Moon of madness
He covered the course in four running strides, stooped, seized Da
Cunha around the neck, and jerked him on to his feet. Whereon
followed--catastrophe.
Jack slipped on the polished floor, stumbled, tried to recover--and
fell.
Da Cunha twisted about and kicked him above the left temple.
He lay prone.
“Jack!” cried Nanette. “Jack!”
O’Shea’s grip on my wrist was like a vise.
“Wait,” he said. “The boy’s down but he’s not out!”
O’Shea was right. Nanette’s voice recalled him. Da Cunha wore only
light dancing shoes.
Jack rolled over, avoided a second swinging kick, and came to his
feet, shaking his tawny head like a terrier with a flea in his ear.
“Jack!” cried Nanette again.
She crouched on the divan, wide-eyed. Her shoulder strap had slipped;
and Nanette will never know how beautiful I know she is. Even as I
saw, guiltily, she readjusted it--and the fight started.
Blood was trickling into Jack’s eyes. He kept dodging and trying to
clear his sight. It upset his judgment, beyond a doubt; added to which
his skull must have been humming like a beehive. Remember, too, the
climb he had put in.
To my intense annoyance, the none-such proved able to box as well as
he danced and kicked. He took all a trained fighter’s advantage of
Jack’s double handicap. Some punishment came his way, but it was not
heavy--and he kept registering killing body blows on his opponent.
Jack might have planted a lucky one before it was too late. But
Nanette defeated him.
“Jack!” she cried, a sob in her voice. “Don’t let him _beat_ you!”
Half-dazed, the boy paused, dropped his hands--and Da Cunha recorded a
tremendous right well below the belt. Jack went down--to stay.
“The dirty swine!” I exclaimed.
O’Shea slipped a revolver into my hand.
“I don’t think there are any servants about to-night,” he said. “But
see that I’m not interrupted.”
He stepped in through the open window, twirling his monocle on its
black ribbon. It was not pose; it was nerves. The man was human. He
was fighting for composure.
Da Cunha faced him, and:
“_You!_” came, as a sort of rapturous sigh, from the divan.
The two men confronted each other for an electric moment; then:
“You are a very dirty fighter, Da Cunha,” said O’Shea smoothly. “But,
as you are probably tired, I suggest that you give me the black
dispatch-box that you have locked in your bedroom--and we will say no
more about it.”
Da Cunha’s expression became complicated. My own brain was revolving
like a merry-go-round. This sudden revelation was too much for
me--that Da Cunha was a Red agent!
“Go to hell!” was the reply. “Who are you?”
“You are very forgetful,” said O’Shea.
As he spoke, he reached out a long, lazy left. It looked effortless,
but it was perfectly timed, perfectly measured. It started in the ball
of his suddenly rigid right foot and from there carried every amp. of
energy in his body to the point of Da Cunha’s jaw.
There was a pleasant snapping sound. Da Cunha went down like a
poleaxed ox.
Nanette sat silent, a second Niobe.
“Decies!” cried O’Shea. “The revolver! We have no time to waste!”
I ran in, passing the weapon to him.
“Attend to Kelton,” he directed. “We must get him away.”
He crossed to a door right of the divan and went into a room beyond,
which was dimly lighted.
“Mr. Decies----” Nanette began.
Came the sound of a pistol shot… a second! There followed a
splintering crash. Nanette leapt to her feet, and turned--as O’Shea
came out again, carrying a small black dispatch-box. He put it on the
coffee table.
Jack stirred and groaned. Nanette’s gaze never left O’Shea. And now,
timidly approaching him:
“I was mad,” she whispered. “Oh, thank you!” She swayed and sank into
his arms, her perfect lips raised to his in offering. “Can you forgive
me?”
He held her for a moment, very tenderly, looking into her eyes, then:
“I have nothing to forgive, little girl,” he said. “You have been
foolish, but I don’t think you will ever be so foolish again.”
Gently, he set her aside, and:
“Decies,” said he, “lend a hand with Kelton. We will borrow the
Farman.”
CHAPTER VII.
A SHORT NOTE
Wonderful to relate, we managed to keep secret the story of
Nanette’s indiscretion. Her mother never knew that she had left her
room. And it was toward dusk of the following day that the first act
of the tragi-comedy came to a close.
To Ensleigh’s inquiries touching my disappearance from the dance, I
had returned evasive replies. Jack kept his room, for good and
sufficient reasons, and O’Shea had gone into the town early and had
not come back. Nanette remained invisible.
For all the glory of the Madeiran sunshine and the wonder of the
flowers, black depression sat heavily upon us.
I was lounging on the terrace at about six o’clock wondering what
Nanette was doing and whether her mother suspected anything, when
O’Shea suddenly walked out to me.
“Hello!” I cried. “I thought you had gone for good!”
“No,” he answered musingly, “not yet.”
He sank into a chair, as though dog weary.
“Had a hard day?” I asked.
“Fairly,” he replied; “but I’ve done my job. I suspect there are
harder to come.” He paused, then: “Have you seen Nanette?” he asked.
“No,” I stared at him. “O’Shea, tell me if you resent my
frankness--but that girl’s madly in love with you.”
“I don’t resent it, Decies,” he answered. “I know she thinks she is.
But Nanette is very young. There is something you don’t know--that
nobody else will ever know.”
I looked into the gray eyes. But they were not cold: they were on
fire! I drew a sharp breath.
“O’Shea----” I began.
He nodded, and gripped my hand hard.
“Yes!” he said simply. “From the first moment I saw her. I daren’t
trust myself to see her again. You understand? It’s quite impossible.”
“But why?”
“For many reasons. Thank God, _she’s_ young enough to forget.”
There was a short silence, which is more memorable to me than many
long conversations.
“What shall you do?” I asked.
He pointed across the bay.
Trailing a pennant of smoke in her wake, the greyhound shape of a
destroyer raced for the harbour.
“I sail in an hour,” he answered. “I can take care of myself, Decies,
but Nanette is of an age when a--silly attachment might spoil years of
her life. So”--he took a letter from his pocket--“I have done a cruel
thing. I have said what isn’t true--God knows it isn’t true! Her pride
will do the rest. Will you give it to her--after I have gone?”
The promise was made. I thought of Nanette’s fresh young loveliness,
which this man, who wanted her madly, might have taken as an
unconditional gift. I thought of certain others I had met. I recalled
that we moved in the year of freedom, 1927. And I wondered.
I have known some good Irishmen and some bad. But Edmond O’Shea would
be a mighty fine advertisement for any race on earth.
Nanette came down to dinner, and I can never forget her expression
when she saw O’Shea’s deserted table.
My task was going to be a hard one.
I took her out to the terrace afterward. Away on the distant horizon I
could trace a faint wisp of smoke.
“Do you mean,” she said, and her voice had changed strangely, “that
Major O’Shea--has gone?”
I looked at her, a sweet picture in the moonlight. And little Nanette
had grown up. She watched me with a woman’s eyes.
I handed the note to her. She ran to the library window, tearing open
the envelope as she went. I turned away and tried to trace the slender
smoke trail fading, fading on a distant horizon.
A cry brought me sharply about.
Nanette stood before me, her eyes blazing, her face deathly white.
“Do you know what is in this?” she demanded.
“I do not, Nanette.”
And indeed I shall never know; but I know what it cost him to write
it.
A moment she stood so, glaring at me. Then, frenziedly she began to
tear the letter into tiny fragments, and:
“How dare he!” she cried. “Oh, God! how _dare_ he!”
Whereupon she burst into such passionate sobs that it was agony to
hear them. Dropping into a chair on the deserted terrace, she cried
until my heart ached.
It was her first love, and a very big one. An O’Shea inspires nothing
petty. But she had courage, and pride.
She conquered her weakness, and stood up.
“You are very kind, Mr. Decies,” she said. “I am sorry I made a fool
of myself.”
Then she went in, walking very upright.
I spent a wretched evening, and when I retired to my room, sleep
simply would not come. I got up, with an idea of smoking a pipe, but,
first, I crossed to the open window. On a moon-dappled path below the
terrace I espied a moving figure; and Burns’s words flashed through my
mind: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men…”
Nanette was stealing among the flowers, collecting tiny fragments of
the torn letter that a light evening breeze had blown from the terrace
above. It was a hurt, an affront; but it was the only thing of his she
had.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CALL
“Telegram, sir!”
I sat up with a start. Morning sunlight flooded the large bare room.
Wild canaries were singing outside my window. Slowly, facts began to
assert themselves. I had been dreaming that I was taking tea at
Stewarts with the Duchess of York and Mr. Tom Mann, when Trebitch
Lincoln had appeared through a window, holding a bomb in his hand.
Now, I realized that I had read news of all in a week-old _Daily Mail_
recently; but that actually I was in bed at Reid’s Hotel, Funchal.
The radio message that the boy had brought up was crisp enough, but it
effectually banished my drowsiness.
Please call on British consul at once. Vitally urgent. Am holding you
to our bargain.
O’Shea.
A bargain based upon the survival of so old an institution as the
British Empire is not lightly denied: I thought that perhaps my dreams
had been prophetic. Nor was Edmond O’Shea the man to send such a
message except under stress extraordinary.
As I hurriedly bathed, shaved, and dressed, I reviewed the position.
There was O’Shea, homeward bound with a packet of letters whose
publication would further Red anarchy a number of points. There was
myself, George Decies, who in a neutral way had helped to secure
these. There was Gabriel da Cunha, agent of the nightmare called
Communism, nursing a broken jaw as a result of foregoing transactions.
And there was Nanette.
Even as her name brought the dainty image to my mind, from under the
open window came a soft call:
“Coo--oo!”
I crossed, struggling with an intractable tie; and there on the
balcony below was Nanette.
To know that the most provocatively pretty girl one has ever met is
madly in love with a better man and to behave sanely in her company is
an acid test of what I have heard termed “British poise.”
She shaded her eyes with her hands, looking up at me. Her arms were a
delicate brown colour on their outer curves where the sun had tanned
them, and by comparison ivory white beneath. With a background of
flowers against distant sea blue, Nanette made a picture exquisite to
remember in old age but disturbing to a comparatively young bachelor.
Temptation is sweet only when there is a chance of falling.
“What a horrid tie,” she said. “Please wear the gray one with silver
stripes, as it’s our last day in Madeira.”
There was a wistful note in her appeal, and, looking down at little
Nanette, slowly a memory came: I had worn that gray tie on the day we
had met O’Shea.
I suppressed a sigh, “admirin’ how the world was made.” At eighteen,
there are many things that even Miss 1927 doesn’t know. There was one
that Nanette did not even suspect. There was another that I knew of;
but this not my own secret. I was unselfish enough to wish I could
tell her.