The days passed very slowly, before the steamer’s call. In the afternoons, when the southeaster was howling harder than ever and almost laying flat the little eucalyptus trees that stand up all over the many hills on which Port Moresby stands, I used to climb the heights above the town and wander idly about, holding on my hat and thinking what I’d do with my share of the price of the diamond—if we ever got it safe away to civilization. And down below on the flat, the Marquis would be playing tennis with Mrs. Vandaleur or squiring her about on the beach.
I never felt inclined to watch him on the days when it was my turn to guard the Sorcerer’s Stone. But on his days I don’t mind admitting that I shadowed him like a detective. In a town that is all small hills, with every house overlooking all the others, there is not much difficulty about that. And I grew more and more uneasy, as the time went on, to see the increasing number of hours he spent with “Daisie.” Every second evening, when he handed over the chamois leather case, in the privacy of our own room and said, “All right, my Flint!” I felt as though another barrier between our fortune and its realization had been painfully passed over; another cast of the dice fallen in our favor. For I knew now that Mrs. Vandaleur had her suspicions; and I trusted her—well, not half so far as I could have thrown her supple, eel-like little body.
Sometimes, from my eyrie among the rocks above I saw amusing scenes on the tennis ground and the flat. The most amusing was on the day when “Daisie” persuaded the Marquis to dance on the tennis court with a cassowary, a pet of some one of the residents, which used to hang about the grounds, begging humbly for cake, and if refused, instantly turned vicious and jumped up into the air to kick with both feet at the person who had repulsed it. The players used to tease the creature a good deal in order to see it fly into a rage; it was a young bird and not half grown, but it was very active and went into the most amusing frenzies of stamping, whistling rage. Cassowaries, as most people know, are extremely fond of dancing; and Mrs. Vandaleur incited the Marquis, first to dance with the bird, and afterwards to give an imitation of its style. I do not think I ever saw anything funnier than the tall, thin bird and the tall, fat Marquis, setting to partners on the green grass court, the cassowary taking its part quite seriously, and sidling, chasséeing, springing, like a girl in a theater; the man craning his neck in imitation, stepping stiff-legged, as it stepped and using his arms exactly as it used its wings. Afterwards, the Marquis improvised a “Dance of the Cassowary,” and it was one of the very best things I had ever seen him do. I have heard since then that it has met with much approval in his castle on the Loire.
It was my day for the Sorcerer’s Stone, so I looked on with an easy mind. After all, it seemed to me, I had been making too much fuss. The Marquis was not a fool, and even if the little widow succeeded in worming out of him the secret of the diamond, it was only what would probably happen sooner or later, somewhere. We had been through so many risks with the Sorcerer’s Stone that I had nearly come to believe there was something supernatural about it, for it always seemed to work out right in the end.
Next day I was suffering from a touch of fever, as most New Guinea residents do at times, and I did not go out at all, but stayed in my room and took quinine till the walls spun round me. The attack passed off towards evening, and I was lying on my bed, feeling weak but better, when the Marquis came in.
“Had a pleasant day?” I asked. He did not answer, but went over to the washstand and began washing his hands, with his back to me. I was feeling almost too tired to talk, so I lay silent for a while, watching the eastern sky-line, through our little square window, turn pink with the reflected glow of the sunset in the unseen west, and the green-gray eucalyptus trees streaming before the ceaseless thrash of the “trade” that blew up strong and stronger as the night came on....
It occurred to me that the Marquis was a very long time washing his hands. The room was getting darker; the people of the hotel were clashing plates and clinking glasses down below. It was nearly dinner time.... What could be the matter with my companion?
“Say, Mark!” I called out from my bed, “have you been murdering any one, like Lady Macbeth, and are you trying to wash the ‘damned spot’ away, or what?”
The Marquis turned round so suddenly that he flung the tin basin rattling on the floor, and the water rushed in a deluge across the room. He did not take the slightest notice of it. He came up to the bed, and even in the twilight I could see that his face was white.
I knew what had happened before he spoke.