The Snare
by Rafael Sabatini
(first published in 1917)
Chapter XV
The Wallet
"A queer, mysterious business this death of Samoval," said Colonel Grant.
"So I was beginning to perceive," Wellington agreed, his brow dark.
They were alone together in the quadrangle under the trellis,
through which the sun, already high, was dappling the table at
which his lordship sat.
"It would be easier to read if it were not for the duelling swords.
Those and the nature of Samoval's wound certainly point unanswerably
to a duel. Otherwise there would be considerable evidence that
Samoval was a spy caught in the act and dealt with out of hand as
he deserved."
"How? Count Samoval a spy?"
"In the French interest," answered the colonel without emotion,
"acting upon the instructions of the Souza faction, whose tool he
had become." And Colonel Grant proceeded to relate precisely what
he knew of Samoval.
Lord Wellington sat awhile in silence, cogitating. Then he rose,
and his piercing eyes looked up at the colonel, who stood a good
head taller than himself.
"Is this the evidence of which you spoke?"
"By no means," was the answer. "The evidence I have secured is
much more palpable. I have it here." He produced a little wallet of
red morocco bearing the initial "S " surmounted by a coronet.
Opening it, he selected from it some papers, speaking the while.
"I thought it as well before I left last night to make an examination
of the body. This is what I found, and it contains, among other
lesser documents, these to which I would draw your lordship's
attention. First this." And he placed in Lord Wellington's hand a
holograph note from the Prince of Esslingen introducing the bearer,
M. de la Fleche, his confidential agent, who would consult with the
Count, and thanking the Count for the valuable information already
received from him.
His lordship sat down again to read the letter. "It is a full
confirmation of what you have told me," he said calmly.
"Then this," said Colonel Grant, and he placed upon the table a
note in French of the approximate number and disposition of the
British troops in Portugal at the time. "The handwriting is
Samoval's own, as those who know it will have no difficulty in
discerning. And now this, sir." He unfolded a small sketch map,
bearing the title also in French: Probable position and extent of
the fortifications north of Lisbon.
"The notes at the foot," he added, "are in cipher, and it is the
ordinary cipher employed by the French, which in itself proves how
deeply Samoval was involved. Here is a translation of it." And he
placed before his chief a sheet of paper on which Lord Wellington
read:
"This is based upon my own personal knowledge of the country, odd
scraps of information received from time to time, and my personal
verification of the roads closed to traffic in that region. It is
intended merely as a guide to the actual locale of the
fortifications, an exact plan of which I hope shortly to obtain."
His lordship considered it very attentively, but without betraying
the least discomposure.
"For a man working upon such slight data as he himself confesses,"
was the quiet comment, "he is damnably accurate. It is as well, I
think, that this did not reach Marshal Massena."
"My own assumption is that he put off sending it, intending to
replace it by the actual plan—which he here confesses to the
expectation of obtaining shortly."
"I think he died at the right moment. Anything else?"
"Indeed," said Colonel Grant, "I have kept the best for the last."
And unfolding yet another document, he placed it in the hands of
the Commander-in-Chief. It was Lord Liverpool's note of the troops
to be embarked for Lisbon in June and July—the note abstracted
from the dispatch carried by Captain Garfield.
His lordship's lips tightened as he considered it. "His death was
timely indeed, damned timely; and the man who killed him deserves
to be mentioned in dispatches. Nothing else, I suppose?"
"The rest is of little consequence, sir."
"Very well." He rose. "You will leave these with me, and the
wallet as well, if you please. I am on my way to confer with the
members of the Council of Regency, and I am glad to go armed with
so stout a weapon as this. Whatever may be the ultimate finding of
the court-martial, the present assumption must be that Samoval met
the death of a spy caught in the act, as you suggested. That is
the only conclusion the Portuguese Government can draw when I lay
these papers before it. They will effectively silence all protests."
"Shall I tell O'Moy?" inquired the colonel.
"Oh, certainly," answered his lordship, instantly to change his
mind. "Stay!" He considered, his chin in his hand, his eyes dreamy.
"Better not, perhaps. Better not tell anybody. Let us keep this
to ourselves for the present. It has no direct bearing on the
matter to be tried. By the way, when does the court-martial sit?"
"I have just heard that Marshal Beresford has ordered it to sit on
Thursday here at Monsanto."
His lordship considered. "Perhaps I shall be present. I may be at
Torres Vedras until then. It is a very odd affair. What is your
own impression of it, Grant? Have you formed any?"
Grant smiled darkly. "I have been piecing things together. The
result is rather curious, and still very mystifying, still leaving a
deal to be explained, and somehow this wallet doesn't fit into the
scheme at all."
"You shall tell me about it as we ride into Lisbon. I want you
to come with me. Lady O'Moy must forgive me if I take French
leave, since she is nowhere to be found."
The truth was, that her ladyship had purposely gone into hiding,
after the fashion of suffering animals that are denied expression
of their pain. She had gone off with her load of sorrow and
anxiety into the thicket on the flank of Monsanto, and there Sylvia
found her presently, dejectedly seated by a spring on a bank that
was thick with flowering violets. Her ladyship was in tears, her
mind swollen to bursting-point by the secret which it sought to
contain but felt itself certainly unable to contain much longer.
"Why, Una dear," cried Miss Armytage, kneeling beside her and
putting a motherly arm about that full-grown child, "what is this?"
Her ladyship wept copiously, the springs of her grief gushing forth
in response to that sympathetic touch.
"Oh, my dear, I am so distressed. I shall go mad, I think. I am
sure I have never deserved all this trouble. I have always been
considerate of others. You know I wouldn't give pain to any one.
And—and Dick has always been so thoughtless."
"Dick?" said Miss Armytage, and there was less sympathy in
her voice. "It is Dick you are thinking about at present?"
"Of course. All this trouble has come through Dick. I mean,"
she recovered, "that all my troubles began with this affair of
Dick's. And now there is Ned under arrest and to be
court-martialled."
"But what has Captain Tremayne to do with Dick? "
"Nothing, of course," her ladyship agreed, with more than usual
self-restraint. "But it's one trouble on another. Oh, it's more
than I can bear."
"I know, my dear, I know," Miss Armytage said soothingly, and her
own voice was not so steady.
"You don't know! How can you? It isn't your brother or your
friend. It isn't as if you cared very much for either of them.
If you did, if you loved Dick or Ned, you might realise what I am
suffering."
Miss Armytage's eyes looked straight ahead into the thick green
foliage, and there was an odd smile, half wistful, half scornful,
on her lips.
"Yet I have done what I could," she said presently. "I have
spoken to Lord Wellington about them both."
Lady O'Moy checked her tears to look at her companion, and there was
dread in her eyes.
"You have spoken to Lord Wellington?"
"Yes. The opportunity came, and I took it."
"And whatever did you tell him?" She was all a-tremble now, as she
clutched Miss Armytage's hand.
Miss Armytage related what had passed; how she had explained the
true facts of Dick's case to his lordship; how she had protested
her faith that Tremayne was incapable of lying, and that if he said
he had not killed Samoval it was certain that he had not done so;
and, finally, how his lordship had promised to bear both cases in his
mind.
"That doesn't seem very much," her ladyship complained.
"But he said that he would never allow a British officer to be made
a scapegoat, and that if things proved to be as I stated them he
would see that the worst that happened to Dick would be his dismissal
from the army. He asked me to let him know immediately if Dick
were found."
More than ever was her ladyship on the very edge of confiding.
A chance word might have broken down the last barrier of her will.
But that word was not spoken, and so she was given the opportunity
of first consulting her brother.
He laughed when he heard the story.
"A trap to take me, that's all," he pronounced it. "My dear girl,
that stiff-necked martinet knows nothing of forgiveness for a
military offence. Discipline is the god at whose shrine he worships."
And he afforded her anecdotes to illustrate and confirm his assertion
of Lord Wellington's ruthlessness. "I tell you," he concluded, "it's
nothing but a trap to catch me. And if you had been fool enough to
yield, and to have blabbed of my presence to Sylvia, you would have
had it proved to you."
She was terrified and of course convinced, for she was easy of
conviction, believing always the last person to whom she spoke. She
sat down on one of the boxes that furnished that cheerless refuge
of Mr. Butler's.
"Then what's to become of Ned?" she cried. "Oh, I had hoped that
we had found a way out at last."
He raised himself on his elbow on the camp-bed they had fitted
up for him.
"Be easy now," he bade her impatiently. "They can't do anything to
Ned until they find him guilty; and how are they going to find him
guilty when he's innocent?"
"Yes; but the appearances!"
"Fiddlesticks!" he answered her—and the expression chosen was a
mere concession to her sex, and not at all what Mr. Butler intended.
"Appearances can't establish guilt. Do be sensible, and remember
that they will have to prove that he killed Samoval. And you can't
prove a thing to be what it isn't. You can't!"
"Are you sure?"
"Certain sure," he replied with emphasis.
"Do you know that I shall have to give evidence before the court?"
she announced resentfully.
It was an announcement that gave him pause. Thoughtfully he stroked
his abominable tuft of red beard. Then he dismissed the matter with
a shrug and a smile.
"Well, and what of it?" he cried. "They are not likely to bully
you or cross-examine you. Just tell them what you saw from the
balcony. Indeed you can't very well say anything else, or they
will see that you are lying, and then heaven alone knows what may
happen to you, as well as to me."
She got up in a pet. "You're callous, Dick—callous!" she told
him. "Oh, I wish you had never come to me for shelter."
He looked at her and sneered. "That's a matter you can soon mend,"
he told her. "Call up Terence and the others and have me shot. I
promise I shall make no resistance. You see, I'm not able to resist
even if I would."
"Oh, how can you think it?" She was indignant.
"Well, what is a poor devil to think? You blow hot and cold all in
a breath. I'm sick and ill and feverish," he continued with
self-pity, "and now even you find me a trouble. I wish to God
they'd shoot me and make an end. I'm sure it would be best for
everybody."
And now she was on her knees beside him, soothing him; protesting
that he had misunderstood her; that she had meant—oh, she didn't
know what she had meant, she was so distressed on his account.
"And there's never the need to be," he assured her. "Surely you
can be guided by me if you want to help me. As soon as ever my
leg gets well again I'll be after fending for myself, and trouble
you no further. But if you want to shelter me until then, do it
thoroughly, and don't give way to fear at every shadow without
substance that falls across your path."
She promised it, and on that promise left him; and, believing him,
she bore herself more cheerfully for the remainder of the day. But
that evening after they had dined her fears and anxieties drove her
at last to seek her natural and legal protector.
Sir Terence had sauntered off towards the house, gloomy and silent
as he had been throughout the meal. She ran after him now, and came
tripping lightly at his side up the steps. She put her arm through
his.
"Terence dear, you are not going back to work again?" she pleaded.
He stopped, and from his fine height looked down upon her with a
curious smile. Slowly he disengaged his arm from the clasp of her
own. "I am afraid I must," he answered coldly. "I have a great
deal to do, and I am short of a secretary. When this inquiry is
over I shall have more time to myself, perhaps." There was something
so repellent in his voice, in his manner of uttering those last words,
that she stood rebuffed and watched him vanish into the building.
Then she stamped her foot and her pretty mouth trembled.
"Oaf!" she said aloud.
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