The Broken Road Part 42

Violet Oliver told her story later during that day. But there was a certain hesitation in her manner which puzzled Ralston, at all events, amongst her audience.

"When you went to your room," he asked, "did you find the window again unbolted?"

"No," she replied. "It was really my fault last night. I felt the heat oppressive. I opened the window myself and went out on to the verandah.

When I came back I think that I did not bolt it."

"You forgot?" asked Ralston in surprise.

But this was not the only surprising element in the story.

"When you touched the man, he did not close with you, he made no effort to silence you," Ralston said. "That is strange enough. But that he should strike a match, that he should let you see his face quite clearly--that's what I don't understand. It looks, Mrs. Oliver, as if he almost wanted you to recognise him."

Ralston turned in his chair sharply towards her. "Did you recognise him?" he asked.

"Yes," Violet Oliver replied. "At least I think I did. I think that I had seen him before."

Here at all events it was clear that she was concealing nothing. She was obviously as puzzled as Ralston was himself.

"Where had you seen him?" he asked, and the answer increased his astonishment.

"In Calcutta," she answered. "It was the same man or one very like him. I saw him on three successive evenings in the Maidan when I was driving there."

"In Calcutta?" cried Ralston. "Some months ago, then?"

"Yes."

"How did you come to notice him in the Maidan?" Mrs. Oliver s.h.i.+vered slightly as she answered:

"He seemed to be watching me. I thought so at the time. It made me uncomfortable. Now I am sure. He _was_ watching me," and she suddenly came forward a step.

"I should like to go away to-day if you and your sister won't mind,"

she pleaded.

Ralston's forehead clouded.

"Of course, I quite understand," he said, "and if you wish to go we can't prevent you. But you leave us rather helpless, don't you?--as you alone can identify the man. Besides, you leave yourself too in danger."

"But I shall go far away," she urged. "As it is I am going back to England in a month."

"Yes," Ralston objected. "But you have not yet started, and if the man followed you from Calcutta to Peshawur, he may follow you from Peshawur to Bombay."

Mrs. Oliver drew back with a start of terror and Ralston instantly took back his words.

"Of course, we will take care of you on your way south. You may rely on that," he said with a smile. "But if you could bring yourself to stay here for a day or two I should be much obliged. You see, it is impossible to fix the man's ident.i.ty from a description, and it is really important that he should be caught."

"Yes, I understand," said Violet Oliver, and she reluctantly consented to stay.

"Thank you," said Ralston, and he looked at her with a smile. "There is one more thing which I should like you to do. I should like you to ride out with me this afternoon through Peshawur. The story of last night will already be known in the bazaars. Of that you may be very sure. And it would be a good thing if you were seen to ride through the city quite unconcerned."

Violet Oliver drew back from the ordeal which Ralston so calmly proposed to her.

"I shall be with you," he said. "There will be no danger--or at all events no danger that Englishwomen are unprepared to face in this country."

The appeal to her courage served Ralston's turn. Violet raised her head with a little jerk of pride.

"Certainly I will ride with you this afternoon through Peshawur," she said; and she went out of the room and left Ralston alone.

He sat at his desk trying to puzzle out the enigma of the night. The more he thought upon it, the further he seemed from any solution. There was the perplexing behaviour of Mrs. Oliver herself. She had been troubled, greatly troubled, to find her window unbolted on two successive nights after she had taken care to bolt it. Yet on the third night she actually unbolts it herself and leaving it unbolted puts out her light and goes to bed. It seemed incredible that she should so utterly have forgotten her fears. But still more bewildering even than her forgetfulness was the conduct of the intruder.

Upon that point he took Linforth into his counsels.

"I can't make head or tail of it," he cried. "Here the fellow is in the dark room with his cords and the thick cloth and the pad. Mrs. Oliver touches him. He knows that his presence is revealed to her. She is within reach. And she stands paralysed by fear, unable to cry out. Yet he does nothing, except light a match and give her a chance to recognise his face. He does not seize her, he does not stifle her voice, as he could have done--yes, as he could have done, before she could have uttered a cry. He strikes a match and shows her his face."

"So that he might see hers," said Linforth. Ralston shook his head. He was not satisfied with that explanation. But Linforth had no other to offer. "Have you any clue to the man?"

"None," said Ralston.

He rode out with Mrs. Oliver that afternoon down from his house to the Gate of the City. Two men of his levies rode at a distance of twenty paces behind them. But these were his invariable escort. He took no unusual precautions. There were no extra police in the streets. He went out with his guest at his side for an afternoon ride as if nothing whatever had occurred. Mrs. Oliver played her part well. She rode with her head erect and her eyes glancing boldly over the crowded streets.

Curious glances were directed at her, but she met them without agitation.

Ralston observed her with a growing admiration.

"Thank you," he said warmly. "I know this can hardly be a pleasant experience for you. But it is good for these people here to know that nothing they can do will make any difference--no not enough to alter the mere routine of our lives. Let us go forward."

They turned to the left at the head of the main thoroughfare, and pa.s.sed at a walk, now through the open s.p.a.ces where the booths were erected, now through winding narrow streets between high houses. Violet Oliver, though she held her head high and her eyes were steady, rode with a fluttering heart. In front of them, about them, and behind them the crowd of people thronged, tribesmen from the hills, Mohammedans and Hindus of the city; from the upper windows the lawyers and merchants looked down upon them; and Violet held all of them in horror.

The occurrence of last night had inflicted upon her a heavier shock than either Ralston imagined or she herself had been aware until she had ridden into the town. The dark wild face suddenly springing into view above the lighted match was as vivid and terrible to her still, as a nightmare to a child. She was afraid that at any moment she might see that face again in the throng of faces. Her heart sickened with dread at the thought, and even though she should not see him, at every step she looked upon twenty of his like--kinsmen, perhaps, brothers in blood and race. She shrank from them in repulsion and she shrank from them in fear.

Every nerve of her body seemed to cry out against the folly of this ride.

What were they two and the two levies behind them against the throng?

Four at the most against thousands at the least.

She touched Ralston timidly on the arm.

"Might we go home now?" she asked in a voice which trembled; and he looked suddenly and anxiously into her face.

"Certainly," he said, and he wheeled his horse round, keeping close to her as she wheeled hers.

"It is all right," he said, and his voice took on an unusual friendliness. "We have not far to go. It was brave of you to have come, and I am very grateful. We ask much of the Englishwomen in India, and because they never fail us, we are apt to ask too much. I asked too much of you." Violet responded to the flick at her national pride. She drew herself up and straightened her back.

"No," she said, and she actually counterfeited a smile. "No. It's all right."

"I asked more than I had a right to ask," he continued remorsefully. "I am sorry. I have lived too much amongst men. That's my trouble. One becomes inconsiderate to women. It's ignorance, not want of good-will.

Look!" To distract her thoughts he began to point her out houses and people which were of interest.

"Do you see that sign there, 'Bahadur Gobind, Barrister-at-Law, Cambridge B.A.,' on the first floor over the cookshop? Yes, he is the genuine article. He went to Cambridge and took his degree and here he is back again. Take him for all in all, he is the most seditious man in the city.

Meanly seditious. It only runs to writing letters over a pseudonym in the native papers. Now look up. Do you see that very respectable white-bearded gentleman on the balcony of his house? Well, his daughter-in-law disappeared one day when her husband was away from home--disappeared altogether. It had been a great grief to the old gentleman that she had borne no son to inherit the family fortune. So naturally people began to talk. She was found subsequently under the floor of the house, and it cost that respectable old gentleman twenty thousand rupees to get himself acquitted."