Part 6 (1/2)
”I didn't say anything about wanting to go. I said I'd go because one of us--or two of us--ought to go. There's plenty to do here; but if I can be any more use out there, why, Wallstein can stay here, and--”
He got no further, for Wallstein, to whom he had just referred, and who had been sitting strangely impa.s.sive, with his eyes approvingly fixed on Byng, half rose from his chair and fell forward, his thick, white hands sprawling on the mahogany table, his fat, pale face striking the polished wood with a thud. In an instant they were all on their feet and at his side.
Barry Whalen lifted up his head and drew him back into the chair, then three of them lifted him upon a sofa. Barry's hand felt the breast of the prostrate figure, and Byng's fingers sought his wrist. For a moment there was a dreadful silence, and then Byng and Whalen looked at each other and nodded.
”Brandy!” said Byng, peremptorily.
”He's not dead?” whispered some one.
”Brandy--quick,” urged Byng, and, lifting up the head a little, he presently caught the gla.s.s from Whalen's hand and poured some brandy slowly between the bluish lips. ”Some one ring for Krool,” he added.
A moment later Krool entered. ”The doctor--my doctor and his own--and a couple of nurses,” Byng said, sharply, and Krool nodded and vanished.
”Perhaps it's only a slight heart-attack, but it's best to be on the safe side.”
”Anyhow, it shows that Wallstein needs to let up for a while,”
whispered Fleming.
”It means that some one must do Wallstein's work here,” said Barry Whalen. ”It means that Byng stays in London,” he added, as Krool entered the room again with a rug to cover Wallstein.
Barry saw Krool's eyes droop before his words, and he was sure that the servant had reasons for wis.h.i.+ng his master to go to South Africa. The others present, however, only saw a silent, magically adept figure stooping over the sick man, adjusting the body to greater ease, arranging skilfully the cus.h.i.+on under the head, loosening and removing the collar and the boots, and taking possession of the room, as though he himself were the doctor; while Byng looked on with satisfaction.
”Useful person, eh?” he said, meaningly, in an undertone to Barry Whalen.
”I don't think he's at home in England,” rejoined Barry, as meaningly and very stubbornly: ”He won't like your not going to South Africa.”
”Am I not going to South Africa?” Byng asked, mechanically, and looking reflectively at Krool.
”Wallstein's a sick man, Byng. You can't leave London. You're the only real politician among us. Some one else must go to Johannesburg.”
”You--Barry?”
”You know I can't, Byng--there's my girl. Besides, I don't carry enough weight, anyhow, and you know that too.”
Byng remembered Whalen's girl--stricken down with consumption a few months before. He caught Whalen's arm in a grip of friends.h.i.+p. ”All right, dear old man,” he said, kindly. ”Fleming shall go, and I'll stay. Yes, I'll stay here, and do Wallstein's work.”
He was still mechanically watching Krool attend to the sick man, and he was suddenly conscious of an arrest of all motion in the half-caste's lithe frame. Then Krool turned, and their eyes met. Had he drawn Krool's eyes to his--the master-mind influencing the subservient intelligence?
”Krool wants to go to South Africa,” he said to himself with a strange, new sensation which he did not understand, though it was not quite a doubt. He rea.s.sured himself. ”Well, it's natural he should. It's his home.... But Fleming must go to Johannesburg. I'm needed most here.”
There was grat.i.tude in his heart that Fate had decreed it so. He was conscious of the perfume from Jasmine's cloak searching his senses, even in this hour when these things that mattered--the things of Fate--were so enormously awry.
CHAPTER V
A WOMAN TELLS HER STORY
”Soon he will speak you. Wait here, madame.”
Krool pa.s.sed almost stealthily out.