Durrance was startled. He was a soldier of a type not so rare as the makers of war stories wish their readers to believe. Hector of Troy was his ancestor; he was neither hysterical in his language nor vindictive in his acts; he was not an elderly schoolboy with a taste for loud talk, but a quiet man who did his work without noise, who could be stern when occasion needed and of an unflinching severity, but whose nature was gentle and compassionate. And this barbaric utterance of Ethne Eustace he did not understand.
"You disliked Major Castleton so much?" he exclaimed.
"I never knew him."
"Yet you are glad that he is dead?"
"I am quite glad," said Ethne, stubbornly.
She made another slip when she spoke thus of Major Castleton, and Durrance did not pass it by unnoticed. He remembered it, and thought it over in his gun-room at Guessens. It added something to the explanation which he was building up of Harry Feversham's disgrace and disappearance. The story was gradually becoming clear to his sharpened wits. Captain Willoughby's visit and the token he had brought had given him the clue. A white feather could mean nothing but an accusation of cowardice. Durrance could not remember that he had ever detected any signs of cowardice in Harry Feversham, and the charge startled him perpetually into incredulity.
But the fact remained. Something had happened on the night of the ball at Lennon House, and from that date Harry had been an outcast. Suppose that a white feather had been forwarded to Lennon House, and had been opened in Ethne's presence? Or more than one white feather? Ethne had come back from her long talk with Willoughby holding that white feather as though there was nothing so precious in all the world.
So much Mrs. Adair had told him.
It followed, then, that the cowardice was atoned, or in one particular atoned. Ethne's recapture of her youth pointed inevitably to that conclusion. She treasured the feather because it was no longer a symbol of cowardice but a symbol of cowardice atoned.
But Harry Feversham had not returned, he still slunk in the world's by-ways. Willoughby, then, was not the only man who had brought the accusation; there were others-two others. One of the two Durrance had long since identified. When Durrance had suggested that Harry might be taken to Omdurman, Ethne had at once replied, "Colonel Trench is in Omdurman." She needed no explanation of Harry's disappearance from Wadi Halfa into the southern Soudan. It was deliberate; he had gone out to be captured, to be taken to Omdurman. Moreover, Ethne had spoken of the untrustworthiness of the go-between, and there again had helped Durrance in his conjectures. There was some obligation upon Feversham to come to Trench's help. Suppose that Feversham had laid his plans of rescue, and had ventured out into the desert that he might be his own go-between. It followed that a second feather had been sent to Ramelton, and that Trench had sent it.
To-night Durrance was able to join Major Castleton to Trench and Willoughby. Ethne's satisfaction at the death of a man whom she did not know could mean but the one thing. There would be the same obligation resting upon Feversham with regard to Major Castleton if he lived. It seemed likely that a third feather had come to Lennon House, and that Major Castleton had sent it.
Durrance pondered over the solution of the problem, and more and more he found it plausible. There was one man who could have told him the truth and who had refused to tell it, who would no doubt still refuse to tell it. But that one man's help Durrance intended to enlist, and to this end he must come with the story pat upon his lips and no request for information.
"Yes," he said, "I think that after my next visit to London I can pay a visit to Lieutenant Sutch."
Chapter XXII — Durrance Lets His Cigar Go Out
Captain Willoughby was known at his club for a bore. He was a determined raconteur of pointless stories about people with whom not one of his audience was acquainted. And there was no deterring him, for he did not listen, he only talked. He took the most savage snub with a vacant and amicable face; and, wrapped in his own dull thoughts, he continued his copious monologue. In the smoking-room or at the supper-table he crushed conversation flat as a steam-roller crushes a road. He was quite irresistible. Trite anecdotes were sandwiched between aphorisms of the copybook; and whether anecdote or aphorism, all was delivered with the air of a man surprised by his own profundity. If you waited long enough, you had no longer the will power to run away, you sat caught in a web of sheer dulness. Only those, however, who did not know him waited long enough; the rest of his fellow-members at his appearance straightway rose and fled.
It happened, therefore, that within half an hour of his entrance to his club, he usually had one large corner of the room entirely to himself; and that particular corner up to the moment of his entrance had been the most frequented. For he made it a rule to choose the largest group as his audience. He was sitting in this solitary state one afternoon early in October, when the waiter approached him and handed to him a card.
Captain Willoughby took it with alacrity, for he desired company, and his acquaintances had all left the club to fulfil the most pressing and imperative engagements. But as he read the card his countenance fell. "Colonel Durrance!" he said, and scratched his head thoughtfully. Durrance had never in his life paid him a friendly visit before, and why should he go out of his way to do so now? It looked as if Durrance had somehow got wind of his journey to Kingsbridge.
"Does Colonel Durrance know that I am in the club?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied the waiter.
"Very well. Show him in."
Durrance had, no doubt come to ask questions, and diplomacy would be needed to elude them. Captain Willoughby had no mind to meddle any further in the affairs of Miss Ethne Eustace. Feversham and Durrance must fight their battle without his intervention. He did not distrust his powers of diplomacy, but he was not anxious to exert them in this particular case, and he looked suspiciously at Durrance as he entered the room. Durrance, however, had apparently no questions to ask. Willoughby rose from his chair, and crossing the room, guided his visitor over to his deserted corner.
"Will you smoke?" he said, and checked himself. "I beg your pardon."
"Oh, I'll smoke," Durrance answered. "It's not quite true that a man can't enjoy his tobacco without seeing the smoke of it. If I let my cigar out, I should know at once. But you will see, I shall not let it out." He lighted his cigar with deliberation and leaned back in his chair.
"I am lucky to find you, Willoughby," he continued, "for I am only in town for to-day. I come up every now and then from Devonshire to see my oculist, and I was very anxious to meet you if I could. On my last visit Mather told me that you were away in the country. You remember Mather, I suppose? He was with us in Suakin."
"Of course, I remember him quite well," said Willoughby, heartily. He was more than willing to talk about Mather; he had a hope that in talking about Mather, Durrance might forget that other matter which caused him anxiety.
"We are both of us curious," Durrance continued, "and you can clear up the point we are curious about. Did you ever come across an Arab called Abou Fatma?"
"Abou Fatma," said Willoughby, slowly, "one of the Hadendoas?"
"No, a man of the Kabbabish tribe."
"Abou Fatma?" Willoughby repeated, as though for the first time he had heard the name. "No, I never came across him;" and then he stopped. It occurred to Durrance that it was not a natural place at which to stop; Willoughby might have been expected to add, "Why do you ask me?" or some question of the kind. But he kept silent. As a matter of fact, he was wondering how in the world Durrance had ever come to hear of Abou Fatma, whose name he himself had heard for the first and last time a year ago upon the verandah of the Palace at Suakin. For he had spoken the truth. He never had come across Abou Fatma, although Feversham had spoken of him.