"I know," returned Mayhan. "Some never agree with any one. That's where the word disagreeable comes from."

Scripps made no retort, and the dressing continued in silence. When it was finished and Mayhan was repacking his kit, he ventured: "Nibbetts, you said, didn't you?"

The merest movement of the tawny, leonine head gave a.s.sent.

"I'll tell him." And then the surgeon took a closer look. Scripps's bearded chin was on his breast. His face, in spite of its tan, was deathly white. "By the way," he added, "you'd better have a brandy peg.

You've lost some blood, you know, and--"

"That's my business," the other interrupted roughly. "You're a sawbones, not a medical man. And a sawbones _sans merci_, at that. Otherwise you'd have begun with the cocain, instead of ending with it."

Mayhan turned away without another word and made a wry face behind the savage's back. Two minutes later he was down the stairs and in the hotel porch, where he was confronted by young Andrews.

"I saw you go in," lied the latter nervously. "And I've been waiting for you. What happened? I've a reason for asking."

The young surgeon, whose faculty for putting two and two together was as acute as the next man's, sensed the reason at once.

"He won't die," he answered--"if that's what you want to know."

"Who won't die?" Andrews came back evasively. He had volunteered to get what information he could for Mrs. Darling, and he was distinctly uncomfortable under the att.i.tude taken by this man whom he had started to question.

"The boor upstairs who got in the way of someone's forty-five-caliber automatic. It wasn't by any chance yours, I suppose?"

The blood rushed to Andrews's face, but in the dim light of the porch it is probable that Mayhan failed to observe it.

"I don't indulge in indiscriminate pistol practice," he defended weakly.

"I heard a man had been wounded and came in here, and I strolled over to inquire out of idle curiosity."

"He won't die," said Mayhan again, and prepared to move away.

"But who is he?" asked Andrews, following a step.

"The most insufferable beast I've met in years--name of Scripps."

"Army man?"

"No; civilian. Or uncivilian, rather."

"Badly hurt?"

"Hand torn up a bit. Anything else you'd like to know?"

Andrews hesitated. Then: "Say how it happened?"

Mayhan grinned toward the shadows.

"Oh, yes," he answered wickedly, "of course! Naturally, I asked him."

"Well--"

"You are curious, Andrews, aren't you?"

"Oh, if there's any secret about it--why, I--"

Mayhan laughed irritatingly; so irritatingly that his questioner was tempted to silence him with his fist.

"No secret at all," the surgeon said, starting off. "It happened--purely by accident."

Then young Andrews, nettled and thoroughly uncomfortable, hastened back to Nina with his scant news. The name "Scripps" meant nothing to her.

But Mayhan, meanwhile, dropping into the club, exploded a bombsh.e.l.l. He found Colonel Darling alone and brooding in his chosen corner, a tall gla.s.s of Scotch and soda at his right hand.

"I say, colonel," he blurted, "just came from a chap who says he knows you--or did. Name of Nibbetts."

Darling started so violently that his arm struck the table, jarred it, and sent over the whisky gla.s.s, splashing.

For a moment his face flamed and the veins in his neck swelled to the danger point. He gripped the chair-arms, and his throat emitted an inarticulate gurgle.

The next minute he relaxed suddenly, pale as paper.

CHAPTER V

The Question of the Dead Alive

Colonel Darling's courage had never been questioned. But physical courage is one thing and moral courage is another--very much another; and it was physical courage in which Darling was strong.

It was beyond question that he could face overwhelming odds in the field without "batting an eye-lash," as the saying goes. He had proved that time and time again. Yet from unhappy wedlock he had fled like a craven wolf and sought surcease in the bottle.

This should have spoken his type of weakness for all to hear. But his fellow officers were deaf to the truth, forbearing to view the situation from the only right and real standpoint, though the condition was undeniably plain.

For the tidings brought by Mayhan the colonel was not in the least prepared. Again moral courage was demanded, and again he exhibited the white feather. To Mayhan's faith in his commanding officer the exhibition was an astonishing setback. Darling had been bowled over by a mere name.

Others, too, had heard and witnessed with much the same amazement. It was very clear to them all that Colonel Darling had been thrown into a white funk by the mere mention of the odd word "Nibbetts."

They could get it from no other angle, and they could reconcile it with nothing they knew of their man. In view of subsequent events, their att.i.tude at this moment is important.

Darling was quite five minutes in pulling himself together. Then he caught the doubt in Mayhan's eyes, and his first impulse was to explain--or try to. But on second thought, realizing that there was nothing for him to say, he ordered whisky and soda and held his peace.

And no man asked a question.

The clock pointed to five to eleven. At ten past Colonel Darling left the club and walked to the hotel, which was less than a quarter of a mile away. But there his cowardice caught him again, and he paused at the gate of the compound.

The broad, shaded roadway was deserted, so that what followed went un.o.bserved. Back and forth, torn by indecision, he irritably and fearsomely paced. For the uplift of his flagging, flaccid will he seemed likely to require either the Archimedean lever or the Archimedean screw.

Fifteen awful minutes dragged torturously by before, in sheer desperation, he entered the hotel and faced the clerk in charge, his card in his hand.

"Send that to the Visc--" he began, only to pull himself up with a sharp jolt.