Chapter Twenty Five.
The amazement of Van Bleit was equalled by that of the Kaffir driver. He nearly tumbled out of his seat in his astonishment; but the child that is in the African was more tickled than anything else at this rapid change of sex. He chuckled audibly, and uttered a succession of rapid clicks in expression of his appreciation. With the cunning of his race he quickly perceived which was the winning side, and decided forthwith that if a choice had to be made he would submit himself to the orders of the new baas, and the baas-missis. The native does not willingly risk his skin or his ultimate chance of reward. Having arrived at this decision he settled himself comfortably in his seat, and with the reins held loosely in his hands, prepared to watch developments. If there was to be murder done, which he firmly believed, he was going to see it.
The same belief was in the mind of Van Bleit. He looked into the hard cold face of the man on horseback, and recalled with very real regret how he had slashed that same thin, scarred face with his whip when he had the man at his mercy. With still greater regret he remembered how he had refrained from shooting him on that occasion. If he had only killed him then he would not be in this mess.
He blinked stupidly, and dropped his eyes, and fell to thinking. There was no way out. He was fairly trapped, and that by two men who owed him each a very considerable grudge. He thought of Tom Hayhurst’s broken head. It was easily seen where the blow had fallen by the deeper shade of the new hair that had grown over the place. Then later thoughts of Tom Hayhurst in connection with his disguise obtruded themselves, and again the angry purple showed in his greying face.
“Did you bring a length of rope, Grit?” he heard a voice inquire, and started involuntarily at the unfamiliar sound. It was the voice of Hayhurst, no longer high-pitched in the affected drawl that was assumed and discarded with the wonderful golden wig, but the sharp clear tones of the young engineer as he had heard them in Cape Town.
There was no verbal answer, but the man addressed took a short coil of rope from his coat pocket and threw it to the speaker. Hayhurst caught it and approached Van Bleit.
“Now, darling,” he said, in the accents that were Tottie’s, “put your hands behind you.”
Van Bleit complied because he dared not refuse.
“I’d like,” he said, and his hands wavered till the click of Lawless’ revolver set at half-cock reluctantly compelled him to bring them into the required position, “to throttle you.”
Hayhurst laughed.
“I don’t doubt it,” he answered.
Not being particularly soft-hearted, and having in mind, besides his own injuries, those raw wrists of Lawless’ which he had unbound in the early morning by the obscure light in the Kaffir hut, he drew the rope tightly about Van Bleit’s thick wrists and fastened it securely with a vindictive satisfaction in the knowledge of the discomfort he caused.
“You ought to feel flattered,” he said, “that we admired your methods sufficiently to copy them.”
He stepped from behind and stood in front of him, jeering.
“Wouldn’t you like to kiss me? ... It may be your last opportunity.”
Van Bleit’s ashen face turned brick red, and from red changed again slowly to the dirty grey colour that told of the terror that possessed him. He did not answer, but he spat at his tormentor in his rage.
Lawless dismounted and hitched the rein of his horse to a limb of a tree. He pocketed his weapon, and approached Van Bleit, who, expecting a personal attack, fell back hurriedly before his advance.
“Stand still,” he commanded. And Van Bleit obeyed.
“What are you up to?” he asked nervously... “You’re remembering things against me. You’ve got a grudge—both of you. Well, just you remember that I might have murdered you that morning—without risk... and I didn’t.”
“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 shirt 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 rôle.”
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 asserting 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-glass 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 sunshine in his shirt sleeves and removed the extraordinary quantity 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-worship which, being shy of showing affection for his own sex, 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 hell first,” Van Bleit shouted.
“You’ll find yourself in hell 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 nigger for a witness.”
“I’ll risk that. Besides, there’s such a thing as sending the nigger 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 nigger 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.
“Don’t know when you’re beaten, do you, old man?”
“Write,” was all Lawless vouchsafed... “Here, the discharge across the back.”
Van Bleit obeyed. He flung down the pen when he had finished with an oath.
“I hope you are satisfied now,” he remarked with great bitterness, as Lawless carefully placed the receipt in an envelope and slipped it inside his coat.
“Not quite,” he answered. He stooped for the pen and handed it again to Van Bleit. “We are not through yet. You have played your game of bluff very well, but you know perfectly that I could not get that packet from the Bank even with your receipt without a letter of authority from you.”
Van Bleit completely lost his temper. This man knew too much. It was almost like parting with his life’s blood, this plundering him of his treasure.
“Damn you?” he spluttered. “Damn you! May my hand rot off before it writes any such letter for you!”
Lawless took an envelope and paper from his pocket, and calmly placed and held in position the envelope on the improvised writing-pad.
“Now,” he said, presenting it as he had the official receipt, “you will please address this to the Manager.”
“That I never will,” Van Bleit blustered. “S’elp me, I never will.”
“Tom,” said Lawless in a voice of deadly quiet, “when I give the word, don’t hesitate to fire.”
“Right-ho?” Hayhurst answered cheerfully. “My only fear is that this weapon of mine is so eager it may go off on its own account.”
Lawless looked Van Bleit steadily in the eyes.
“I want you to understand,” he said, “that I am in earnest when I say that it is your life against these letters. Personally, I would quite as soon it were your life. The letters are nothing to me; but they are of considerable importance to other people... I doubt, on the whole, whether I should not be doing them and society at large a greater service by putting an end to you. I don’t intend wasting my time in persuasion. Either you write as I direct, or I put a bullet through your heart.”
In his chagrin and utter helplessness Van Bleit began to whimper.
“What have I ever done to you,” he asked, “that you should hunt me down as you have? It’s all spite—and jealousy. I’d like to kill you... I will kill you for this. My turn will come.”
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the tears from his eyes impatiently.
“If you’d only be reasonable,” he said, “and come to terms...”
“I’ve stated my terms,” Lawless interrupted drily. “Count ten, Tom; then if he doesn’t write, blaze away.”
Hayhurst began to count audibly and fairly rapidly. When he reached eight Van Bleit with the tears in his eyes put his pen to the envelope and hurriedly directed it. Lawless examined it, put it away as he had the receipt, and spread, and held, the sheet of notepaper. There was a hard look of satisfaction in his eyes as he fastened them on Van Bleit’s livid convulsed face. The knowledge of the exquisite torture he was inflicting gave him the peculiar pleasure that a man experiences when he is wiping out an injury.
“Write briefly,” he said, “to the Manager to the effect that you will be obliged if he will hand over to the bearer of this letter, Tom Hayhurst, the packet you deposited for safe keeping in the Bank, for which you enclose your receipt.”
With a hand that shook Van Bleit obeyed. But half-way through he hesitated, and, with his shaking hand upraised, looked savagely at Lawless.
“Count ten, Tom.”
The steely tones rang out commandingly, and had scarcely ceased when Hayhurst in audible response started his rapid counting. Van Bleit finished the letter in desperate haste, and signed it. Then with a bitter imprecation he snapped the pen between his hands and flung the broken pieces violently in Lawless’ face.
“Have you done with me now?” he demanded.
“Not quite.”
The reply was unexpected. Van Bleit paused irresolute, and stared with fallen countenance at this man who, not content with robbing him, demanded more. He began to fear that having tricked him out of the letters he would now foully murder him. The knowledge that, if so, he would in all probability hang for the crime was neither reassuring nor consoling.
Lawless read the letter, folded it, and placed it in his breast pocket. Then he looked up and met Van Bleit’s eye.
“What are you after?” Van Bleit asked dully. “You’ve got what you wanted... You let me go.”
The man he addressed smiled quietly, and taking his revolver from his pocket, covered the speaker with it.
“You don’t take me for quite such a fool, I hope?” he said. “All right, Tom! You’re off guard now. Just tie his hands again. I shan’t want him to use them further in my service.”
Van Bleit swung round as Hayhurst approached him, prepared to offer resistance.
“No, no?” he cried quickly. “I know what you’re after... None of that—no?”
“It’s not worth your while to resist,” Lawless returned curtly. “It’s hands behind or a bullet in your leg. I’m not particular which.”
Van Bleit faced round again and stared at him helplessly.
“You b-bully!” he stammered.
But he submitted quietly while Tom Hayhurst secured his wrists as before. And then he gazed about him with his trapped-rat expression, his full cheeks flabby and grey, and his thick lip fallen, showing the big white teeth. He was terribly afraid that his ease-taking, pleasure-loving body was about to suffer hurt. If they did not purpose murdering him, Grit Lawless would wreak his vengeance in some violent manner for the lashing he had received at his hands.
Lawless put the receipt with the letter inside the envelope which, taking Van Bleit’s seed ring off his finger, and some wax and matches from his own pocket, he proceeded to seal.
“You see, I came prepared,” he said.
Van Bleit scowled, but answered nothing. He was now principally concerned for his personal safety. If he could escape in time to wire to Denzil before the Bank opened in the morning, there was still a chance of saving the letters, even if Denzil had to pay for it with a couple of months for assault. Telegraphing to the Bank to stop the delivery of the packet was, he felt, useless.
Lawless gave the letter into Hayhurst’s charge.
“Take the horse, Tom,” he said. “I’ve a fancy for keeping the nigger in sight. We’re not running any risks this trip. Tell ’em at the hotel that I’m spending the night with a friend, and will be back for breakfast in the morning. You’re in plenty of time for the train. Get to the Bank as soon as it opens, and when you receive the packet take it to Colonel Grey, and deliver it into his hands.”
“And you?” Hayhurst asked, eager to undertake the mission; yet firmly convinced that the final delivery of the letters to the Colonel was a privilege that by rights should be Lawless’.
“I’m entertaining Van Bleit,” Lawless replied.
Tom Hayhurst glanced in the direction of their prisoner, and from him towards the cart where the whip stood invitingly in the socket, suggesting thoughts of retribution pleasing to dwell upon.
“I’d like to see you mark his face before I go,” he said. He pointed to the whip. “Shall I fetch it?” he asked.
“You fetch your mount and clear out,” Lawless answered. “When I horsewhip a man I don’t do it with his hands tied.”
Hayhurst gave the speaker a quick look. Then he walked towards the tree where the horse was fastened, unhitched it, and sprang into the saddle.
“So long, Grit,” he sang out.
He blew a kiss to Van Bleit as he cantered past.
“You’ll fancy yourself an Indian Brave when you wear my wig on your watch-chain,” he cried.
Van Bleit scowled yet more fiercely, and consoled himself with planning future vengeance against this impudent impostor to whom he owed his downfall. If ever fortune played into his hands he would have Tom Hayhurst’s life.