one's head and one's nerves get, in that accursed desert, George."
"I know, old son," agreed Lawrence. "I have found myself half-ready to murder a piccin, for dropping a plate."
"Yes--the best of us get really insane at times, in that hellish heat and unnatural life. . . . But I got a hold upon myself and felt ashamed--for the good fellow took it well.
'Did Your Excellency make a thorough search?' he asked, rebukingly polite.
'But, my dear Chef, what need to make a thorough search for a living man, a hale and hearty, healthy soldier, in a small place into which he had been sent to open a gate? Mon Dieu! he has legs! He has a tongue in his head! If he were here, wouldn't he be here?' I asked.
'Murdered perhaps,' was the reply.
'By whom? Beetles? Lizards?' I sneered.
He shrugged his shoulders, and pointed to the sous-officier with a dramatic gesture.
That one had not been murdered by beetles or lizards!
'Yes,' said I. 'Now we'll reconstruct this crime, first reading what is on this paper,' and I opened the stiffened fingers and took it. There was a dirty crumpled torn envelope there, too. Now Georges, mon vieux, prepare yourself. You are going to show a little emotion, my frozen Englishman!"
Lawrence smiled faintly.
"It was a most extraordinary document," continued de Beaujolais. "I'll show it to you when we get on board the ship. It was something like this: On the envelope was, 'To the Chief of Police of Scotland Yard and all whom it may concern.' And on the paper, 'Confession. Important. Urgent. Please publish.
For fear that any innocent person may be suspected, I hereby fully and freely confess that it was I, and I alone, who stole the great sapphire known as 'Blue Water.'" . . .
"What!" shouted George Lawrence, jumping up. "What? What are you saying, de Beaujolais?"
"Aha! my little George," smiled the Frenchman, gloating. "And where is the phlegme Britannique now, may I ask? That made you sit up, quite literally, didn't it? We do not yawn now, my little George, do we?"
George Lawrence stared at his friend, incredulous, open-mouthed.
"But that is Lady Brandon's jewel! . . . What on earth . . ." stammered Lawrence, sitting down heavily. "Are you romancing, de Beaujolais? Being funny?"
"I am telling you what was written on this paper--which I will show you when I can get at my dispatch-case, my friend," was the reply.
"Good God, man! Lady Brandon! . . . Do you mean to say that the 'Blue Water' has been pinched--and that the thief took refuge in the Foreign Legion, or drifted there somehow?" asked Lawrence, lying back on his roll of bedding.
"I don't mean to say anything--except to tell my little tale, the dull little tale that has bored you so, my George," replied de Beaujolais, with a malicious grin.
George Lawrence swung his feet to the ground and stood up again. Never had his friend seen this reserved, taciturn, and unemotional man so affected.
"I don't get you. I don't take it in," he said. "Lady Brandon's stone! Our Lady Brandon? The 'Blue Water' that we used to be allowed to look at sometimes? Stolen! . . . And you have found it?" . . .
"I have found nothing, my friend, but a crumpled and bloodstained piece of paper in a dead man's hand," was the reply.
"With Lady Brandon's name on it! It's absurd, man. . . . In the middle of the Sahara! And you found it. . . . With her name on it! . . . Well, I'm absolutely damned!" ejaculated Lawrence.
"Yes, my friend. And perhaps you begin to realise how 'absolutely damned' I was, when I read that paper--sticky with blood. But probably I was not as surprised as you are now. Even that could not have surprised me very much then, I think," said de Beaujolais.
Lawrence sat down.
"Go on, old chap," he begged. "I sincerely apologise for my recent manners. Please tell me everything, and then let us thrash it out. . . . Lady Brandon! . . . The 'Blue Water' stolen!" . . .
"No need for apologies, my dear George," smiled his friend. "If you seemed a little unimpressed and bored at times, it only gave me the greater zest for the dénouement, when you should hear your . . . our . . . friend's name come into this extraordinary story."
"You're a wily and patient old devil, Jolly," said the astounded Lawrence. "I salute you, Sir. A logical old cuss, too! Fancy keeping that back until now, and telling the yarn neatly, in proper sequence and due order, until the right point in the story was reached, and then . . ."
"Aha! the phlegme Britannique, eh, George!" chuckled de Beaujolais. "Wonderful how the volatile and impetuous Frenchman could do it, wasn't it? And there is something else to come, my friend. All in 'logical proper sequence and due order' there comes another little surprise."
"Then, for God's sake get on with it, old chap! . . . More about Lady Brandon, is it?" replied Lawrence, now all animation and interest.
"Indirectly, mon cher Georges. For that paper was signed--by whom?" asked the Frenchman, leaning forward, tapping his friend's knee, staring impressively with narrowed eyes into those of that bewildered gentleman.
And into the ensuing silence he slowly and deliberately dropped the words, "By Michael Geste!"
Lawrence raised himself on his elbow and stared at his friend incredulous.
"By Michael Geste! Her nephew! You don't mean to tell me that Michael Geste stole her sapphire and slunk off to the Legion? 'Beau' Geste! Get out . . ." he said, and fell back.
"I don't mean to tell you anything, my friend, except that the paper was signed 'Michael Geste.'"
"Was the bareheaded man he? Look here, are you pulling my leg?"
"I do not know who the man was, George. And I am not pulling your leg. I saw two or three boys and two so beautiful girls, once, at Brandon Abbas, years ago. This man might have been one of them. The age would be about right. And then, again, this man may have had nothing on earth to do with the paper. Nor any other man on that roof, except the sous-officier--and he most certainly was not Michael Geste. He was a man of forty or forty-five years, and as I have said, no Englishman."
"Michael would be about twenty or so," said Lawrence. "He was the oldest of the nephews. . . . But, my dear Jolly, the Gestes don't steal! They are her nephews. . . . I am going to put some ice on my head."
"I have wanted a lot of ice to the head, the last few weeks, George. What, too, of the murdered sous-officier and the utterly vanished trumpeter?"
"Oh, damn your trumpeter and sous-officier," was the explosive reply. "Michael Geste! . . . Lady Brandon. . . . Forgive me, old chap, and finish the story . . ." and George Lawrence lay back on his couch and stared at the roof of the carriage.
Lady Brandon! The only woman in the world.
§7.
And as the train rumbled
