Finger of Fate Read online

  “Well – she never turned up. A pitiful little scrawl came, written evidently in frantic haste. Whether he had found out, or merely suspected our intentions, I don’t know. But he had left Paris early in the morning taking her with him. Back here.”

  Barstow waved a hand at a big château half hidden by trees that lay in front of us dominating the whole countryside.

  “At first, I was furious. Why hadn’t she refused to go? You can’t compel a human being to do what they don’t want to. But after a time the anger died. I met a friend of hers – a woman, and it was she who told me things I didn’t know about this menage. Things about his treatment of her: things, Staunton, that made me see red. And then and there I made up my mind. I, too, would come here. That was a week ago.”

  George Barstow fell silent, and stared at his shoes.

  “Have you seen her?” I said.

  “No. The first day I arrived I went up to call. Rather putting one’s head in the lion’s mouth – but I’m beyond trifles of that sort. He must have known I was coming: as you saw by the landlord’s behaviour he is God Almighty in these parts. Anyway, I was met at the door by the major-domo, with three damned great Alsatians on leads. The Baroness was not at home, and it would be well if I remembered that the next time I came the Alsatians would not be on leads. Then he slammed the door in my face.

  “The next morning the performance you saw today took place. It has been repeated daily since. And that’s the position. What do you think about it?”

  “Well, old man,” I remarked, “you started off by saying that you wouldn’t take my advice. And so there’s not much good my giving it to you. What I think about it is that you should pack, put your stuff in the back of my car – and hop it. My dear fellow,” I went on a little irritably, “the position is impossible. Forgive my cold logic, and apparent lack of sympathy – but you must see that it is yourself. After all – she is his wife. And it seems to me that you have the alternative of a sticky five minutes with three savage Alsatians, or finding yourself in the position of acting as one of these cards. I quite agree with your estimate of the gentleman – but facts are facts. And it seems to me you haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

  “I don’t care a damn,” he said obstinately. “I’m not going. Good God! man, don’t you understand that I love her?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I don’t see that sitting in that inn for the rest of your life is going to help much,” I answered. “Look here, Barstow, this isn’t England. They have codes of their own in this country. On your own showing that fellow is the great Pooh Bah here. What are you going to do if he challenges you to a duel? I don’t know what you are like with a revolver.”

  “Hopeless. Perfectly hopeless.”

  “Well, I believe you’d have the choice of weapons. Are you any good at fencing?”

  “Far, far worse than with a revolver. I’ve never had a foil in my hand in my life.”

  “Then,” I cried, “you’d find yourself in the enviable position of either running away or being killed for a certainty. My dear old man, really – really, it isn’t good enough. I’m extremely sorry for you and all that, but you must see that the situation is untenable. The man would kill you without the slightest compunction, and with the utmost ease. And here it would simply be put down as an affair of honour. All the sympathy would be with him.”

  He shook his head wearily.

  “Everything that you say is right. Doubly distilled right. And yet, Staunton, I can’t go. I feel that anyway here, I am near her. Sorry to have bored you with all my troubles, but I felt I had to.”

  “You haven’t bored me in the slightest,” I said. “Only frankly it makes me angry, Barstow, to see a fellow like you making such a fool of himself. You’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose.”

  “If only I could get her out of this country,” he said again and again. “He ill-treats her, Staunton. I’ve seen the marks of his hand on her arms.”

  I sighed and finished the wine. He was beyond aid. And then suddenly he sat up with a jerk: he was staring at a peasant girl who was making peculiar signs at us from behind a tree some fifty yards away. And suddenly he rose and walked swiftly towards her. I saw her hand him a note, and then dodge rapidly away. And as he came back towards me, I realised that I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. His whole face had changed: he had forgotten my existence.

  “A letter from her,” he said as he sat down.

  “You surprise me,” I murmured cynically. “From your demeanour I imagined it was the grocer’s bill.”

  And then I stopped – a little ashamed of the cheap sarcasm. For George Barstow’s hand – phlegmatic, undemonstrative Englishman that he was – was shaking like a leaf. I turned away as he opened the envelope, wondering what new complication was going to be introduced. And I wasn’t left in ignorance for long. He positively jibbered at me, so great was his excitement. Unknown to her husband she had managed to get out of the house that morning, and she was hiding in the house of her maid’s people in the next village.

  I suppose it was foolish of me, but I think most men would have done the same. And to do him justice George Barstow didn’t ask in so many words. He just looked, and his words came back to me – “If only I could get her out of the country” – I had a car: the Swiss frontier was sixty miles away.

  “Get to it, Barstow,” I said. “Pack your bag, and we’ll hump it.”

  “Damn my bag!” he cried. “Staunton, you’re a sportsman.”

  “On the contrary I’m a drivelling idiot,” I answered. “And I wash my hands of you once we’re in the Engadine.”

  “You can,” he said happily. “Jove! But this is great.”

  “Is it,” I remarked grimly, as I let her into gear. “It strikes me, my friend, that your lady fair’s absence is no longer unknown to her husband.”

  Galloping down the side road that led from the château was the same barouche as we had seen that morning. You could spot the scarlet-coated coachman a mile off. But the main road was good, and a Bentley is a Bentley. We passed the turn when the Baron was still a quarter of a mile away. And then I trod on the gas and we moved.

  “It’s a race, my boy,” I said. “He’ll get a car as soon as he can. And if we get a puncture…”

  “Don’t croak,” he answered. “We shan’t.”

  We roared into the village, and there, standing in the middle of the road waiting for us was the most adorable creature I’ve ever seen. There was no time for rhapsodies: every second counted. But I did say to Barstow, “By Jove! old man – I don’t blame you.” Then we were off again. And as we left the village, Barstow, who was sitting in the back with his girl, shouted to me: “He’s just come in sight.”

  Luckily I am one of those people who never forget a road. And in one hour and three-quarters the Austrian douane hove in sight. My triptyque was in order: the authorities were pleased to be genial. And a quarter of an hour later we were across the frontier.

  “You might now introduce me,” I murmured gently. “This is the first time in my life that I’ve assisted at an entertainment of this description, and I feel it ought to be celebrated.”

  And for a while we behaved like three foolish children. I know I was almost as excited as they were. The fact that half my kit and all George Barstow’s was gone for good seemed too trifling to worry about. All that mattered was that the bus had gone like a scalded cat, and that somewhere on the road, miles back, a hook-nosed blighter was cursing like blazes in an elderly tin Lizzie.

  It was the girl who pulled herself together first.

  “We’re not out of the wood yet, George,” she said; “He’ll follow us all over Europe. Let’s get on.”

  And so we got on – a rather soberer party. George and his girl doubtless had compensations in the back seat, but now that the excitement of the dash was over I began to weigh up the situation calmly. And the more I weighed it up the less I liked it. It’s all very well to do a mad
thing on the spur of the moment, but the time of reckoning comes. And the cold hard fact remained, that but for me George Barstow would not have been able to kidnap another man’s wife. For that’s what it came to, when shorn of its romance.

  It was as we drove into Samaden that George leaned over and spoke to me.

  “Look here, old man,” he said gravely. “Eloise and I want you to leave us in St Moritz and clear out. It isn’t fair that you should be mixed up in this.”

  Exactly what I had been thinking myself, which was naturally sufficient to cause a complete revulsion.

  “Go to blazes!” I cried. “Anyway we can’t discuss anything till we’ve had lunch. It’s all hopelessly foolish and reprehensible, but I’ve enjoyed myself thoroughly. So we’ll crack a bottle, and I will drink your very good health.”

  It was stupid, of course, leaving the car outside the hotel. And yet, as things turned out it was for the best. The meeting had to take place some time: it was as well that I should be there when it did. It was also as well that we were late for luncheon: the room was empty.

  We’d all forgotten the Baron for the moment – and then, suddenly, there he was standing in the doorway. George Barstow saw him first, and instinctively he took the girl’s hand. Then I turned round, but the Baron had eyes for no one but Barstow. His face was like a frozen mask, but you could sense the seething hatred in his mind. Quite slowly he walked over to our table still staring at George Barstow, who rose as he approached. Then he picked up a glass of wine and flung the contents in George’s face. The next moment George’s fist caught him on the point of the jaw, and the Baron disappeared from view.

  But he rose to his feet at once, still outwardly calm.

  “I shall kill you for that,” he remarked quietly.

  “Possibly,” said Barstow, equally quietly.

  “I challenge you to a duel,” said the Baron.

  “And I accept your challenge,” answered Barstow. I heard the girl give a gasp of terror, and I gazed at him in blank astonishment.

  “Good God! man!” I cried, “what are you saying? Surely the matter is capable of settlement without that?”

  But George was speaking again.

  “I shall not return to your country, Monsieur le Baron,” he said. “We will find some neutral venue for the affair.”

  “As you please,” said the Baron icily, but I saw the triumph that gleamed in his eyes.

  “And before,” went on George, “leaving the details to be settled by our seconds, it would be well to have one or two matters made clear. I love your wife: she loves me. The only reason – I admit an important one – that brings you into the affair is that you happen to be her husband. Otherwise you are beneath contempt. Your treatment of her has been such as to place you outside the pale. Nevertheless you are her husband. I wish to be. There is not room for both of us. So one of us will die.”

  “Precisely,” agreed the other with a slight laugh. “One of us will die. I presume this gentleman will act as your second.”

  Without waiting for my answer he stalked out of the room.

  “Barstow,” I almost shouted at him, “are you mad? You haven’t a hope.”

  And the girl turned to him in an agony of fear.

  “Darling,” she cried, “you mustn’t. You can’t.”

  “Darling,” he said gravely, “I must. And I can.”

  “It’s murder,” I said dully. “I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with it.”

  But on Barstow’s face there flickered a faint smile.

  “Or bluff,” he remarked cryptically. “Though I admit it’s a bluff to the limit of my hand.”

  And not a word more would he say.

  “I’ll tell you everything when the time comes, old man,” was the utmost I could get out of him.

  Now various rumours have, I know, got abroad concerning this affair. Whether my name has been connected with it or not I neither know nor care. But it is in the firm belief that nothing but good can come from a plain statement of the truth, that I am writing this.

  I suppose, strictly speaking, Barstow could have refused to fight. Duelling is forbidden by the laws of England. But he was an obstinate fellow, and he certainly did not lack pluck. Moreover he felt, and it was a feeling one couldn’t help admiring, that he owed it to the Baron to meet him.

  The girl, poor child, was almost frantic with fear. And for some strange reason he wouldn’t tell her what was in his mind. He adopted the line with her that he was no bad shot himself, and I followed his lead.

  And it wasn’t until he had said good-bye to her, and we were in the train, bound for Dalmatia, that he told me.

  (A certain uninhabited island off the Dalmatian coast was to be the scene of the duel.)

  He had, of course, the choice of weapons, and when he first told me the terms on which he intended to fight I felt a momentary feeling of relief. But that feeling evaporated quickly. For what he proposed was certain death for one of them.

  They were to fight with revolvers at a range of three feet. But only one revolver was to be loaded.

  “I see it this way,” he said to me. “I can’t say that I want to risk my life on the spin of a coin. I can’t say I want to fight this duel at all. But I’ve got to. I’m damned if I, an Englishman, am going to be found wanting in courage by any foreigner. If he refuses to fight on such terms, my responsibility ends. It will be he who is the coward.”

  “And if he doesn’t refuse,” I remarked.

  “Then, old man, I’m going through with it,” he said calmly. “One does a lot of funny things without thinking, Staunton. And though I should do just the same again over bolting with Eloise, I’ve got to face the music now.”

  Involuntarily I smiled at this repetition of my own thoughts.

  “He is her husband, and there’s not room for the two of us. But if he refuses to fight, then in his own parlance, honour is satisfied as far as I am concerned. Only one proviso do I make under those circumstances: he must swear to divorce Eloise.”

  And so I will come to the morning of the duel. The Marquis del Vittore was the Baron’s second – an Italian who spoke English perfectly. We rowed out from the mainland in separate boats. Barstow and I arrived first and climbed a steep path up the cliff to a small level space on top. Then the others arrived, and I remember noticing at the time, subconsciously, a strange blueness round the Baron’s lips, and his laboured breathing. But I was too excited to pay much attention to it.

  Barstow was seated on a rock staring out to sea and smoking a cigarette, when I approached del Vittore.

  “My first condition,” I said, “is that your principal should swear on his honour to divorce his wife in the event of his refusing to fight.”

  The Marquis stared at me in amazement.

  “Refusing to fight!” he said. “But that is what we’ve come here for.”

  “Nevertheless I must insist,” I remarked.

  He shrugged his shoulders and went over to the Baron, who also stared in amazement. And then he began to laugh – a nasty laugh. Barstow gazed at him quite unmoved.

  “If I refuse to fight,” sneered the Baron, “I will certainly swear to divorce my wife.”

  “Good,” said George laconically, and once more looked out to sea.

  “Then shall we discuss conditions, Monsieur,” said del Vittore.

  “The conditions have been settled by my principal,” I remarked, “as he is entitled to do, being the challenged party. The duel will be fought with revolvers, at a range of three feet and only one revolver will be loaded.”

  The Marquis stared at me in silence: the Baron, every vestige of colour leaving his face, rose to his feet.

  “Impossible,” he said harshly. “It would be murder.”

  “Murder with the dice loaded equally,” I remarked quietly.

  And for a space there was silence. George had swung round and was staring at the Baron. He was outwardly calm, but I could see a pulse throbbing in his throat.

&nb
sp; “These are the most extraordinary conditions,” said the Italian.

  “Possibly,” I answered. “But in England, as you may know, we do not fight duels. My principal has no proficiency at all with a revolver. He fails therefore to see why he should do a thing which must result in his certain death: though he is quite prepared to run an even chance. His proposal gives no advantage to either side.”

  “I utterly refuse,” cried the Baron harshly.

  “Splendid!” said George. “Then the matter is ended. You have refused to fight, and I shall be obliged if you will start divorce proceedings as soon as possible.”

  And then occurred one of those little things that are so little and do so much. He smiled at me, an “I told you so” smile. And the Baron saw it.

  “I have changed my mind,” he said. “I will fight on those conditions.”

  And once again there was silence. George Barstow stood very still; I could feel my own heart going in great sickening thumps. And looking back on it now, I sometimes try to get the psychology of the thing. Did the Baron think he was calling a bluff: or did he simply accept the conditions in a moment of uncontrollable rage induced by that smile? What did Barstow himself think? For though he had never said so to me in so many words, I know that he had never anticipated that the Baron would fight. Hence the importance he had attached to his first condition.

  And then suddenly the whole thing was changed. Impossible now, for anyone or anything to intervene. Barstow’s conditions had been accepted: no man calling himself a man could back out. The Marquis drew me on one side.

  “Can nothing be done?” he said. “This is not duelling: it is murder.”

  “So would the other have been,” I answered.

  And yet it seemed too utterly preposterous – a ghastly nightmare. In a minute, one of those two men would be dead. George, a little pale, but perfectly calm, was finishing his cigarette: the Baron, his face white as chalk, was walking up and down with stiff little steps. And suddenly I realised that it could not be – must not be.