going on at Brandon Abbas exactly as before.
Aunt Patricia had, so far, communicated neither with the police nor with anybody else, and had taken no steps, whatsoever, in the matter.
Apparently she had accepted the fact that one of the three Gestes had stolen the "Blue Water"--and, extraordinarily and incredibly, she was just doing nothing at all about it, but simply awaiting Uncle Hector's return.
She had released Augustus, Claudia, and Isobel herself, from the prohibition as to leaving the house, and had asked no questions of any of them since the day that I had disappeared. On that day, she had accepted the solemn assurance of Augustus, Claudia, and Isobel, that they knew absolutely nothing as to where the Gestes had gone, which of them was the thief, or whether they were in league.
"I cannot understand her," she wrote, "nor get at what she thinks and feels. She fully accepts, apparently, my exculpation of Gussie (and incidentally of myself at the same time) and scorns to suspect Claudia. She has told us that we are absolutely free from suspicion, and she wishes us to make no further reference to the matter at all. Gussie is, of course, unbearable. He has 'known all along that you would come to a bad end--the three of you,' but while certain that you are all in it together, he believes that you, John, are the actual thief. I told him that I had a belief too, and when he asked what it was, I said, 'I believe that if you gave your whole soul to it, Gussie, you might possibly, some day, be fit to clean John's boots--or those of any other Geste. . . .' I also said that if he ever uttered another word on the subject I would discover, when the police came, that I had made a mistake in thinking that it was his arm I had held when the light failed! . . . Am I not a beast? But he does make me so angry with his sneers and conscious rectitude, the mean little rascal.
However, as I have said, the police have not come yet, and absolutely nothing is being done. The servants haven't a ghost of an idea that anything is wrong, and life goes on just as if you three had merely gone up to Oxford for this term. Burdon must wonder that you all went so suddenly and with so little kit, but I don't suppose it interests him much.
I don't know what Uncle Hector will say about the delay in going to Scotland Yard! It almost looks as though Aunt wants the culprit to escape, or else feels that Uncle Hector would prefer that there should be no public scandal if it could possibly be avoided, and the sapphire recovered privately. Somehow I can't think that Aunt would have any mercy on the thief, though--and I really don't think she'd suppose Uncle Hector would prefer this delay to scandal. Surely he is not the person to care twopence about scandal, and he certainly is not the person to approve a delay that may make recovery impossible. I can't make it out at all.
Fancy Uncle Hector robbed of thirty thousand pounds! He'll go raving mad and kill people!
Oh, John, where is the wretched thing? And how long will it be before you can all come back? I shall wire to you at once if it turns up, and I shall certainly come and see you if you don't come soon--for it's my private opinion that you are all three together! . . ."
I produced this letter for Michael and Digby to read, at our Sunday "Council of War" next morning.
Michael read it without a word of comment, and with an inscrutable face.
Digby said, "The little darling! I bet she comes out to Sidi if the thing doesn't turn up!" and he bounced on the bed, with glee, at the idea.
"Wonder what Uncle Hector will do?" said Michael. "Poor Aunt Patricia will get a thin time. . . ."
"For not preventing us from pinching it?" jeered Digby.
"No--for not calling in the police at once," said Michael.
"I wonder why she didn't," I remarked.
"Yes," said Michael. "Funny, isn't it?"
And yawning and turning round from the window, out of which we had been looking, I noticed that Boldini was asleep on his bed behind us. It was curious how quietly that man could move about, with his cat-like steps and silent ways.
§8.
Recruit-days passed swiftly away, and we were too busy and too tired to be wretched.
From five in the morning till five in the evening we were hard at it, and after that we had plenty to do in preparing our kit and accoutrements for the morrow.
That done, or given to a needy comrade to do, we dressed in our walking-out uniforms, according to the particular ordre du jour, and went for a walk in tawdry hybrid Sidi, or to hear the Legion's magnificent band in the Place Sadi Carnot, or the Jardin Publique. Usually we three went together, but sometimes the two Americans and St. André would accompany us, and Boldini whenever we could not shake him off.
He stuck to us closer than a brother sticketh, and after his first usefulness was over (and paid for), as we gained experience and learnt the ropes, we certainly did not desire his society for himself alone.
But apparently he desired ours, and ardently.
The more we saw of the two Americans, the better we liked them, and the same applied to St. André--but precisely the converse was true of Boldini.
However, we were not troubled by his presence when Buddy went out with us, for the American would have none of him, and scrupled not to say so with painful definiteness.
"Get to hell outa this, Cascara Sagrada," he would say truculently. "Don' wantcha. Go gnaw circles in the meadow and keep away from me with both feet. . . . Skoot, son," or some equally discouraging address.
Painful as this was, we were glad to profit by it, for Boldini waxed more and more offensively familiar. Put into words, the message of his manner to us three (his implications, and the general atmosphere he endeavoured to create) was:
"Come--we're all scoundrels together! Why this silly pretence of innocence and superiority? Let's be a united gang and share all loot" kind of idea.
I did not understand Buddy's virulent detestation of the man, though; and when I asked him about it one day, when he flatly refused to let Boldini join us in the canteen, all he could reply was:
"He's a rattlesnake with a silent rattle, and he's Lejaune's spy. You wanta watch out. He's on your trail fer somethin'," and Hank had confirmed this with a drawled, "Shore, Bo, watch the critter."
The first time that Boldini showed objection to Buddy's rudeness, the latter promptly invited him to come below and bring his fists--an invitation which Boldini declined (and was for ever the admitted inferior, in consequence).
Another person who most certainly watched us, and with a baleful boding eye, was Colour-Sergeant Lejaune himself, now, alas, Sergeant-Major.
We were, however, far too keen, careful, and capable to give him the opportunity he obviously desired.
When he came in for room-inspection, he made no pretence of not giving us and our kit, accoutrements, and bedding, a longer and more searching inspection than he gave to anybody else except Buddy.
When I met the long hard stare of his hot and cruel eyes, I thought of a panther or some other feral beast whose sole mental content was hate. . . .
"We're sure for it, pard," said Buddy to me, after one of these inspections. "Our name's mud. That section-boss makes me feel like when I butted into a grizzly-b'ar. On'y I liked the b'ar better."
"Yep,"
