"He has left Dr. Saxham as locum tenens, I understand."
The Mayor shrugged his portly shoulders
"As to his qualifications, there's no doubt. Ranked high at one time as a London West End specialist. I have seen his name myself in a British Medical Directory of some years back as principal visiting-surgeon to St. Stephen's and the Ludgate Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. Has written books – scientific works that are quoted now. Must have been making money hand-over-hand when the collapse came. The usual thing – one slip – and a Police-court Inquiry follows, and down goes the unlucky wretch with the Crown on top of him, and all the Press pack yelping for soft snaps. True, the finding of the Jury was 'Not Guilty,' but the fact of there having been a prosecution was enough to ruin Saxham professionally. Ah, I thought you must have heard the name!"
For the listener had moved suddenly. He did remember the name of the distinguished London practitioner who had been discreditably mixed up in the case of Mrs. Bough, the young, miserable, murdered creature, who might possibly have been the daughter of Richard Mildare. Tough and cool as his tried nerves were, he shuddered at the thought, and a sickly heat made the points of perspiration stand out upon his forehead. But the Mayor, good man, was prosing on:
"I can't say the facts of the case are very clear in my recollection, but I have a file of the Daily Wire at home, extending over six years back, so the Criminal Court proceedings must be reported in it. The woman's name, I do remember, was Bough. As regards her age, now you ask me" – for the Colonel had put a quick question – "I fancy she must have been twenty-two or three. Indeed, I am almost certain that was the age as stated by the Medical Witness for the Prosecution… However, I'll go into the reports and let you know for certain."
"Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, in case those Daily Wire files are bomb-proof, possibly it would be better to take the family with you – and stop until times improve."
"Not bad, not half bad, Colonel! But to tell the truth, I wouldn't miss what we used to call the shindy, and these boys of yours term the 'scrap' for a pile of Kruger sovereigns. And – I can shoot better than most men, if I am in the sere and yellow sixties." The Mayor was slightly ruffled; the diplomatic touch smoothed him down.
"My money is on you, Mr. Mayor, when it comes to stopping a Boer with a rifle-bullet at four hundred yards. By the way, I have a little confidence to repose in you. When you meet – as I am convinced you will meet – Dr. Saxham at the Hospital or elsewhere, metaphorically clothed and in his right mind, and in the active discharge of duties which no man, judging by your own testimony, is better fitted to perform, let him down gently."
The Mayor, conscious of civic dignity and magisterial warnings from the Bench ignored, swelled obviously.
"My dear sir, you can't let the Dop Doctor down anyhow. He is – just about as low as a man can get – short of being underground."
"Lend him a hand up – in the first instance – by forgetting that confounded nickname which I was clumsy enough to blurt out just now. Be oblivious of what he is, because of what he has been in the past, and will be in the future. For there is tremendous stuff in the fellow even now – or I am a bad judge of men."
"Colonel, you're a thundering bad judge of drunkards, from the Bench's point of view, but you'd be a damned good special pleader for a client in need of all the excuses that could be trumped up for him."
"We all have something we'd like to have an excuse for, Mr. Mayor." The keen hawk-eyes held a twinkle in reserve. "There was a man I knew, a mighty hunter before the Lord – and before the Game Laws." The thin brown fingers of the muscular hard-palmed hand played with the stem of a wineglass as the sentences came out, crisp and pointed. "Well, this is the story of a mistake, and an old shikari of your experience can find even more excuses for it than I can … but perhaps I bore you?"
"On the contrary – on the contrary, sir."
The fish had taken the bait, remained to play the quivering captive until his last swirling struggle brought him within reach of the skilful dip and lift of the angler's net.
"It was about four years ago, in the Portuguese coast-lands, South of the Zambesi, where elephants are to be had, and rhino, particularly the Keitloa variety with the long posterior horn, and a bad habit of charging the man behind the 600 bore…"
Mr. Mayor's capacious white waistcoat was agitated by a subterranean chuckle. His double chin shook merrily. "A side shot through the head – solid bullet – is the best cure for that, Colonel. But you had to wait in the high swamp-grass and keep the wind of him, and make sure of your aim."
"Quite so. This man, from the shelter of a rock, waited to make sure of his aim. The rhino was feeding tsetse as he dozed in the high swamp-grass. His biggest horn showed, and a bit of his shiny black skin. One forward lunge of the brute's head – and the hunter could get that side-shot. For that he waited, patience being, as we know, a virtue to be cultivated by the successful stalker of big game – "
The Mayor, boiled prawn-pink to the receding boundary-line of his upright white hair, coughed awkwardly.
"The man waited two hours. Then the unclad and obese native lady, carrying a long pointed grass-basket on her back, who had squatted down in the high grass to smoke a pipe and administer maternal refreshment to a shiny black piccannin of three or four – !"
The Mayor, purple now, burst out:
"Got up and went on! And, if these boys of yours get wind of that story, I shall be roasted within an inch of my life. Whoever told you? For the love of Heaven, don't give me away!"
The keen eyes, were dancing now – the big fish had fairly got the gaff.
"I promise, Mr. Mayor, upon the understanding that you don't give away my man… It's a compact? Thanks tremendously! And here comes the Manager to be congratulated upon the haunch. I never tasted better venison, Mr. Nixey, though, as you say, this is rather far North for koodoo. And the quail were beyond praise. Waiter, a glass for Mr. Nixey… Port – and we're going to ask you to join us in drinking a toast…"
The beautiful, flushed boy rose solemnly, glass in hand. About the long board, adorned with a fine epergne full of roses, Cape jessamine and purple bougainvillea, spread with Nixey's best plate and linen, crystal, and dishes of Staffordshire china piled with golden mandarins, and loquats, the fruit of October; there was a great uprising of those phlegmatic, self-contained Britons. Straight as the flames of unblown torches, they burned about the table. And with a simultaneous movement all those eyes of varied colours turned to the lean brown face of the Chief, as the sweet young clarion rang out:
"Gentlemen – the Queen!"
The brimming glasses rose high, – one crystal wave with the crimson of blood in it. The resonant English and the thinner Colonial voices answered together with a crash. As of the wave breaking on white cliffs northwards, and a great surge of love and loyalty went out from all those hearts to England, throbbing to the steps of the Throne where She sat, bowed with great griefs and great joys and great triumphs and glories, and white-haired with the full burden of her venerable years.
"The Queen!"
XXI
They lingered not long over wine and cigars. Lady Hannah Wrynche, entertaining what she disdainfully termed a "hen party" in her private rooms at Nixey's, vacated in her honour by the landlord's wife – expected them to coffee. Much to the relief of the military authorities at Cape Town, Milady, most erratic of Society meteors, had quitted that centre of painstaking official misinformation, for the throbbing spot of debatable land whence events might be gathered as they sprang. Shooting across the orbit of the reddening, low-hanging War-planet, she had descended upon Gueldersdorp in a shower of baggage-trunks, fox-terriers, and interrogations. For one thing, she explained to everybody, she had undertaken to supply a London Daily with a series of articles, written from the Seat of Hostilities, and for another, Bingo was on the Staff, and it would be so nice for him, poor dear, to have his wife near him in case he happened to get … was "chipped" the proper technical term, or "potted"? The articles were intended to be the real thing – racy of the soil, don't