no man who ever saw her could forget. I know I never can. Poor Craigen!"
"Good idea, though," the older man acquiesced. "We'll trip him on Lady Evelyn."
Jaimihr Khan appeared at the double doors. "The general sahib's orderly," he announced. The young subaltern entered and saluted.
"That young man, General Crandall, the one Sergeant Crosby was to escort out of the lines to Algeciras"
"Well, what of him? He's gone, I hope."
"First train to Madrid, General; but he left a message for you, sir, to be delivered after he'd gone, he said."
"A message?" General Crandall was perplexed.
"As Sergeant Crosby had it and gave it to me to repeat to you, sir, it was, 'Arrest the cigar girl calling herself Josepha. She is one of the cleverest spies of the Wilhelmstrasse.'"