Part 50 (2/2)
Meanwhile, Van Busch and P. Blinders, who had left the dorp behind them, and strolled up the almost dry bed of a sluit leading up amongst the hills, conversed, in Sabbath security from English artillery, and rea.s.suring remoteness from Dutch eavesdroppers. And their theme was the German drummer's refugee-widow who never went to kerk.
Van Busch, who found it helpful in his business never to forget faces, had met her on the rail, months back, travelling up first-cla.s.s from Cape Town. Early in October it was, while the road was still open. And men who kept their eyes skinned went backwards and forwards and round and about, getting the hang of things, and laying up accurate mental notes, because the other kind were even more risky to carry than the nuggets and raw dust that are hidden in the padded linings of the gold-smugglers' heavy garments.
The lady, small, dark, stylishly-tailored, and with bright black, bird-like eyes, was not a German drummer's widow when Van Busch and she first met. She had chatted in her native English with her square, bulky, sleek-looking fellow-pa.s.senger, well-dressed in grey linen drill frock-coat and trousers, with blazing diamonds studding the bosom of his well-starched s.h.i.+rt and linking his cuffs.
The wide felt hat he politely removed as he came into the carriage revealed to Lady Hannah a tall, expansive, well-developed forehead. Below the line of the hat-rim he was burned coffee-brown, like many another British Colonial. The observant eye of ”Gold Pen” took in the man's vulgarly handsome features and curiously light eyes, and twinkled at the flaring jewellery and the whiskers of obsolete Dundreary pattern that stood out on either side the jewelled one's full, smooth chin. His large, bold, over-red mouth, with the curling outward f.l.a.n.g.e to it, gave her a disagreeable impression. One would have been grateful for a beard that hid that mouth.
Lady Hannah found it curiously disquieting until her fellow-traveller began to talk, in a thick, lisping voice, with curiously candid and simple intonations. He presented himself, and she accepted him at his own valuation, as a British Johannesburger, and influential member of the Chamber of Mines, possessing vast interests among the tall chimneys and white dumping-heaps of the Rand.
Van Busch called his efforts to be ingratiating ”sucking up to” the lady.
He sucked up, thinking at first she might be the wife of the English field officer who had been ordered down from the north to take over the Gueldersdorp command. Then he found she was only the grey mare of an officer of the Staff....
She plied Van Busch in his triple character of politician, patriot, and mine-owner with questions. Thought she was juicing a lot of information, whereas Van Busch was the one who learned things. Kind of playing at being newspaper-woman she was, and taking notes for London newspaper articles all the time. Had laid out to be a little tin imitation of Dora Corr, or, say, nickel-plated, with cast chasings. Was burning for an opening in the diplomatic go-betweening line; wanted to dabble in War Correspondence, and so on. But Van Busch gathered that the biggest egg in the little lady's nest of ambitions was the desire to do a flutter on the Secret Service lay.
She wanted to be what he termed a ”slew,” and she would have called a spy.
He fiddled to her dancing, and wearied before she did.
”What Woman has done Woman may do!” was the burden of her ceaseless song.
And when she left the train at Gueldersdorp, ”_Au revoir_” said she with a flash of her bright black eyes, nodding to the big Colonial, who was so excessively civil about handing out her dressing-case and travelling-bag.
”Many thanks, and don't give me away if you should happen to meet me in a different skin one of these fine days, Mr. Van Busch.”
”Sure, no; not I,” said the burly Johannesburger, with an effusion of what looked like genuine admiration. ”By thunder! when it comes to playing the risky game there's no daring to beat a woman's. Give me a petticoat, say I, for a partner every time.”
”Bravo!” Her eyes snapped approvingly. She waved a little hand towards a large pink officer of the British Imperial Staff, who was looking into all the first-cla.s.s compartments in search of a wife who had been vainly entreated to remain at Cape Town. ”There's my husband, who entertains the precisely opposite opinion. But he hasn't your experience--only a theory worn thin by generations of ancestors, all chivalrous Conservative noodles, who kept their females in figurative cotton-wool. Do let me introduce you. I'd simply love to have him hear you talk.”
Van Busch did not pant to make the acquaintance of the Military Authorities. He thanked the impulsive Lady Hannah, but made haste to climb back into the train. The big pink officer recognised the object of his search, and strode down the platform bellowing a welcome. As Lady Hannah waved in reply, the Johannesburger made a long arm from the window, and thrust a pencil-scrawled card into the tiny gloved hand.
”S's'h! Shove that away somewhere safe,” said Van Busch, in a thrillingly mysterious whisper; ”and, remember, any time you want to learn the lay of the land and follow up the spoor of movements on the quiet, that Van Busch, of the British South African Secret War-Intelligence-Bureau, is the man to put you on. A line to that address, care of W. Bough, will always get me. And with nerve and josh like yours, and plenty of money for palm-oil....” His greedy mouth made a grinning red gash in the smug brown face with the fine whiskers of blackish-brown. His cold eyes scintillated and twinkled unspeakable things at the little lady as the train carried him away.
a.s.suredly Van Busch understood women no less thoroughly than his near relative, Bough. He knew that you could bait for and catch the s.e.x with things that were not tangible. Men wanted to be made sure of money or money's worth. And for the co-operation of P. Blinders in the adroit little game by which the German drummer's refugee-widow who stayed at Kink's Hotel, and only went out after dark, had been relieved of a handsome sum, Van Busch had had to part with nearly one-third of the swag.
No wonder he felt and talked like a robbed man.
”All very well to talk,” said P. Blinders, scratching his newest pimple, and looking with exaggerated moonish simplicity at n.o.body in particular through his large round magnifying spectacles. ”But what could you have done without me, once the little Englishwoman smelled the porcupine in the barrel? When she drove out to your friend Bough's plaats at Haarsgrond in that spider, pretending she was your sister that had married a Duitscher drummer in Gueldersdorp, and buried him, and was afraid to be shut up in the stad with all those l.u.s.tful rooineks, you thought it would be enough to tell her Staats Police or Transvaal burghers were after her to make her creep into a mousehole and pay you to keep her hid. And it did work nicely--for a while. Then the Englishwoman got angry--oh, very angry!--and told you things that were not nice. Either you should put her in the way of getting the information she wanted, or good-bye to her dear brother, Hendryk Van Busch, and his friend Bough.”
”For a pinch of mealies I'd have let the little shrew go, by thunder!”
said the affectionate relative. ”But my good heart stopped me. The country wasn't safe for a couple of women to go looping about,” he added. ”And one of them with two hundred pounds in Bank of England notes st.i.tched into the front of her stays....”
”_Five_ hundred pounds,” said the Secretary, with pleasantly twinkling spectacles. Van Busch's stare was admirable in its incredulity.
”Sure, no, brother; not so much as that?”
”Trudi told me,” smirked P. Blinders.
”You and her seem to be great and thick together,” said Van Busch, with a flattering leer. The little ex-apothecary placed his hand upon his chest, and said, with a gleam of tenderness lighting up his spectacles:
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