CHAPTER IX IN WHICH WE BAG A BRACE

The weekly paper-chase upon skis took place upon the third day after Luton Delayne's visit to the Palace Hotel, and was not wanting in the customary excitements.

Youths, garbed in heavy sweaters and the monstrous boots which are necessary to a delightful accomplishment, hailed each other uproariously from their bedroom windows about the hour of nine o'clock and declared emphatically that the outlook was "rotten." Young ladies of ages varying from eighteen to two-and-fifty, hobbled about the precincts crying for John, the porter, to "come and strap them on." The cooks in the kitchen, not less busy, carved sandwiches with amazing dexterity and packed mysterious lengths of sausage as though they were well hidden from the human eye. Few thought of anything but the weather, and all the talk turned upon that well-worn topic.

The morning had broken with some promise, but the mists were heavy, and now the whole of the great valley of the Simplon was filled by cloud.

Standing upon the plateau before the Palace Hotel, a stranger might have imagined himself upon the brink of an inland sea, whose feathery waves rolled noiselessly to his feet. Nothing could be seen of the panorama below, not a vineyard, nor a cottage; and while the Weisshorn reared itself majestically from the white fog, the lesser peaks were wreathed about as by trailing pillars of smoke.

In one hour or in two, said the experts, this sea of mist would drift up and envelop the heights. It might also be relied upon to obscure the fleeting forms of "the hares," and to play subtle tricks with the panting hounds—a prospect which was full of terror to the majority, but of great interest: (1) to a certain Bob Otway, who had persuaded Nellie Rider to be his partner in the promise of the day; and (2) to his friend, Dick Fenton, who had promised to fly with her sister Marjory, if not to the ends of the earth, at least to the chalet where lunch would be found at one o'clock precisely.

Fenton, as will be gathered from the foregoing, had been chosen for a hare, sharing the honour with Keith Rivers and that engaging performer, Miss Marjory Rider. Allowed five minutes' grace, these three, who wore fine scarlet sashes, set out at nine o'clock precisely, and quickly disappeared in the direction of the Park Hotel. Immediately they were gone, the concourse of indifferents, tempered by a few such experts as Bob Otway, lined up before the porch of the hotel, and prepared to carry itself with what grace it could. The light of it, conversationally considered, was Miss Bess Bethune, who, moving like a sprite amidst the company, assured each and all that something dreadful was about to happen at the Palace, and that the night would bear witness. When she had thus breakfasted upon horrors, she sought out Dr. Orange, and attached herself firmly to him, until she discovered that he preferred the seclusion of the skating rink, where he might hold out the tails of his threes to the delight of the elect. Bess hated him in the instant of that avowal; and, oh! the malignity of Fate, she was left to enjoy the society of Sir Gordon Snagg, who insisted upon treating her as a child, despite her thirteen years.

Perhaps Bess would have captured Bob Otway, but for the expert tactics of his vis-à-vis, Nellie Rider. Three seasons had Miss Nellie (and her sister) pirouetted vainly at Andana, and she was determined that the fourth should pay for all. The gossip of chosen friends, feeding upon the inflated estimates of rumour, declared that Master Bob had just come into a fortune of fifteen hundred a year—a tale, by the way, told also of his friend, Dick Fenton—and this sum being clearly in her mind and sweet romance, as it were, jangling the silver bells upon the neck of that good horse, Matrimony, she attached herself to Bob with the tenacious grip of an octopus (the words were Bess's), and so led him instanter to the heights, as to the place of execution duly appointed.

To be sure, they cared little for the paper-chase. Both were experts, and the delight of climbing could not be marred by any thought of direction or rendezvous. Sufficient to know that they were mounting far above the mists, winning their way steadily to the entrancing slopes and the golden fields of unbroken sunshine. When, at last, Bob discovered that they were lost, he added the intimation that it was a good thing too!

"We should have old Gordon Snagg on our backs if we'd stayed down there," he said. "I know the old bounder well—he always stops to tell you some yarn about his brother, the brewer, and falls down in the middle of it. He got me yesterday. That nut, Major Boodle, was with him and the lady, of course. Lady Coral-Smith's a pretty good weight when she's round your neck, but I'd sooner see her round the major's. Did you hear her trying to tell something about the 'little widow' this morning? Beastly shame, I call it—the little thing's all alone, and worth about two hundred of the rest of them. Now don't you think so yourself, Nellie?"

He had not called her Nellie before, and she remarked the circumstance, and pronounced it to be of good omen. Fearing no possible rival in the "little widow," Nellie could afford to be generous.

"She is very pretty, and very nice," she said. "I am sorry for her, because she has lost her husband—at least I should be, if I knew what kind of a husband he was. It's all guess-work with widows; you never quite know whether to be sorry or glad."

Bob laughed loudly.

"They're saying in the hotel that she hasn't lost him. Bess Bethune hints that he wouldn't be lost. That's a new sort of game, I suppose: trying to lose a husband and counting points against yourself when he turns up! Do you think you would like to play it when you are married?"

She was horribly shocked. The word "husband" was sacrosanct, and such trifling seemed to her next door to a sacrilege.

"Oh, do let's talk of something sensible," she exclaimed petulantly. "Wherever there is a pretty woman, there will people tell untruths about her. What is it to us? We don't care, do we?"

Bob shook his head; he liked to pose as a man of the world.

"I think we ought to stand by her," he said. "Suppose you had been in the case, Nellie; wouldn't you expect me to stand by you?"

"Of course I should—but you wouldn't do it; you would begin to talk about widows instead. I'm quite sorry I came with you—"

He looked up appealingly.

"But we're having such a jolly time together. You don't mean to say you would sooner have been with old Gordon Snagg?"

"I would sooner be with somebody who talked about sensible things, so there! Are you going to stand here all day looking down at nothing? I didn't come out for that; I came to ski. Perhaps you would like to go back to the paper-chase?"

Bob hastened to say that he hoped the paper-chase might be swallowed up by an avalanche before he overtook it. Having insisted upon the point, he seized her hand without so much as a by-your-leave or any other unnecessary absurdity, and began to run down the slope with her. Here was something to live for; they were as two who had conquered the world and returned its proud heights upon wings of azure.

Down, down, the skis hissing in the splendid snow, the keen air bringing hot blood to their cheeks, the speed surpassing dreams of flight—so toward the woods which would hide them again, and permit them to forget that towns and hamlets, to say nothing of the inhabitants thereof, existed. Both were gasping for breath as they sailed down the last of the steeps and swung to the left at the bottom. Both were too sensible of the obvious fitness of things to utter one complaint when Miss Nellie tripped and fell right into Master Bob's arms upon the very verge of the wood. Is not the left an unlucky turn to make at any time? But who believes in luck when a pretty girl tumbles headlong into his arms and refuses to budge an inch?

"I say, Nellie, I wish you'd do that every day. Now, don't get angry—you know you rather like it."

She sat up and tried to push him from her.

"Whatever do you mean, Bob? It was your fault; you pushed me down."

"Of course I did. Let's lie here a month, just as we are—only I should like your arms a little closer round my neck. Never mind about your skis—I'll take them off."

He was as good as his word, unbuckling the straps and regretted that the monstrous boots forbade him to admire her pretty ankles. When he had removed his own impedimenta, he coolly put his arms about her waist, and lifted her from the deep snow.

"Let's sit down a bit and talk over things," he said. "There's a grand view from here, Nellie—I could see Brigue, if it wasn't for the cloud."

"Do you want to see Brigue, Bob?"

"Do I want to see Brigue?—when I can look at you! I say, Nellie, how silky your hair is—and I do believe your lips are cold. Well, that ought to warm them anyway! Shall I do it again? I will if you like!"

She shook her head; but her colour was high, and her heart beat fast.

"Why do you treat me like this, Bob?"

"Because I love you, Nellie."

"Do you mean it—every word of it?"

"I'll swear a thousand oaths if you like."

"And you'll never love anyone else?"

She put both her hands upon his shoulders, and looked straight into his eyes.

Bob admitted in confidence to his friend Dick, whom he met presently, that it was the look which did it.

"I'll never love anybody else, if I live to two hundred, Nellie. You'll just be my little girl, and when we're married—"

He paused abruptly, wondering what he had said. Nellie, however, sealed the compact instantly. She gave him a smacking kiss on his lips, and held him so tightly that he could not utter a single word.

"I'll have to tell mother, Bob—I'll have to tell her when we get back. I'm sure she'll be kind about it. I know she likes you. Wasn't it lucky we came up here to-day? Wouldn't it have been dreadful to have gone with all those people? Oh, why didn't we bring our lunch—I'm sure I ought to have thought of it. Now, I suppose, we'll have to go down."

Bob shook his head. It really was very nice to be kissed like that, and he didn't mind how long the process continued. The future became as misty as the wraith of cloud floating over Mont Blanc. After all, things might be fixed up somehow, and his two hundred a year would be all right if they didn't get married until he got something to do.

"Anyway," he said, upon reflection, "we needn't move just yet, Nellie—let's stop up here and talk. Perhaps we shall see the hares. I wonder what Marjory will say when we tell her. You know Dick Fenton's awfully gone on her. It would be a game if he had proposed, wouldn't it?"

Nellie didn't like the flippant tone, and looked a little serious. Her keen eyes were roving the valley below; but not a sign either of hares or hounds did they detect. What she did see was a man walking to and fro upon the narrow bridle-track, near Vermala, and another man who dodged upon his heels, but took good care not to be discovered. The pantomime was so engaging that she pointed it out to Bob, despite her desire to pursue that singularly interesting subject, matrimony and its preliminaries.

"Look at that man," she exclaimed in her surprise. "He's being followed by the soldier. I'm quite sure of it. Bob, look at him!"

Bob had no particular curiosity in the matter—so he put his arm about her waist, and peeped over the steep as she desired. Sure enough, the play was going on just as she had indicated. A man walked leisurely upon the path, while another dodged him in the security of the woods. Such a game of hide-and-seek carried its own explanations. There were two who played it, and one spied upon the other.

"Why, it's a gendarme from Sierre!" exclaimed Bob presently. "I should know the fellow anywhere. What's he up to, I wonder; and who's the man? It must be one of the Vermala people—and look, he's dropped to it now—he knows what's going on!"

It really was vastly curious. The man who had been spied upon detected his enemy suddenly and stood quite still, as though meditating a plan. Presently he turned about, and began to climb the height in a direction which would have carried him to the very wood which now sheltered the lovers. This manoeuvre, closely observed by the gendarme, was not immediately answered by him; but presently he turned about and set off as though to return to the hotel at Vermala. So he became lost to view, and the wood hiding the other, the little comedy terminated abruptly.

"That's a queer game," Bob remarked presently.

Nellie, upon her part, could make nothing of it, nor had she any desire to do so. Suddenly, as they stood there, the hounds burst into view, in more or less full cry, according to their agility. Gliding, shuffling, sprawling, the thin white line made what haste it could toward the village of Andana, where lunch was waiting. No one cared very much about the hares; elderly ladies, repenting of their rashness, would have paid precious gold to have been carried to any destination; the girls desired only that the men should admire their dexterity; the men, that their tricks should not go unobserved by the girls. Here and there, a fine performer rejoiced in the magic of the exercise and swooped down the mountain-side with the dash of an eagle upon its prey. But dash—except as an expression of the language employed—was in the main lacking to the cortège, which moved as though in lingering agony.

Bob hazarded the opinion that they had better go down immediately to the "bun-scrap" in the village, and reluctantly, with a last prolonged embrace which threatened the stability of the feminine superstructure, they turned and began to ski gently down through the wood. Hardly, however, had they made a start, when there came, not from below but from above, a loud and prolonged cry, which echoed in the very heights of the Zaat, and brought them to a stand in an instant. Someone had fallen, up yonder, from one of the dangerous precipices—there could not be a doubt of it!

"It must have been that fellow who dodged the gendarme," said Bob, after a little interval of waiting. Nellie did not know what to make of it. The cry was not repeated, and the pines hid the truth from their view. Nevertheless both were a little awed, and it was impossible not to believe that something untoward had happened.

"I wonder if we ought to go up?" Bob asked her. She replied, with a very white face, that it was not their business.

"There are always plenty of people at Vermala, and I know some of ours have gone up to the Zaat to-day. We could do no good, Bob—I'm sure I would go, if I thought that we could—but is it our business, when there are so many others about?"

"And the whole thing just spoof, perhaps. By George, though; if it were not!—if it were murder, Nellie?"

"Murder?—you make me shudder. How can you be so horrid, Bob?"

Bob hastened to protest that horrors were what most girls doted on; but he was obviously ill at ease, and neither said much while they went down through the wood. A little further on they disturbed, maladroitly, a pair of lovers, who started up in guilty fashion to reveal the red face of a certain Mr. Richard Fenton, and the tousled hair of that amiable and athletic nymph, Miss Marjory Rider. It was the merriest meeting in all the world, and Nellie's "Oh!" when she espied her sister would have done credit to a lady of the theatre.

"Oh, Margy, how can you look me in the face—?"

"But we're engaged, Nell—I'm going to marry Dick."

Dick looked under his eyes at Bob, but he seemed rather abashed, and by no means a lover who would have done credit to the heroics of the poets.

Upon his part, Bob said never a word about his own predicament; but Nellie had it out in a twinkling, and there the four of them stood, giggling and laughing and blushing. It remained for Bob to set matters straight by a resounding cheer, which he did presently to the great scandal of his fiancée, and the surprise of all in the vicinity of the wood. Then he discovered that he was hungry—a meagre lover sighing for baked meats.

"We shall miss the bun-scrap if we don't buck up," he said. "I'm sure old Gordon Snagg will eat all the sandwiches within half a mile of him. Let's make a dash for it, Nellie; these two will stop here spooning all day. It makes me sick to see them."

He did not wait for his friend to put on his skis, but taking Nellie by the hand, sailed with her down the nearest slope, and presently came out just above Benny's cottage. Here a little Frenchman, standing on the path which debouches from the woods below Vermala, waved his hand to them in a frantic and demoralised appeal, and when they approached him, began to tell them an excited tale which even one of his own countrymen might not have followed. As for Bob, who had forgotten the only irregular verb he ever knew, and Nellie, whose French hardly represented the guinea expended upon it per quarter, they were at their wits' end, until Benson himself came to their assistance; as he did almost immediately, lurching down from the chalet and asking gruffly what was up. To him the Frenchman now addressed himself, while Benny listened with an amused smile. Then he interpreted the rigmarole to the others.

"He says a man's fallen down from the height up yonder. That's steep, anyway; a baby would walk the path. Do you know anything of it? Did you see anything, Mr. Otway?"

"We saw a man and another following him," Bob said in a halting way. "I think the little man was a gendarme, for he had something bright on his hat. They went off toward the Zaat, and then we heard one of them shout out. I shouldn't wonder if this gentleman were right"—pointing to the Frenchman—"it's very likely the pair may have had a row."

To their great surprise and wonder, Benny turned as pale as a sheet. Muttering something about a silly tale, he, nevertheless, went about, and returned almost immediately to his chalet, leaving the young couple to appease the excited Frenchman as best they could. That worthy, perceiving their lack of understanding, renewed his appeals, this time to Dick Fenton and Marjory, who had just emerged from the wood.

"What does he say?" Dick asked his friend. Bob assumed an air of reproving superiority, and replied:

"Oh, a man has fallen off the Zaat—!"

Marjory said "Oh!" and turned very pale. Dick was not so sentimental.

"Well," he exclaimed rather pettishly, "why doesn't he go and pick him up? I expect it's all my eye; people don't fall off the Zaat, of all places. Why don't you tell him so, Bob?"

"He speaks patois—mine's no good to him. You have a shot, Dick, or perhaps Miss Marjory will?"

They laughed at this, and the Frenchman turned away in despair. These English assuredly were mad and without pity. He had told his story to half a dozen of them already, and all the answer he got was the gibberish of a tongue spoken neither in heaven nor on earth. Obviously, he must find one of his own countrymen, and they must go together to the slopes above. Failing that, he would return, and telephone to the police; an alternative which so pleased him that he was already half-way down to the hotel, when Benny, who had appeared on the scene again, overtook him and entered immediately into an exciting argument. Benny spoke French like a true Parisian—the stranger had no difficulty in understanding him.

The others, meanwhile, had gone down to the village of Andana. There in a little café, ordinarily shut during the winter, the hares and hounds browsed upon a common pasture. And curiously enough, while Bob and Dick ate with good appetite, their mood was hardly as joyous as it should have been; while those interesting young ladies, Miss Marjory and Miss Nellie Rider, wore already something of the staid demeanour of the married woman.

It was not until after lunch and much good Malvoisie that the young men drew aside to debate the situation in anxious whispers. Assuredly, as Bob admitted, they had "done it," and time alone and that far from amiable old lady, Mrs. Rider, could show them the way out.

In short, as Dick added savagely: "they were in a devil of a mess."