Henri de Beaujolais?" interrupted Lady Brandon, again. "Who was at school with you? . . . Rose Cary's son?"
"Yes. He found it in this dead officer's hand . . ." replied Lawrence.
"Er--has the sapphire been stolen, Patricia, and--er--excuse the silly question--is this Beau's writing?" and he thrust his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket.
"But of course it isn't," he continued as he produced an envelope and extracted a stained and dirty piece of paper.
Lady Brandon took the latter and looked at it, her face hard, enigmatical, a puzzled frown marring the smoothness of her forehead, her firm shapely mouth more tightly compressed than usual.
She read the document and then looked out into the distance, down the coombe, and across the green and smiling plain, as though communing with herself and deciding how to answer.
"Tell me the whole story from beginning to end, George," she said at length, "if it takes you the week-end. But tell me this quickly. Do you know anything more than you have told me, about either Michael or the 'Blue Water'?"
"I know nothing whatever, my dear," was the reply, and the speaker thought he saw a look of relief, or a lessening of the look of alarm on his hearer's face, "but what I have told you. You know as much as I do now--except the details, of course."
George Lawrence noted that Lady Brandon had neither admitted nor denied that the sapphire had been stolen, had neither admitted nor denied that the handwriting was that of her nephew.
Obviously and undoubtedly there was something wrong, something queer, and in connection with Beau Geste too.
For one thing, he was missing and she did not know where he was.
But since all questions as to him, his handwriting, and the safety of the jewel had remained unanswered, he could only refrain from repeating them, and do nothing more but tell his story, and, at the end of it, say: "If the 'Blue Water' is not in this house, Patricia, I am going straight to Zinderneuf to find it for you."
She would then, naturally, give him all the information she could, and every assistance in her power--if the sapphire had been stolen.
If it had not, she would, of course, say so.
But he wished she would be a little less guarded, a little more communicative. It would be so very easy to say: "My dear George, the 'Blue Water' is in the safe in the Priests' Hole as usual, and Michael is in excellent health and spirits," or, on the other hand, to admit at once: "The 'Blue Water' has vanished and so has Michael."
However, what Patricia Brandon did was right. For whatever course of action she pursued, she had some excellent reason, and he had no earthly cause to feel a little hurt at her reticence in the matter.
For example, if the impossible had come to pass, and Beau Geste had stolen the sapphire and bolted, would it not be perfectly natural for her to feel most reluctant to have it known that her nephew was a thief--a despicable creature that robbed his benefactress?
Of course. She would even shield him, very probably--to such an extent as was compatible with the recovery of the jewel.
Or if she were so angry, contemptuous, disgusted, as to feel no inclination to shield him, she would at any rate regard the affair as a disgraceful family scandal, about which the less said the better. Quite so.
But to him, who had unswervingly loved her from his boyhood, and whom she frequently called her best friend, the man to whom she would always turn for help, since the pleasure of helping her was the greatest pleasure he could have? Why be reticent, guarded, and uncommunicative to him?
But--her pleasure was her pleasure, and his was to serve it in any way she deigned to indicate. . . .
"Well, we'll have the details, dear, and tea as well," said Lady Brandon more lightly and easily than she had spoken since he had mentioned the sapphire.
"We'll have it in my boudoir, and I'll be at home to nobody whomsoever. You shall just talk until it is time to dress for dinner, and tell me every least detail as you go along. Everything you think, too; everything that Henri de Beaujolais thought;--and everything you think he thought, as well."
As they strolled back to the house, Lady Brandon slipped her hand through Lawrence's arm, and it was quickly imprisoned.
He glowed with the delightful feeling that this brave and strong woman (whose devoted love for another man was, now, at any rate, almost maternal in its protecting care), was glad to turn to him as others turned to her.
How he yearned to hear her say, when his tale was told:
"Help me, George. I have no one but you, and you are a tower of strength. I am in great trouble."
"You aren't looking too well, George, my dear," she said, as they entered the wood.
"Lot of fever lately," he replied, and added: "I feel as fit as six people now," and pressed the hand that he had seized.
"Give it up and come home, George," said Lady Brandon, and he turned quickly toward her, his eyes opening widely. "And let me find you a wife," she continued.
Lawrence sighed and ignored the suggestion.
"How is Ffolliot?" he asked instead.
"Perfectly well, thank you. Why shouldn't he be?" was the reply--in the tone of which a careful listener, such as George Lawrence, might have detected a note of defensiveness, almost of annoyance, of repudiation of an unwarrantable implication.
If Lawrence did detect it, he ignored this also.
"Where is the good Sir Hector Brandon?" he asked, with casual politeness.
"Oh, in Thibet, or Paris, or East Africa, or Monte Carlo, or the South Sea Islands, or Homburg. Actually Kashmir, I believe, thank you, George," replied Lady Brandon, and added: "Have you brought a suit-case or must you wire?"
"I--er--am staying at the Brandon Arms, and have one there," admitted Lawrence.
"And how long have you been at the Brandon Arms, George?" she enquired.
"Five minutes," he answered.
"You must be tired of it then, dear," commented Lady Brandon, and added: "I'll send Robert down for your things."
§2.
That evening, George Lawrence told Lady Brandon all that Major de Beaujolais had told him, adding his own ideas, suggestions, and theories. But whereas the soldier had been concerned with the inexplicable events of the day, Lawrence was concerned with the inexplicable paper and the means by which it had reached the hand of a dead man, on the roof of a desert outpost in the Sahara.
Throughout his telling of the tale, Lady Brandon maintained an unbroken silence, but her eyes scarcely left his face.
At the end she asked a few questions, but offered no opinion, propounded no theory.
"We'll talk about it after dinner, George," she said.
And after a poignantly delightful dinner à deux--it being explained that
