“You’re surprised. But it’s a fact. That’s Newcombe all right. You couldn’t forget a face and a laugh like his. The handsomest man I’ve ever seen, bar none. He borrowed a suit of my clothes, the beggar, when he vanished. But a week later I had the things back with a letter. He trusted me that far. I tried to trace him, of course, but was not sorry I failed.”
“A letter!”
“Yes, giving a reason for his desertion. Some chap was running after his girl and had got her in a corner and bullied her into saying ‘Yes,’ though she hated the sight of him. I’d have done anything for Tom. But he took the law into his own hands. He disappeared—we were at Shorncliffe then if I remember rightly. The chap had joined to get abroad, and he told me all his harum-scarum ambitions once. I hope the poor devil was in time to rescue his sweetheart, anyway.”
“Yes, he was in time for that.”
“I’m glad.”
“Should you see him again, Tremayne, I would advise your pretending not to know him. Unless, of course, you consider it your duty to proclaim him.”
“Bless your life, I don’t know him from Adam,” declared the Major. “I’m not going to move after all these years. I wish he’d come back to me again, all the same. A good servant.”
“Poor brute! What’s the procedure with a deserter? Do you send soldiers for him or the police?”
“A pair of handcuffs and the local bobby, that’s all. Then the man’s handed over to the military authorities and court-martialled.”
“What would he get?”