Part 23 (1/2)

Chayne was minded to find an answer to that question. Sylvia was in trouble; that house under the downs was no place for her. He himself was afraid of what was being planned there. It might help him if he knew something more of Garratt Skinner than he knew at present. And it seemed to him that there was just a chance of acquiring that knowledge.

He dined at his club, and at ten o'clock walked up St. James' Street.

The street was empty. It was a hot starlit night of the first week in August, and there came upon him a swift homesickness for the world above the snow-line. How many of his friends were sleeping that night in mountain huts high up on the shoulders of the mountains or in bivouacs open to the stars with a rock-cliff at their backs and a fire of pine wood blazing at their feet. Most likely amongst those friends was the one he sought to-night.

”Still there's a chance that I may find him,” he pleaded, and crossing Piccadilly pa.s.sed into Dover Street. Half way along the street of milliners, he stopped before a house where a famous scholar had his lodging.

”Is Mr. Kenyon in London?” he asked, and the man-servant replied to his great relief:

”Yes, sir, but he is not yet at home.”

”I will wait for him,” said Chayne.

He was shown into the study and left there with a lighted lamp. The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Chayne mounted a ladder and took down from a high corner some volumes bound simply in brown cloth. They were volumes of the ”Alpine Journal.” He had chosen those which dated back from twenty years to a quarter of a century. He drew a chair up beside the lamp and began eagerly to turn over the pages. Often he stopped, for the name of which he was in search often leaped to his eyes from the pages. Chayne read of the exploits in the Alps of Gabriel Strood. More than one new expedition was described, many variations of old ascents, many climbs already familiar. It was clear that the man was of the true brotherhood. A new climb was very well, but the old were as good to Gabriel Strood, and the climb which he had once made he had the longing to repeat with new companions. None of the descriptions were written by Strood himself but all by companions whom he had led, and most of them bore testimony to an unusual endurance, an unusual courage, as though Strood triumphed perpetually over a difficulty which his companions did not share and of which only vague hints were given. At last Chayne came to that very narrative which Sylvia had been reading on her way to Chamonix--and there the truth was bluntly told for the first time.

Chayne started up in that dim and quiet room, thrilled. He had the proof now, under his finger--the indisputable proof. Gabriel Strood suffered from an affection of the muscles in his right thigh, and yet managed to out-distance all his rivals. Hine's words drummed in Chayne's ears:

”Nevertheless he left us all behind.”

Garratt Skinner: Gabriel Strood. Surely, surely! He replaced the volumes and took others down. In the first which he opened--it was the autumn number of nineteen years ago--there was again mention of the man; and the climb described was the ascent of Mont Blanc from the Brenva Glacier.

Chayne leaned back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation. It was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had continually harked back.

The Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jora.s.ses, the Charmoz, the Blaitiere--yes, he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back, with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-arete of the Brenva route. Chayne searched on through the pages. But there was nowhere in any volume on which he laid his hands any further record of his exploits. Others who followed in his steps mentioned his name, but of the man himself there was no word more. No one had climbed with him, no one had caught a glimpse of him above the snow-line. For five or six seasons he had flashed through the Alps. Arolla, Zermatt, the Montanvert, the Concordia hut--all had known him for five or six seasons, and then just under twenty years ago he had come no more.

Chayne put back the volumes in their places on the shelf, and sat down again in the arm-chair before the empty grate. It was a strange and a haunting story which he was gradually piecing together in his thoughts.

Men like Gabriel Strood _always_ come back to the Alps. They sleep too restlessly at nights, they needs must come. And yet this man had stayed away. There must have been some great impediment. He fell into another train of thought. Sylvia was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Had Gabriel Strood married just after that last season when he climbed from the Brenva Glacier to the Calotte. The story was still not unraveled, and while he perplexed his fancies over the unraveling, the door opened, and a tall, thin man with a pointed beard stood upon the threshold. He was a man of fifty years; his shoulders were just learning how to stoop; and his face, fine and delicate, yet lacking nothing of strength, wore an aspect of melancholy, as though he lived much alone--until he smiled. And in the smile there was much companions.h.i.+p and love. He smiled now as he stretched out his long, finely-molded hand.

”I am very glad to see you, Chayne,” he said, in a voice remarkable for its gentleness, ”although in another way I am sorry. I am sorry because, of course, I know why you are in England and not among the Alps.”

Chayne had risen from his chair, but Kenyon laid a hand upon his shoulder and forced him down again with a friendly pressure. ”I read of Lattery's death. I am grieved about it--for you as much as for Lattery. I know just what that kind of loss means. It means very much,” said he, letting his deep-set eyes rest with sympathy upon the face of the younger man. Kenyon put a whisky and soda by Chayne's elbow, and setting the tobacco jar on a little table between them, sat down and lighted his pipe.

”You came back at once?” he asked.

”I crossed the Col Dolent and went down into Italy,” replied Chayne.

”Yes, yes,” said Kenyon, nodding his head. ”But you will go back next year, or the year after.”

”Perhaps,” said Chayne; and for a little while they smoked their pipes in silence. Then Chayne came to the object of his visit.

”Kenyon,” he asked, ”have you any photographs of the people who went climbing twenty to twenty-five years ago? I thought perhaps you might have some groups taken in Switzerland in those days. If you have, I should like to see them.”

”Yes, I think I have,” said Kenyon. He went to his writing-desk and opening a drawer took out a number of photographs. He brought them back, and moving the green-shaded lamp so that the light fell clear and strong upon the little table, laid them down.

Chayne bent over them with a beating heart. Was his suspicion to be confirmed or disproved?

One by one he took the photographs, closely examined them, and laid them aside while Kenyon stood upright on the other side of the table.

He had turned over a dozen before he stopped. He held in his hand the picture of a Swiss hotel, with an open s.p.a.ce before the door. In the open s.p.a.ce men were gathered. They were talking in groups; some of them leaned upon ice-axes, some carried _Rucksacks_ upon their backs, as though upon the point of starting for the hills. As he held the photograph a little nearer to the lamp, and bent his head a little lower, Kenyon made a slight uneasy movement. But Chayne did not notice.

He sat very still, with his eyes fixed upon the photograph. On the outskirts of the group stood Sylvia's father. Younger, slighter of build, with a face unlined and a boyish grace which had long since gone--but undoubtedly Sylvia's father.