Captain Willoughby was known at his club for a bore. He was a determined1 raconteur2 of pointless stories about people with whom not one of his audience was acquainted. And there was no deterring3 him, for he did not listen, he only talked. He took the most savage4 snub with a vacant and amicable5 face; and, wrapped in his own dull thoughts, he continued his copious6 monologue7. In the smoking-room or at the supper-table he crushed conversation flat as a steam-roller crushes a road. He was quite irresistible8. Trite9 anecdotes10 were sandwiched between aphorisms12 of the copybook; and whether anecdote11 or aphorism13, all was delivered with the air of a man surprised by his own profundity14. If you waited long enough, you had no longer the will power to run away, you sat caught in a web of sheer dulness. Only those, however, who did not know him waited long enough; the rest of his fellow-members at his appearance straightway rose and fled.
It happened, therefore, that within half an hour of his entrance to his club, he usually had one large corner of the room entirely15 to himself; and that particular corner up to the moment of his entrance had been the most frequented. For he made it a rule to choose the largest group as his audience. He was sitting in this solitary16 state one afternoon early in October, when the waiter approached him and handed to him a card.
Captain Willoughby took it with alacrity17, for he desired company, and his acquaintances had all left the club to fulfil the most pressing and imperative18 engagements. But as he read the card his countenance19 fell. "Colonel Durrance!" he said, and scratched his head thoughtfully. Durrance had never in his life paid him a friendly visit before, and why should he go out of his way to do so now? It looked as if Durrance had somehow got wind of his journey to Kingsbridge.
"Does Colonel Durrance know that I am in the club?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied the waiter.
"Very well. Show him in."
Durrance had, no doubt come to ask questions, and diplomacy20 would be needed to elude21 them. Captain Willoughby had no mind to meddle22 any further in the affairs of Miss Ethne Eustace. Feversham and Durrance must fight their battle without his intervention23. He did not distrust his powers of diplomacy, but he was not anxious to exert them in this particular case, and he looked suspiciously at Durrance as he entered the room. Durrance, however, had apparently24 no questions to ask. Willoughby rose from his chair, and crossing the room, guided his visitor over to his deserted25 corner.
"Will you smoke?" he said, and checked himself. "I beg your pardon."
"Oh, I'll smoke," Durrance answered. "It's not quite true that a man can't enjoy his tobacco without seeing the smoke of it. If I let my cigar out, I should know at once. But you will see, I shall not let it out." He lighted his cigar with deliberation and leaned back in his chair.
"I am lucky to find you, Willoughby," he continued, "for I am only in town for to-day. I come up every now and then from Devonshire to see my oculist26, and I was very anxious to meet you if I could. On my last visit Mather told me that you were away in the country. You remember Mather, I suppose? He was with us in Suakin."
"Of course, I remember him quite well," said Willoughby, heartily27. He was more than willing to talk about Mather; he had a hope that in talking about Mather, Durrance might forget that other matter which caused him anxiety.
"We are both of us curious," Durrance continued, "and you can clear up the point we are curious about. Did you ever come across an Arab called Abou Fatma?"
"Abou Fatma," said Willoughby, slowly, "one of the Hadendoas?"
"No, a man of the Kabbabish tribe."
"Abou Fatma?" Willoughby repeated, as though for the first time he had heard the name. "No, I never came across him;" and then he stopped. It occurred to Durrance that it was not a natural place at which to stop; Willoughby might have been expected to add, "Why do you ask me?" or some question of the kind. But he kept silent. As a matter of fact, he was wondering how in the world Durrance had ever come to hear of Abou Fatma, whose name he himself had heard for the first and last time a year ago upon the verandah of the Palace at Suakin. For he had spoken the truth. He never had come across Abou Fatma, although Feversham had spoken of him.
"That makes me still more curious," Durrance continued. "Mather and I were together on the last reconnaissance in '84, and we found Abou Fatma hiding in the bushes by the Sinkat fort. He told us about the Gordon letters which he had hidden in Berber. Ah! you remember his name now."
"I was merely getting my pipe out of my pocket," said Willoughby. "But I do remember the name now that you mention the letters."
"They were brought to you in Suakin fifteen months or so back. Mather showed me the paragraph in the Evening Standard. And I am curious as to whether Abou Fatma returned to Berber and recovered them. But since you have never come across him, it follows that he was not the man."
Captain Willoughby began to feel sorry that he had been in such haste to deny all acquaintance with Abou Fatma of the Kabbabish tribe.
"No; it was not Abou Fatma," he said, with an awkward sort of hesitation28. He dreaded29 the next question which Durrance would put to him. He filled his pipe, pondering what answer he should make to it. But Durrance put no question at all for the moment.
"I wondered," he said slowly. "I thought that Abou Fatma would hardly return to Berber. For, indeed, whoever undertook the job undertook it at the risk of his life, and, since Gordon was dead, for no very obvious reason."
"Quite so," said Willoughby, in a voice of relief. It seemed that Durrance's curiosity was satisfied with the knowledge that Abou Fatma had not recovered the letters. "Quite so. Since Gordon was dead, for no reason."
"For no obvious reason, I think I said," Durrance remarked imperturbably30. Willoughby turned and glanced suspiciously at his companion, wondering whether, after all, Durrance knew of his visit to Kingsbridge and its motive31. Durrance, however, smoked his cigar, leaning back in his chair with his face tilted32 up towards the ceiling. He seemed, now that his curiosity was satisfied, to have lost interest in the history of the Gordon letters. At all events, he put no more questions upon that subject to embarrass Captain Willoughby, and indeed there was no need that he should. Thinking over the possible way by which Harry33 Feversham might have redeemed34 himself in Willoughby's eyes from the charge of cowardice35, Durrance could only hit upon this recovery of the letters from the ruined wall in Berber. There had been no personal danger to the inhabitants of Suakin since the days of that last reconnaissance. The great troop-ships had steamed between the coral reefs towards Suez, and no cry for help had ever summoned them back. Willoughby risked only his health in that white palace on the Red Sea. There could not have been a moment when Feversham was in a position to say, "Your life was forfeit36 but for me, whom you call coward." And Durrance, turning over in his mind all the news and gossip which had come to him at Wadi Halfa or during his furloughs, had been brought to conjecture37 whether that fugitive38 from Khartum, who had told him his story in the glacis of the silent ruined fort of Sinkat during one drowsy39 afternoon of May, had not told it again at Suakin within Feversham's hearing. He was convinced now that his conjecture was correct.
Will............