Part 3

At the time, excited as we all were, I did not notice the strangeness of that spontaneous phrase. She stood upon the edge of the excavation and took the stiletto with eager curiosity from her father. She held it in both hands, breast-high, the point toward her, to read the name upon the hilt.

“Lucia!” she cried, with a strange look toward us, as though dimly and uncertainly recalling some terrible experience. “Lucia!” She repeated the name with a peculiar, slow intonation--an intonation of puzzled half-remembrance.

We stared at her, fascinated. Was our fantastic theory true?

Her gaze lost us, fixed itself into vacancy. Her features changed. An expression of vague fear--the fear of the hypnotic shrinking at some invisible danger--came into them. She opened her mouth as though to speak.

She uttered only an inarticulate cry--a cry of fright as the loose stones of the excavation slipped from under her. She fell headlong into the hole, where she lay oddly--ominously--still. I jumped down after her, lifted her up. The rusty old stiletto, caught under her in her fall, had driven straight into her heart--broken off at the hilt!

The doctor stopped, looked round upon his audience.

“And the treasure?” queried one of them.

“There was no treasure. There was no more digging that day. We took the poor girl’s corpse back to the yacht and I thought her mother would have died as well--or gone out of her mind. She was screaming to get away from the place. But the old man was not put off his game so easily. The next day, whilst I stayed on board with the distracted mother, he and his son went and dug again in that tragic cairn.

“They brought back all they found--the broken lid of a chest, branded with the date 1665. That, curiously enough, was _underneath_ the skeleton, suggesting that the hoard had been rifled before the man, whoever he was, was killed.”

“A strange story!” commented another of the audience. “And what’s your hypothesis in explanation, doctor?”

The doctor smiled.

“Well--you can have your choice,” he said. “There is the possibility that, in a prior existence, Miss Vandermeulen was in fact Lucia, that she seduced John Dawson into revealing the secret of the treasure, that she murdered him on the spot and went off with it--and that the vengeful spirit of the old buccaneer, hovering around these latitudes, came into touch with her new reincarnation, and, playing with a fine irony upon that same lust of gold which was responsible for his murder but of which she was this time entirely innocent, led her to a death by that same poniard with which she had killed _him_. Alternatively, there is the hypothesis that her spontaneous writing and the impersonation of Lucia were but an automatic dramatization by her subconsciousness of hints dropped into it by her brother’s reading of ‘Treasure Island’ and subsequent conversations between her father and his son, and that her death was a mere coincidence.”

“An incredibly complete coincidence!” said one of the men.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“There was one other curious thing,” he said. “Some years later, in a history of the buccaneers, I came across a paragraph to the effect that the island called Old Providence since the eighteenth century was known to the buccaneers as Santa Katalina, and that only subsequently was that name transferred to the islet north of it. So Pauline’s subconscious memory was right! Furthermore, it stated that the large island, then called Santa Katalina, was seized and garrisoned by the buccaneers in 1664 under the leadership of a man named Mansvelt. He sailed off to get recruits, leaving the island in command of a certain Simon, and died upon the voyage. Simon surrendered the island to the Spaniards who had besieged it. The date was 1665.

“Of course, Miss Vandermeulen may have read that paragraph and subconsciously retained the names--but, for her, it was an improbable kind of reading. At any rate, she had a curious knowledge of an out-of-the-way piece of history. As I said, when you tap the subconsciousness you never know what buried treasure you may find. Well, I leave you to your hypotheses, gentlemen.” He stood up, knocked out his pipe. “Good-night!”

A PROBLEM IN REPRISALS

In the dusk of a winter afternoon a battalion of the French Contingent of the Army of Occupation dispersed to its billets in the little German village. The _Chef-de-bataillon_ and the _médecin-major_, having installed their staffs in their respective bureaux, walked up the street in search of the quarters which had been chosen for them in the meanwhile. The scared faces of slatternly women, obsequiously gesturing the mud-stained French soldiers into occupation of their cottages, turned to look anxiously at them as they passed, in evident apprehension of the order which should let loose a vengeful destruction only too probable to their uneasy consciences. Here and there a haggard-looking man, an ex-soldier probably, slunk into his house, out of sight, but the native population of the village was preponderatingly feminine. The two officers--the _commandant_, good-humoured and inclined to rotundity, his eyes twinkling under brows a shade less gray than his moustache; the doctor, a middle-aged man, quiet, restrained to curtness in speech and expression, with eyes that swept sombrely without interest over his environment--ignored alike the false smiles and the genuinely alarmed glances of these wives and mothers of their once arrogant enemies.

A captain came down the street toward them and saluted on near approach. It was the adjutant of the battalion. He was young and his natural cheerfulness was enhanced to perpetual high spirits in the enjoyment of the experiences following upon overwhelming victory.

“We are well housed, _mon commandant_,” he said joyously, with a flash of white teeth under his little brown moustache. “_Comfort moderne--presque!_ Not a château, it is true--but large enough. The best in the village, in any case. Bedrooms for the three of us, and a room for our _popote_. Our baggage is already in, and dinner will be ready in half an hour. _Tout ce qu’il y a de mieux, n’est-ce pas?_” He finished with his young laugh.

The gray eyes of the battalion-commander twinkled at him.

“And the _patronne_, Jordan?--Old and ugly?”

The young man’s face lit up. He put one finger to his lips and blew an airy kiss.

“Ah, _mon commandant_!” he replied in a tone of assumed ecstasy. “You shall see her! A pearl, a jewel, _une femme exquise_!--That is to say,” he added, with a change of note, “she would be if she were not a _femme boche_. One almost forgets it, to look at her. But _boche_ or not, she is young, she is beautiful, and, _mon commandant_, rarest of all--she is intelligent!”

The battalion commander laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and drew him along with them as they resumed their momentarily interrupted progress.

“I see I have to congratulate you upon another conquest,” he said, with amused tolerance. “He is incredible, _notre cher Jordan_, Delassus!” he added with a smile to the doctor.

“_Je ne dis pas_,” protested the young captain with an affectation of modesty. “But we understand each other and that is already much--although, unfortunately, she speaks no French and my German lacks vocabulary. But she made me understand that her husband was an officer killed in the war. ‘_Mann_--_Offizier_--_tot_--_Krieg_.’ That’s right, doctor, _n’est-ce pas_?--You are the linguist.”

The doctor nodded assent.

“Quite correct. You should make rapid progress under an instructor so willing to impart interesting information,” he said drily.

The young man protested warmly against the implication.

“Your cynicism is out of place, doctor. I assure you. She is _timide_--_timide_ like a frightened bird.--I extorted it from her.--But you shall see for yourselves. Here we are!”

They were at the end of the village. The young captain led them through a carriage gateway, sadly in need of a coat of paint, up a weed-grown drive to a fairly large house, that had once been white but was now stained with the overflow of gutters long left out of repair. A belt of trees hid it from the road. The main door, in the centre of the house with windows on both sides of it, was open, as if in expectation of them. Wisps of smoke from several of the chimneys hinted at hospitality in preparation.

As the three of them entered the hall, a young woman appeared on the threshold of one of the rooms communicating with it. Her natural slimness was emphasized by a gown of black, and this sombre garb threw into relief the fair hair which was massed heavily above her delicate features. It needed, perhaps, the youthful enthusiasm of the captain to call her beautiful; but her appearance had something of fragile charm which conferred a distinction rare among German women. She stood there, a little drawn back from her first emergence, contemplating them with eyes that evidently sought to measure the potentiality for mischief in these forced guests. Her attitude appealed dumbly for protection, so forlorn and frail and timid was it as she shrunk back in the doorway.

“Introduce us, Jordan!” whispered the battalion-commander to his subordinate. “_On est civilisé, quoi donc!_”

The young captain had lost a considerable amount of his assurance. Rather flustered, he saluted and pointed to his superior.

“_Commandant!_” then, turning to the other, “Doctor!” he blurted, clumsily.

Their hostess bowed slightly with a pathetic little smile as the two officers saluted. The doctor advanced a step.

“Have no fear, _gnädige Frau_,” he said politely in German. “The war is over and France does not avenge itself upon women. No harm will come to you.”

Her face lit up.

“_Ach_, you speak German!”

“I studied in Germany in my youth, _gnädige Frau_, and I have not quite forgotten the language.”

She smiled at him.

“_Gewiss nicht!_” Then, with a swift change of expression, she clutched imploringly at his arm. “You will protect me? I am so alone and frightened!” She hesitated as though seeking a cognate circumstance in him that should compel his sympathy. “You are married?”

The polite smile went out of his face. His expression hardened.

“I was, _gnädige Frau_,” he replied, curtly.

She stared at him, divining that she had blundered upon some painful mystery. With feminine tact she steered quickly away from it into the region of safe commonplace. She threw open one of the doors leading into the hall.

“Here, _meine Herren_, is the _Speisezimmer_,” she said in a tone of colourless courtesy that contrasted with her emotion-charged voice of a moment before. “It is at your service for your meals. There,” she pointed to a door at the other side of the hall, “is the _Salon_--also at your service. I have had a fire lit in it. Your orderlies are now in the kitchen. I will send them to you to show you your rooms.” She inclined her head slightly in sign of farewell and passed out through a door at the end of the hall.

The young captain looked at his commanding officer.

“_Eh bien, mon commandant?_ What did I tell you? Is she not----?”

His superior interrupted him, a twinkle in his eye.

“She is, _mon cher Jordan_--but you have not a chance against the doctor here!” He laughed, clapping the doctor on the back.

The _médecin-major_ frowned. His ascetic features hardened again.

“_Mon cher commandant_, you do me too much honour,” he said coldly. “I assure you that there is no living woman who can interest me.”

“Bah!” said the battalion-commander a trifle fatuously, “_moi, je suis connaisseur dans ces affaires-lá!_ I am sure that something is going to happen between you and that woman. I can always feel that sort of thing in the air like--” he hesitated for an illustration, “like some people can see ghosts.”

The doctor looked him in the eyes.

“_Mon Commandant_,” he said, curtly, “if you could see ghosts you would not feel so sure.”

There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The captain broke it by shouting for the orderlies.

The three officers were introduced to their rooms and parted to perform their toilet before dinner.

The meal which followed in the rather overfurnished Speisezimmer was overshadowed by the gloomy taciturnity of the doctor who appeared still to resent the battalion-commander’s suggestions of gallantry. Not all the sprightly sallies of the adjutant, not the persistent _bonhomie_ of the battalion-commander, resolutely ignoring any hostility between himself and the doctor, could bring a smile into that hard-set face with the sombre eyes. Their hostess did not appear again and was not mentioned between them. When they had finished, the captain suggested that they should smoke their cigars in the Salon.

“I feel I want to put my feet on the piano,” he said, with a vague remembrance of a popular picture, “like the _boches_ at Versailles in ’seventy! To infect our hostess’s curtains with cigar-smoke is a poor compromise, but it is something! _Allons, messieurs!_--let us indulge in hideous reprisals! The _boche_ has devastated our homes--let us avenge ourselves by spoiling his curtains!”

The battalion-commander looked smilingly across to the doctor.

“_Mon cher Delassus_, are you for this policy of reprisals?”

The doctor looked up as though startled out of a train of thought.

“_Mon commandant_, it is a subject on which I dare not let myself think.”

There was something so harsh in his tone that neither of his companions could continue their banter. Both looked at the doctor. They knew little or nothing of his private life, for he had joined the battalion only just prior to the armistice, but evidently it contained a tragedy the memory of which they had unwittingly revived. Both maintained a respectful silence for a few moments. Then the adjutant rose and went out of the room. He called out to them from the Salon that a splendid fire awaited them, and the others rose from the table also.

The battalion-commander laid his hand affectionately upon the doctor’s shoulder.

“_Mon cher_,” he said, “forgive me if I have unconsciously wounded sacred sentiments.”

The doctor pressed the hand that was extended to him. They went together across the hall into the Salon.

A blazing wood fire fitfully lit up a large room still without other means of illumination. Jordan explained that he had sent an orderly for some candles, as Madame had no petroleum for the lamps. The battalion-commander and the doctor threw themselves luxuriously into deep armchairs on either side of the fireplace and lit their cigars. In a few minutes the orderly arrived with the candles. Jordan fitted them into two large candelabra on the mantelpiece and lit them.

The eyes of all three officers roved around the apartment. It was, like the dining-room, rather overfurnished and was particularly rich in bric-à-brac of all kinds. It was, in fact, overcrowded with porcelain figures, small mirrors, pictures of moderate size, all sorts of valuable objects that in almost every case were of _easily portable dimensions_. This last attribute leaped simultaneously to the minds of two of them.

“_Mon commandant_,” began Jordan, in a humorously affected judicial tone, “I am penetrated by an unworthy suspicion----!”

“French! _Nom d’un nom!_” cried the battalion-commander. “Everything here!--The collection of the burglar _boche_ officer!--Doctor! You speak German!--Ask that woman----!”

Both were suddenly arrested by the attitude of the doctor. He was staring in a fixed fascination at a small Buhl clock upon the mantelpiece. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, snatched down the clock, and gazed eagerly at the back of it.

“_Mon Dieu!_” he cried. “_This is mine!_--it comes from my house!--Look!”

He showed them an inscription on the back:

[1]“_A Jules, pour marquer les heures d’un amour qui ne cessera pas quand le temps même cessera, de sa Marcelle._”

He stared at them like a lunatic.

“My wife!” he cried. “My wife!--Oh, Marcelle, Marcelle, where are you? Where are you?”

The others also had risen to their feet. A tense silence followed upon the wild cry.

The battalion-commander touched the doctor’s arm.

“_Mon ami_,” he said gently, “--can we help you----?”

The erstwhile sombre eyes of the doctor blazed down upon him, as though searching for a mortal enemy even in this friend. Then, with a distinctly apparent effort of will, the anguished man mastered himself.

“Listen!” he said. “This clock was a present to me from my wife. It was a love-marriage, ours--we loved, she and I----” he broke off, his eyes blazing again. Then, with a gesture of the hand as though he put that from him, he continued: “Before the war I was in practice at Cambrai. We lived out of the town--in a country house such as this. In August, 1914, I was mobilized. They sent me to Lorraine. I left my wife at home, believing her to be safe. You know what happened. The enemy swept over that part of the country. Trench-warfare began and my home, all I cared for in the world--my wife--was in the German lines. I never saw her again. I could never get any news. I waited four desperate years--and then, when we advanced, I went to find my home. It simply did not exist--it was a heap of bricks with a trench through it. My wife--no hint!” He pressed a hand over his eyes, then stared once more at the clock. “And now--I find this--here!”

Again there was a tense silence. The battalion-commander broke it at last.

“Interrogate the woman,” he said, briefly. “She must know something.”

“It is a pity her husband is dead,” said the captain, with grim humour. “We could have the pleasure of condemning him by court-martial, after he had confessed--whatever there is to confess.”

The doctor’s face set hard. He replaced the clock on the mantelpiece and wrote a few words on a page of his notebook.

“I am going to have the truth,” he said, tearing out the page and folding it up. “Ring the bell, my dear Jordan.”

An orderly appeared.

“Take this to Madame,” said the doctor, “at once.”

The orderly departed. The three men waited, two of them tingling with the excitement of this unexpected drama, the third standing with compressed lips and eyes that seemed to be frowning into a world which transcended this. He was certainly oblivious of his companions in the fixity of his thought. At last his lips moved.

“Marcelle! Marcelle!” he murmured. “My love! I am going to know--and, if need be, to avenge!”

At that moment the door opened and the frail little figure of the German woman appeared upon the threshold.

“_Meine Herren?_” she said, in timid enquiry.

The doctor looked up. His companions marvelled to see the expression of his face change to a smiling courtesy. But there was a glitter in the usually sombre eyes which spurred their hardly repressed excitement.

“Will you have the kindness to enter, _gnädige Frau_?” said the doctor. His voice was suave, but there was a note in it which his companions, although they did not understand the words, recognized as compelling.

The German woman glanced at him apprehensively, and obeyed. The doctor drew up an armchair for her, close to the fire.

“Will you not seat yourself, _gnädige Frau_?” he asked still in the suave voice with the undertone of command.

She inclined her head speechlessly and sat down. They noticed that her hands were trembling. The doctor motioned his companions to resume their seats. He himself remained standing, his back to the fireplace, his form hiding the clock on the mantelpiece from the eyes of the woman had she looked up. He smiled at her in a reassuring manner, as she waited dumbly for him to state the reason for his summons.

“We are very much interested in your collection of porcelain, _gnädige Frau_,” he said, smoothly. “It is French, is it not?”

A sudden expression of alarm flitted into her eyes, was banished. She nodded her head.

“_Ja--ja, mein Herr_,” she answered hesitatingly. She moistened her lips. Her hands gripped each other tightly upon her lap.

The battalion-commander and the captain observed her with a quickened interest. Despite their ignorance of German, the word “_Porzelän_” gave them the clue to their comrade’s opening question.

“It is the result of many years’ gradual acquisition, I presume?” he pursued, in a casual tone.

She shot an upward glance at him from under her eyebrows ere she replied.

“_Ja--mein Herr._”

“It is well chosen,” said the doctor. “I congratulate you on your knowledge and good taste. Perhaps you would explain some of the pieces to us--pieces I do not recognize?”

She looked up at him with wide and innocent eyes.

“I cannot, _mein Herr_. I know nothing about porcelain. It was my husband’s collection. I keep it in memory of him.”

There was an accent of sincerity in the last phrase which drew a sharp glance from the doctor.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “He was killed, was he not?”

Her eyes filled with tears, her mouth twitched.

“Killed in one of the very last battles, _mein Herr_.” She drew a long sobbing breath and looked wildly at him. “_Ach Gott!_ do not remind me! do not remind me!” she cried. “He was all I had in the world--everything--everything! You do not know how good and kind and loving he was! And now he is gone--he will never come back--never--never! And I loved him so!” She broke down into sobs, hiding her face in her hands.

The doctor waited until the crisis had subsided. A diagnosis of hysteria formed itself in his professional mind.

“So you have no real interest in this collection?” he enquired. “Would you sell it?”

“_Ach, nein--nein_!” she answered. “I keep it in memory of him, my Heinrich, who loved it so.--I feel him here when I dust it and care for it.” She looked wildly round the room. “I feel him here now!”

The doctor nodded his head in courteous assent to a possibility.

“Did he inherit it?” he asked casually, as though merely pursuing a conversation which could not, in politeness, be allowed to cease on a note of distress.

She shook her head.

“Ah, he bought it?”

She moistened her lips nervously ere she replied.

“Yes.”

“Before the war?”

Her face hardened as she answered again.

“Yes.”

There was a moment of silence and then the doctor changed his position slightly before the mantelpiece.

“And this pretty clock?” he asked, pointing to it. “Did he buy that also?”

She stared at it and then nodded her head.

“_Ja, mein Herr._”

“_So!_--that is curious. I am particularly interested in that clock, _gnädige Frau_. Can you remember where it was bought?”

She hesitated, ventured a scared glance at him, and obviously forced herself to speech. The two officers involuntarily bent forward in their interest.

“No, _mein Herr_.”

She glanced round as though seeking an opportunity for escape.

The doctor repeated his question in a level tone of authority, his eyes fixed on her.

“You are sure you cannot remember where that clock was bought, _gnädige Frau_?”

“Quite sure.” Her breast was heaving. She half rose from her seat. “Why do you ask me all these questions? Let me go!--Let me go! You have no right to question me like this! I--I tell you it was bought--it was all bought!”

The doctor stepped forward with a quick movement, seized her wrist, and forced her back into her seat.

“I beg of you!” he said in a voice that compelled obedience.

She subsided, trembling in every limb. Her eyes followed his every movement with the fascinated attention of a frightened animal.

The doctor came close to her, and from her point of view glanced up to the mantelpiece. Then, stepping back, he arranged the candles so that the face of the clock, seen from her position, was a disc of bright reflection.