P. C. Wren - The Collected Works of P. C. Wren - Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories

When the canteen closed, Beau proposed that we should shorten the night as much as possible, and spend the minimum of time in that loathsome cell, lying packed like sardines on the bare boards of the guard-bed shelf, with a score of men and a million insects.

Digby observed that the sandy ground of the courtyard would be no harder and much cleaner; and the air, if colder, infinitely preferable to the fug of the Black Hole of St. Thérèse.

We selected an eligible corner, seated ourselves in a row propped against the wall, still warm from the day's sunshine, and prepared for a night under the wonderful African stars.

"Well, my poor, dear, idiotic, mad pup--and what the devil do you think you're doing here?" began Michael, as soon as we were settled and our pipes alight.

"Fleeing from justice, Beau," said I. "What are you?"

"Same thing," replied Michael.

"And you, Dig?" I asked.

"Who, me?" answered Digby. "Well, to tell you the truth, I, personally, am, as it were, what you might call--er--fleeing from justice. . . .

" Three fleas," he observed, breaking a long silence.

"Did you bring the 'Blue Water' with you, John?" asked Digby.

"No," I said. "No, I didn't bring it with me."

"Careless," remarked Digby.

"Did you bring it, Beau?" I asked.

"Yes," answered Michael.

"Careful," commented Digby.

"Did you bring it with you too, Dig?" I enquired.

"Never travel without it," was the reply.

"I suppose one of us three has got it," I said wearily.

"Two of us," corrected Digby.

"Oh, yes, it's here all right," said Michael. "What would be the good of our being here if it were not?

"Bring us up to date about things," he added. "How's everybody bearing up?"

I told them the details of my evasion; of how I had declined an interview with Aunt Patricia; of how the shock of somebody's disgraceful behaviour had been too much for the Chaplain's health; of the respective attitudes of Augustus, Claudia, and Isobel.

"It is rough on Claudia," said Michael, "and, in a different way, on the poor old Chaplain."

"And in a different way, again, on Aunt Patricia," I observed.

"Thirty thousand pounds," mused Digby. "What price dear Uncle Hector, when she breaks it to him? He'll go mad and bite her."

"Doesn't bear thinking of," said I.

"Deuced lucky for young Gussie that Isobel was able to clear him," mused Digby.

"That's what makes it so hard on Claudia--or would have done, if we hadn't bolted," said Michael. "Gussie and Isobel being out of it--it was she or one of us. . . ."

In the silence that followed, I was aware of a sound, close beside us, where a buttress of the wall projected. Probably a rat or some nocturnal bird; possibly a dog.

"Well--it was one of us," said Michael, "and we have demonstrated the fact. We've overdone it a bit, though.

"Why couldn't you have enjoyed your ill-gotten gains in peace, at home, John?" he went on. "Or left me to enjoy mine abroad? Why this wholesale emigration?"

"Yes," agreed Digby, "absolute mob. They won't be able to decide whether we were all in the job together, or whether we're chasing each other to get a share of the loot."

"No," said Michael. "Problem'll worry them like anything."

"When are we to let them know we're in the Legion, Beau?" I asked.

"We're not there yet," was the reply.

"When we are," I pursued.

"Dunno. . . . Think about it," said Michael.

"Don't see why we should let 'em know we're all there together," said Digby. "Better if one was at, or up, the North Pole, the other up the South Pole, and the third sitting on the Equator. More mystery about it--and they wouldn't know which to chase first."

"Something in that," agreed Michael. "If we are all together (since you two have come), we are obviously all implicated--all three thieves. If we are scattered, two of us must be innocent. There is a doubt on each of us, but not a stain on any particular one of us. . . . Why write at all, in fact? We are just runaway criminals. They don't write home. . . ."

" My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is puah," bleated Digby.

" My strength will be as the strength of eleven if you don't shut up," warned Michael.

"I don't see the point really, Beau," I objected. "We prove nothing at all by being scattered. We might still all be criminals. We could easily have planned to pinch the sapphire, to bolt in different directions, and to share the loot by meeting later on. . . . Or we could share without meeting. One of us could dispose of it in Amsterdam or somewhere, bank the money, and send a third of it to each of the others by draft or cheque, or something. . . ."

"Hark at the young criminal!" said Digby. . . . "Hasn't he got a mind?" . . .

"What I mean is," I explained, "it's a bit rough on--er--those that are left at home, not to let them know where we are--alive or dead and all that. . . ."

"Thinking of Gussie?" asked Digby.

"Besides," I went on, "how are they to let us know if the damned thing turns up? . . . And how are we to know how they are getting on? . . ."

"True," agreed Michael. "We ought to let Aunt Patricia know that we are hale and hearty, and she ought to be in a position to let us know if anything happens or turns up. What we don't want to do meanwhile, is to spoil the impression that one of us is the thief. . . . I still think it would help to keep suspicion on us, and to deepen the mystery, if we don't let it be known that we are all together. . . . We don't want some fool saying that we three agreed to take the blame and share it, and so cleared out together to the same place . . . while the thief is still at Brandon Abbas. . . ."

"Who did pinch the filthy thing?" said Digby, voicing once more the question that I had asked myself a thousand times.

"I did," said Michael.

"Then why the devil don't you put it back?" asked Digby.

"Too late now," answered Michael. "Besides, I want to lie low and then sell it for thirty thousand pounds, five years hence; invest the money in various sound things, and have the income (of fifteen hundred to two thousand a year) for life. . . . Live like Uncle Hector--sport, hunting, travel, big-game shooting, flat in town, clubs. . . ."

"On Uncle Hector's money?" I said.

"Doubles the joy of it, what?" replied Michael.

"Funny thing that," put in Digby. "It's just what I'm going to do--except that I find one can't get more than about twenty thousand, and I'm going to put it into a South Sea Island plantation and an Island trading concern. . . . Have the best schooner in the Islands, and be my own supercargo. . . . Every third year, come home and live the gay life on my twenty-per-cent profits. I reckon to make about four thousand a year. Yes. . . . Marquesas, Apia, Honolulu, Tahiti, Papeete, Kanakas, copra, ukaleles, lava-lavas, surf-riding, Robert Louis Stevenson. . . ."

"What are you going to do with the 'Blue Water' meanwhile?" I asked, humouring the humorists.

"Always carry it about with me," said Digby. "If I get an eye knocked out I shall wear it in the empty socket. . . . Blue-eyed boy. . . . Good idea, that. . . ."

"Or you might put it where the monkey put the nuts--develop a pouch in your cheek. Very simple for you, I should think," I suggested.

"Both rotten ideas," objected Michael. "Marsupial is the tip. Kangaroo's custom. They carry about their young and their money and things in a sort of bag, you know . . . in front . . . accessible. I keep it on me, night and day--wash-leather pouch in a money-belt. I thought it all out beforehand, and bought the thing in London. . . . Got to kill the man before you can rob him. Hatton Garden diamond-merchants wear them when they travel. Round their little tummies under their little vests. . . ."