# McClure's Magazine/Volume 55/Number 3/The Killing of Baron Stockmar

Illustration: The Baron turned in his chair, facing Jim. On his face was the look of a maniac
East of Suez, Jim Maitland Runs into an Adventure that Culminates in
The Killing of Baron Stockmar
By “Sapper” (Major H. C. McNeile) Author of “Bulldog Drummond”
Illustrations by G. W. Gage
MEN are proverbially idiots where women are concerned. And the fact that I had agreed to lift the curtain on certain episodes of Jim Maitland's past career at the instigation of his wife is but another proof of the proverb, if proof be needed. You never know how women, even the best of them, will take things, and as I watched old Jim instructing young Jim in the mysteries of cricket on the tennis lawn, I began to doubt my wisdom in agreeing to anything so foolish.
And then, somehow or other, the Old-World garden outside seemed to fade away. Only Jim's figure remained, clean cut and sinewy with the great shoulder muscles rippling under his coat. In his hip pocket I could see in my mind's eye the outline of his revolver, which he could draw the fraction of a second quicker than any living man. Behind that eye-glass of his I could see once again the cold, icy stare of anger, which in days gone by had made men bite off words trembling on the tips of their tongues, and substitute a muttered apology.
He was settled down now, the proud proprietor of a young son and an utterly delightful wife; but the past lived still in his memory and in mine. That past which was lived mostly east of Suez, where a man can raise a thirst, and where his name was a household word among all classes of society, from governors in their glory to down-and-out remittance men in their shame.
“Keep your bat straight, old man,” came his voice through the open window; and, with a smile, I turned to my hostess.
“Mrs. Jim;” I murmured, “are these effusions for your eyes, and your eyes only?”
“Perhaps when he grows a bit older I might let young Jim read them,” she answered, with a smile. “But primarily they're for me. I want to know about those five years when he was such an idiot.”
“On your own head be it,' I grunted.. “You shall tell me whether you think he was justified in killing Baron Stockmar.”
“Killing him?” she whispered, and at that moment a shadow darkened the window. It was Jim, his eye-glass screwed in his eye, a lazy smile on his face.
“What are you two conspiring about?” he drawled. “More of my revolting past?”
“Do you remember Baron Carl Stockmar, Jim?” I remarked.
“Stockmar?” he almost shouted. “Dick, I forbid you——”
“Go away, Jim,” said his wife calmly; “this is my palaver.”
Then she looked at him and gave a little squeal.
“Jim—don't look like that! Go and feed the chickens, or something.”
With a faint grin at me, he turned away—but may Heaven help the chickens if he did feed them!
IT was in Cairo that we first met the Baron. Jim and I had joined forces temporarily, and at Alexandria we left the boat. Heaven knows why, our berths were booked to London, and the skipper was a man after our own hearts. But, coming up the Red Sea, Jim suddenly decided that Piccadilly would send him insane, so we didn't go to London. There are advantages in being free.
“I want to go to Shepheard's,” announced Jim, “and see all the tourists buying genuine Egyptian scarabs. I own shares in the factory that makes them.”
So we went to Shepheard's, and when the soul of the capitalist was satisfied with what he saw, we adjourned to the bar, to find a chubby-faced youth eating salted almonds and consuming something that tinkled pleasantly in a glass.
“Hullo, Pumpkin,” cried Jim cheerfully from the door. “Order two more of the same.”
“Jim!” shouted the drinker. “Jim! This is a direct answer from Providence. I would sooner see you at this moment than the shores of England.”
“A fiver is the utmost I can manage,” remarked Jim gravely. “And in the meantime let me introduce Dick Leyton—Captain Peddleton, otherwise known as Pumpkin, owing to his extreme slenderness; a Bimbashi of repute.”
Peddleton nodded to me, and we all three drew up to the bar.
“Jim,” he said earnestly, “one of the great ones will be very glad to see you. Are you doing anything in the immediate future?”
“Nothing to write home about,” said Jim. “I might take a tram and go out and see the Pyramids by moonlight.”
“Dry up,” laughed the other.
“My dear boy,” answered Jim, “there's a fat woman in the lounge there, with five veils on, who is going to do it to-night. Surely, with such an example——”
“Jim,” interrupted the other seriously, “I'm not joking.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It's a little Secret Service job south of Khartoum. It won't take long, but you're one of the few men in the world who can do it.”
Jim grunted non-committally.
“Will you come up and see the Chief this afternoon?” continued the other, only to break off suddenly and stare at the door. “Good heavens!” he muttered, “what have we here?”
Coming into the bar was the most unpleasant-looking individual I have ever seen in my life. His height must have been at least six feet three, and he was broad in proportion. His face seemed set in a permanent scowl, which deepened to a look of positive fury as he saw us staring at him. He possessed a straggling black beard, which did not improve his appearance, and his great arms, abnormally long, terminated in two powerful hands that were so covered with black hair as to be positively repulsive. In short, the man looked like a huge gorilla dressed in clothes.
Now, as luck would have it, Jim was nearest to him as he came up to the bar. He had his back turned, and was on the point of resuming his conversation with Peddleton, when the newcomer, either by accident or design, shoved into him heavily—so heavily that Jim, who was quite unprepared, lurched forward and spilled his drink. But for our subsequent discoveries of the gentleman's character, I should have been inclined to think it was accidental. In view of what we afterward found out, however, I have not the slightest doubt that the thing was done deliberately. It appeared that he wanted the high stool which was just behind Jim, though there were several others vacant. In fact, the bar was empty except for the four of us.
As I say, it was unfortunate, because I should sooner play tricks with a man-eating tiger than with Jim when he gets angry. His face went white and his eyes blazed ominously; then he turned round slowly. And the newcomer was about to sit down. He did, heavily—on the floor. It is an old trick for which I have distinct recollections of having been severely beaten at my preparatory school. Rumor has it that removing a chair just as a person is about to sit down on it is apt to damage that person's spine. And, judging by the way the floor shook, the damage in this case must have been considerable, though it certainly did not produce unconsciousness. I have witnessed many unpleasant scenes in my life, but the one that followed lives ever in my memory.
The man's face was purple as he got up from the floor, and for a moment or two he stood plucking at his beard and swallowing hard. His lips were working as if he were trying to speak and could not; his great, hairy hands kept clenching and unclenching. And quite motionless, sitting on the stool that had caused the trouble, Jim stared at him through his eye-glass. To all appearances he was as cool as a cucumber, but I noticed that the danger signals were out. A little pulse was hammering in his temple, and he was white round the nostrils—a sure sign of trouble with Jim. In fact, in a few seconds the atmosphere that breeds murder had arisen in the bar of the Shepheard's Hotel.
“Was it you who pulled my stool away?” asked the man at length, in a guttural voice that shook so we could scarcely hear what he said.
“Was it you who deliberately banged into my back, upset my drink, and failed to apologize?” retorted Jim icily.
AND then the man broke loose. Every vestige of self-control left him. He cursed, he swore, he used the foulest language. And, all the time, Jim watched him unblinkingly. The barman, with a terrified look on his face, had beckoned to me when it started, and from him I learned the gorilla's name.
“It's Baron Stockmar,” he whispered to me, “and he goes mad if he's crossed. For heaven's sake, sir, get your friend out of it! He ain't a man—the Baron; he's a devil in human form.”
And assuredly there was a good deal of truth in what the barman said. This thick-voiced, foul-mouthed brute was not a man—he was a maniac. Many less dangerous cases have been locked up in mad-houses for life. But as to removing Jim, I should as soon have tried to remove a leopard from its kill.
He had put down his drink on the bar beside him and was standing up. His breath was coming a little faster than usual, but his eyes never left the other's face. Not a word had he spoken; not a word did he speak, even when the Baron gave up generalities and became personal. And it wasn't until the Baron admitted that it had been no accident but an intentional insult when he entered the bar, and launched into his private opinions of Englishmen in general and Jim in particular, that Jim did anything. Then, like everything Jim did, it was clean and decisive, and showed the perfect fighting man that he was.
The Baron's great head was thrust forward, the last foul insult was not cold on his lips, and his two hands were coming up slowly toward Jim, when there came the sharp, crisp noise of two billiard-balls meeting. With every atom of weight in his body behind the blow, Jim Maitland struck Baron Stockmar on the point of his jaw—and Jim, at one period of his life, had held the Heavyweight Amateur Championship of Great Britain. And the Baron crumpled up, like a horse that is shot through the brain, and toppled over backward.
FOR a moment we stood there watching the heavily breathing, unconscious figure; and then, for the first time, we realized that an excited and terrified crowd of spectators had thronged in at the door.
“Get him out of this, Leyton,” said Peddleton urgently in my ear. “There's going to be trouble over this, and we must get to the Chief at once.”
So one on each side of him we formed up, and Jim was grinning.
“I think,” he murmured happily, “though I wouldn't swear to it, that I heard his jaw break.”
“Come on, Jim, old man,” said Peddleton insistently. “There are reasons, very important reasons, which I'll explain as I go along. Oh, yes, you can come back afterward and finish him off. Rather!”
We dragged him through the crowd at the door, casting longing glances over his shoulder at the man who still lay prostrate on the floor, and we rushed him into the street.
“Confound you!” he said, stopping at the entrance to the hotel. “Why are you taking me away? That swine hasn't apologized yet.”
“Doesn't matter, old man,” laughed Peddleton. “For the next few hours he'll be too busy wondering whether a horse kicked him in the jaw or not to bother about apologizing.”
Still arguing and protesting, he suffered us to pull him along; and not till we turned into the mess at Kasr el Nil did Peddleton breathe freely again.
“Sit down, Jim,” he said, “and get outside a whisky-and-soda. I want to talk to you for a moment, and then I'm going to take you straight up to the Chief. I didn't realize when that swine first came into the bar who he was. Then I heard what the barman told Leyton. He's a gentleman about whose coming we've been warned. We were told he had a peculiar temper; we were not told that he was a raving maniac. And there are diplomatic reasons, Jim, which render it a little unfortunate that you removed that seat just as he was going to sit down.”
“Well, what the deuce did he want to run me in the back for?” demanded Jim angrily.
“I know, old man—I know,” said Peddleton soothingly. “Personally, I've never been so pleased in my life as when you laid the brute out. And from that point of view the Chief will probably want to kiss you. But diplomatically, old man, it is unfortunate.”
Peddleton's good-natured face was looking worried, and suddenly Jim leaned across to him with his wonderful, understanding smile.
“Pumpkin, old boy,” he said quietly, “I shall make it absolutely clear to the Chief that it was nothing whatever to do with you. But you wouldn't have had me not hit the blighter?”
“Heaven forbid!' answered the Pumpkin fervently. “I very nearly gave three cheers as you laid him out.” He got to his feet. “Look here, Jim; come along and see the Chief now. Leyton, you won't mind waiting here, will you? Shout for anything you want.”
“Of course,” I answered. “Don't worry about me. I shall probably stroll over to Ghezireh.”
But, though I went over to the Sporting Club and tried to concentrate on a game of polo, I could not get the extraordinary scene at Shepheard's out of my mind. At the time it had all been so quick, had all seemed so naturally continuous, that one had had no time to wonder. But now, looking back on it at my leisure, the whole thing seemed like a dream—like one of those sudden desert sand-storms that rise out of nothing, pass by, and are gone.
In an instant murder—raging, hot-blooded murder—had been let loose in a hotel full of the most commonplace tourists. There had been murder in Baron Stockmar's eyes as his hands went out toward Jim: the difference between the blow that stunned him and a bullet through his heart had been small in motive. And the original cause—a push in the back. Intentional true: a deliberate insult by a foul-mouthed bully. But, knowing Jim as I did, I couldn't disguise from myself the fact that, even had it been an accident, the result would have been the same. He was not a man who took kindly to accidents, especially those for which no apology was rendered. And it was just before the last chukka finished, while I still felt as mentally confused as ever, that I saw Jim coming toward me.
“Can you leave for Khartoum with me to-night?” he remarked, as he came up.
“I can,” I answered. Then my curiosity got the better of me. “What's happened?”
“The Pumpkin was right,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “Unofficially the Chief kissed me on both cheeks—so to speak. Officially he cursed me into fourteen different heaps. There are certain things I can't tell you, old man—but our friend the gorilla is the accredited agent of a certain government. He has arrived, apparently, on some question of trade concessions in the Sudan, and he is not welcome, even officially.
“Unofficially, I believe special prayers are now being offered that his jaw is broken in two places, and that he'll never eat again. He has not endeared himself to any one in Cairo. But the funny thing is that the job the Pumpkin was actually speaking to me about before the swine came in this morning is concerned directly with the brute. It is to frustrate—this between ourselves—the very thing he has come out to do. And it must be done—unofficially. Hence—me. I have been told unofficially exactly what the Chief wants officially—and I leave to-night.”
A lazy grin spread over his face. “I gather that Baron Carl Stockmar proposes to visit Khartoum in the near future.”
“Things become clearer,” I murmured. “Jim—the man's mad.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“From quiet inquiries made, Dick, since our little episode in the bar, we have found out that the beggar had been drinking before he came in. And when he gets into the condition of 'drink-taken'—I gather he never gets drunk—he is a very ugly customer. He manhandled a sailor who annoyed him on his dahabeah the other night, and nearly killed him. And his principal hatred is for the English. I trust most fervently that we shall renew our friendship in Khartoum.”
The grin had faded from his face.
AND now I come to the second and final act of the drama. It is the first time that the facts have been put on paper, though many shrewd guesses as to what occurred were made by officers of the Royal South Sussex who were quartered at Khartoum. They were interested in the matter—very interested, since it was in their mess that the insult took place. And I can still see that ring of alert, brown-skinned men in mess-kit standing motionless in the ante-room, with blazing eyes and clenched fists: I can still hear the C.O.'s quiet word of warning—Gentlemen.”
But one thing I would say at the beginning, if by any chance these words should meet the eye of any one who was present that night—there can't be many; the battalion ceased to be a battalion at Festubert in '15—this I would say: von Tarnin of the 3rd Regiment of the Prussian Guard was a sahib. He was forced into an invidious position against his will, simply because he was a Prussian officer, and there was no one else to take his place.
But I am jumping ahead. Four weeks after we left Cairo—Jim and I—we returned to Khartoum. On the way through we had dined with the South Sussex, and at dinner Jim had hinted to the Colonel the nature of his business.
The next day we went into the wilds, and of the next three weeks there is nothing to tell. Jim talked to many strange dignified men in their own lingo—and every one of them seemed to know him as an old friend. They suggested sport; they promised us wonderful shooting. But Jim smiled and refused, and pushed on deeper into the desert.
And then came the day when we turned and retraced our steps. The job he had been sent to do was done; the results were locked in Jim's brain. He wasn't communicative, and I didn't ask questions—but there was a pleased twinkle in his eye, and I knew that he was satisfied with his work. Only once did he allude to it, and that was the night before we reached Khartoum. “I think, old son,” he remarked, “that we have euchre the dear Baron.”
Next evening we arrived, and dined quietly at the hotel. And after dinner we strolled over to the South Sussex mess. That the Baron was dining there as an official guest we had no idea; that the Baron had interviewed a tall, stately prince of the desert during the course of the day, and had met with a suave but perfectly firm refusal to certain propositions he had advanced, we had even less idea. It was the first-fruits of Jim's mission, and the immediate result had been to throw the Baron into a white heat of rage. The concessions had not gone a month age, he roared furiously; how did it happen they had gone now?
And the grave Bedouin had shrugged his shoulders and stalked from the room without further conversation.
The immediate result also was that Baron Stockmar arrived at the South Sussex mess for dinner still in the same mood. From certain non-committal remarks made by the Arab during their interview, he had gathered that the same refusal would meet him from every quarter, and the Baron was not the type of man to take such a thing lying down.
Illustration: The men were twenty yards apart; like a flash, Jim was around the bush
Illustration: He fired first, a fraction of a second before the Baron
To have failed absolutely in what he had specially decided to do was an unusual experience for him, and his mood at dinner was one of smoldering passion. It was an official invitation, but he made no attempt at even ordinary politeness, and a general desire to sling the swine out of the mess became prevalent before the soup was finished. One thing the Baron did do with gusto: he punished the excellent South Sussex champagne till even the Colonel—hospitable sportsman though he was—began to look uneasy.
Then came the first unpleasant episode. The cloths were removed; the wine had been passed round, and officers with their glasses untouched were waiting for the toast of “The King.”
The Colonel rose and addressed the Vice-President. “Mr. Vice—the King.”
“Gentlemen—the King.”
Every officer rose—but not so the Baron. I was told all this afterward by one of the subalterns. There were a few moments of icy silence, while the band-sergeant, his honest face the color of a beet-root with rage, glared at the offender and kept his band silent.
Then the Colonel spoke quietly, and the second in command, an officer of a notoriously choleric temper, plucked feverishly at his collar as if it were choking him.
“We are about to drink the health of our King, Baron Stockmar,” said the Colonel. “May I request you to stand up?”
The Baron rose. There was something in the ring of furious men who were staring at him that warned even his drink-bemused brain not to go too far. He rose, and the King was played—but the episode did not improve the harmony of the evening.
IT was into this atmosphere that, in all ignorance, Jim and I blundered later on. The Baron was sitting with his back to us as we came in, drinking his third brandy-and-soda since dinner, and neither of us noticed him. All we saw was a bunch of officers looking about as cheerful as a crowd of mummies, and Jim looked at them in surprise.
“Why so merry and bright?” he cried cheerfully. “Having returned from a most successful trip in the wilds, and seen all my old pals, amongst 'em Mahomet Ali, we've come up to play hunt-the-slipper.”
And Mahomet Ali was the man whom the Baron had seen that afternoon.
He rose from his chair and turned round, facing Jim. Whether or not he realized that it was Jim who had forestalled him, I do not know, but on his face was the look of a maniac. What vestige of restraint he had imposed on himself during the evening vanished; for the moment the man was mad. It was the first time he had seen Jim since the episode at Shepheard's, and he walked toward him, swaying slightly.
“You struck me a little while ago,” he said thickly. “Then you ran like a coward and an Englishman. Will this force you to give me the satisfaction one gentleman demands of another?”
And he flung the contents of his glass straight in Jim's face.
A SUPPRESSED snarl ran through the ante-room, and it was then that the Colonel's quiet word, “Gentlemen,” came as a douche of cold water; for passion was running high and ugly, and even the padre was muttering unprintable things under his breath. In fact, the only man in the room who seemed completely unmoved was Jim. With exaggerated nonchalance he mopped his face with his handkerchief; then he polished his eye-glass and replaced it.
“Dear me, Colonel!” he remarked, at length, “I wondered what had become of that gorilla I caught on my trip. But, really, I can't congratulate you on the manners you've taught it. I shall have to take the coarse brute in hand myself.”
With a snarl like a beast, the Baron hurled himself at Jim, and for a moment my heart stood still. Immensely powerful though Jim was, at close quarters with this human monstrosity he could not have stood a chance. But once again I'd reckoned without my man. Even as he spoke he had been measuring the distance with his eye, and had moved back a couple of paces. And as Baron Stockmar rushed at him, Jim dived forward and tackled him below the knees. It was a perfect Rugby tackle, and the Baron's head, in falling, hit the edge of the piano. And they left him where he lay.
“That is the second time, sir,” said Jim to the Colonel. “The world is not big enough for this gentleman.”
“Careful, Jim,” said the Colonel. “For heaven's sake, don't get yourself into any trouble, old boy.”
“You can't go having any fool tricks with revolvers, Jim,” said the second in command. “Dueling ain't allowed in his Majesty's domains.”
“Nevertheless, Tubby, old man,” said Jim quietly, “I shall deal with him. Shall we leave it at that? I don't think you had better ask any questions.”
And at that moment the Baron staggered to his feet.
“You will hear further from me, sir,” hé said shakily.
“I should hate to think so,” answered Jim coldly. “There's the door.”
No one spoke till the sound of his swaying footsteps had died away; then the Colonel again shook his head.
“Jim,” he said earnestly, “do, I entreat of you, be careful. You'll put me in such an awful position if—if—”
“Colonel,” said Jim quietly, “did you hear what he said?—'Like a coward and an Englishman.' Here—in your mess.” His voice shook a little; then he went on quietly: “Unfortunately, this place is so confoundedly civilized that one has got to be careful, as you say. So, if he takes no further steps in the matter, and apologizes before you all for his remark, I am prepared to let the matter drop. But otherwise—well, as I said before, you had better ask no questions.”
And it was at that moment that the mess-sergeant flung open the door of the ante-room and ushered in a tall, fair-haired man who held himself stiffly.
“Mr. Maitland,” he said, standing by the door.
“That's me,” remarked Jim.
“I am Count von Tarnin of the 3rd Regiment of the Prussian Guard. I am here on behalf of Baron Stockmar. Is there any gentleman here who is acting for you, and to whom I can speak? I presume you have guessed my mission.”
“I certainly have,” said the Colonel quietly. “And you must quite understand, Count, that anything in the nature of dueling is strictly forbidden under English law, and that I, as the senior military officer here, flatly forbid it.”
Count von Tarnin bowed.
“I understand, sir,” he answered. “I am to give that message to my principal, am I, Mr. Maitland?”
“You are,” said Jim. “And when you've given that message, Mr. Leyton, here, will be delighted to discuss with you the weather conditions and the prospects of sport a little farther up the White Nile.”
Count von Tarnin bowed again, and the suspicion of a smile hovered round his lips.
“I shall find Mr. Leyton—where?” he asked.
“At the hotel,” I answered briefly; and, with another stiff bow that included us all, he left the mess.
“Maitland,” said the Colonel sternly—and Jim grinned at him.
“There's a spot I know of, Colonel,” he remarked, “where the lion-shooting is excellent. I feel sure Baron Stockmar would like some to ease his ruffled temper.”
And the Colonel began to smile.
“Go away, confound you!” he said. “I don't want to know anything about your shooting.”
“But, for goodness' sake, hit the lion,” piped the padre; and as we left the mess they were standing him on his head in the corner for being a bloodthirsty little man.
IT was an hour later that Count von Tarnin came up to me in the hotel. Jim had told me his scheme; everything was cut and dried, and it remained for me only to put the details before the Count. From the beginning I had done nothing to dissuade Jim. In the first place, I knew it was useless; in the second—well, the scheme appealed to me. Judged by the standards of English country life, it was not perhaps all it should have been; but England seemed very far away that night.
“My principal wishes to know when and where he may expect satisfaction,” he said abruptly.
“Precisely,” I answered. “I am not well up in the etiquette of these matters, but I may say at once that my principal is only too ready to grant that satisfaction. But there are certain considerations that he has to bear in mind. As Colonel Latimer told you to-night, dueling is forbidden, and any infringement of the law against it would result not only in the survivor—should the duel end fatally—being hanged, but it would also involve Colonel Latimer in grave trouble.
“In those circumstances, my principal has decided as follows. He has, I believe, the choice of weapons. He has chosen big-game rifles. He proposes that we should all go, ostensibly after lions, to some suitable place. He then proposes that your principal and he should take cover as directed by us, and at a given signal each should regard the other as the lion. Each will proceed to stalk the other until a result takes place. Should that result prove fatal, the survivor, for his own sake, is not likely to talk about it. In addition, both you and I will be in a position to state that the one who loses was mauled and killed by a lion, and the vultures will do the rest. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” said von Tarnin, clicking his heels together. “I will acquaint my principal with what you have said.”
With that he left me to return in ten minutes with the information that the Baron agreed. And then, for a moment or two, he stared at me irresolutely.
“It is most unorthodox, what I am going to say,” he said, with a great deal of hesitation. “I am Baron Stockmar's second, and therefore his interests are mine. But he is a peculiar man; his reputation is notorious. And I think it only fair to tell you that he is probably the finest shot in Germany. Moreover, he is quite determined to kill your friend.”
He was very stiff about it. I could see the man's decent nature struggling with his scandalized horror at his own breach of etiquette. And the next moment his horror deepened. Jim, who had come into the room unnoticed, smote him heavily on the back.
“Tell the Baron, with my love,” he said earnestly, “that I once slaughtered a sparrow with a catapult.”
BUT, though Jim laughed and was his usual self during the two days that we trekked south to the place we had decided on, there was an undercurrent of seriousness beneath his gaiety. He slept, as usual, like a child; I do not believe that for a single instant during the whole time did his pulse quicken by one beat. But he gave me in full the report that I was to render to the Chief in Cairo, in case anything happened; also, he gave me one or two private commissions to carry out.
And the night before the duel he was a little more silent than usual. I had fixed the final details with von Tarnin; the spot had been duly selected. And it was as I came back that Jim looked up with a lazy smile from oiling his rifle.
“What extraordinary blokes we are!” he remarked thoughtfully. “I don't know that it affords me any pleasure to go out and try to kill this bird to-morrow. I felt like murdering him in the mess that night, but now—”
He returned to his task, and shortly after we turned in. And of the two of us I know who slept worse: I don't think I closed my eyes the whole night.
Even the next morning Jim seemed bored. He told me afterward that he'd lost interest in the affair, and even the smoldering fury in Baron Stockmar's eyes failed to rouse him. He was as immaculate as ever; his eye-glass seemed even more conspicuous; and when I showed him the place we had selected for him, he lounged over as if he was looking for butterflies.
“He means business, Jim,” I said urgently. “He's blind mad with rage still.”
“Is he?” said Jim indifferently. “Make him shoot the worse.”
They were to start when we fired a revolver, and von Tarnin gave the signal as soon as we were both satisfied that they were ready. We were standing on a little sandy hummock above the scrub, whence we could see both men, though they could not see each other. And then there began the grimmest, most exciting fight that it has ever been my fortune to witness. Von Tarnin, beside me, was smoking cigarette after cigarette; I was chewing an empty pipe.
Occasionally a shot rang out, but it seemed to me that Jim was taking things too easily. As a crack shot his name was famous through three continents; but the Baron, despite his bulk, was no mean performer. And once I saw a bullet flatten itself on a stone not an inch from Jim's head.
He was just underneath us at the moment, and he drew back quickly. Then he looked at the stone very carefully, and I saw his face change. Through my glasses I could see the look of boredom vanish, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Something had roused him at last, and the man beside me realized it too, and whistled under his breath. Jim's lethargy had gone; something had happened which had turned him from a bored individual into a grim and ruthless man.
At a quick lope he turned and vanished into the scrub. Every now and then we saw him listening intently; every now and then we saw the great figure of the Baron squirming forward, with his head turning from side to side as he peered into the undergrowth. And then, suddenly, von Tarnin gripped my arm convulsively. The two men were not more than twenty yards apart. A big bush was between them, but we could see them both. And it seemd to us that at that moment each of them became aware of the other.
Like a flash, Jim was round the bush, and he fired standing, the fraction of a second before the other man. Then he spun round and sank on his knees, while von Tarnin and I raced toward them.
I raised Jim in my arms; the Baron had shot him through the shoulder. But it was a dreadful wound, and I stared at it in amazement. Even from such a short range the wound was almost incredible, and suddenly Jim opened his eyes and stared at me.
“He was using dum dum,” he said—and his voice was hard. “The swine was using dum-dums.”
A shadow fell on me, and we looked up at Count von Tarnin. He had heard Jim's remark, and his face was stern.
“I apologize in the name of my country,” he said with quiet dignity. “My principal can not.”
For the first time I looked at the Baron, and understood. Jim had shot him through the brain.
AND so we came back to Khartoum. It was the Count von Tarnin who came with me to see Colonel Latimer the instant we had got Jim stowed in hospital.
“A regrettable accident has taken place, sir,” he remarked, with stiff military precision. “Baron Carl Stockmar, while following a lion with Mr. Maitland, was turned on suddenly by the brute. He fired, unfortunately missing the lion and hitting Mr. Maitland in the shoulder. The lion killed him, Mr. Maitland being unable to give any assistance owing to his wound.”
The Colonel stared at him in thoughtful silence; the Adjutant stood stiffly by the side of his chair.
“Am I to understand, Count von Tarnin,” he said at length, “that that is the information which will be conveyed to the Baron's friends in Germany? Just what you have told me?”
“Exactly that, sir—and nothing more,” said the Count.
“Good,” answered the Colonel, rising from his chair and holding out his hand. “The officers of my regiment and I myself will be very pleased if you will dine with us to-night.”
IN NEXT MONTH'S McCLURE'S
Another enthralling chronicle of Jim Maitland—one of the most engaging heroes ever introduced to the American reading public—
A Game of Bluff