Chapter 3

Armourer Entertains

A stretch of powdery sand, bleached white by a relentless Eastern
sun, bordered on three sides by trees through which--to the
eastward--ran a gleaming single track of railway line; a sea of
deepest blue, shimmering in a vast crucible whose rim was the far
horizon, like some strange metallic substance, which bubbled over on
to the sand and on the surface of which a group of tiny islands
clustered together like lumps of jade.

A sun hanging low in the western heavens, a breathless, sweltering
stillness, broken at intervals by the shrill quarrelling of apes in
the branches and the gentle plashing and sucking-back of a timid tide.

There were only two living creatures visible in the whole of this
vivid tropical landscape; an Englishman in white drill who sat, pipe
in mouth, on a grassy mound--and a small furry sloth whose brown eyes
surveyed the biped from above with mischievous interest.

The man on the mound stirred suddenly and stretched himself and the
sloth took instant flight, scurrying for the ample cover lent by the
foliage.

Michael Armourer cocked his head on one side and listened.

A distant rumbling sound, accompanied by a discordant shriek,
announced the approach of the afternoon train.

Battiscombe’s colleague at Jelandang glanced at his watch.

“She’s late this afternoon,” he said to himself, and tapped out his
pipe on his heel.

He had almost filled it again from a voluminous oilskin pouch when the
catastrophe occurred.

The train--a jolting line of white coaches drawn by an obsolete engine
that puffed and snorted asthmatically--emerged from the trees on the
one side at the same time as a trolly--propelled by a group of
perspiring natives--appeared at the other. The trolly carried two
passengers--an elderly gentleman with a short grey beard, who had a
camera fixed on a tripod before him and was turning a handle
vigorously, and a young girl in white.

Either the engine-driver was short-sighted or his brakes refused to
respond, for before Armourer could reach the spot the natives had
scattered, the man and the girl had fallen off, and the engine was
pushing the trolly before it in the direction of Jesselton.

Armourer tripped up over the tripod, recovered himself, and bent down
over the girl. She sat up suddenly and rubbed a bruised arm.

“I hope you’re not hurt?” he inquired with genuine anxiety.

It dawned upon him at that moment that she was unusually good-looking
and that she was laughing.

“Oh, no. I’m not in the least bit hurt, thanks. Hadn’t you better have
a look at father?”

Armourer rose to his full height and peered down into the hollow into
which the only other occupant of the trolly had fallen.

The old gentleman was scrambling to his feet, muttering a string of
harmless expletives in a particularly definite manner, most of which
appeared to be addressed to the train.

“Preposterous, I call it! An expensive instrument and a perfect
panorama ruined all through the confounded idiocy of a native driver!
A man like that ought never to be permitted to control an engine
again!”

Armourer suppressed a sudden desire to laugh.

“As a matter of fact,” he reminded the stranger, “trollies are
theoretically illegal.”

The other surveyed him sourly.

“Who the dickens are you, anyway?” he demanded.

Armourer smiled.

“I happen to be the magistrate of this district. My name’s
Armourer--Michael Armourer. I hope you haven’t damaged yourself.”

The older man placed both hands on his hips, stared at the tail end of
the train--a couple of hundred yards away, where a little group of
natives and Europeans had gathered--at his daughter, and at the
half-frightened coolies who were wandering back into sight again--then
threw out his chest and laughed heartily.

“Well, Joyce, here’s an adventure for you! You always declared you
wanted one--and now you’ve got it!--Are you hurt?”

“Oh, dear me, no! I’ve grazed my arm; that’s all.”

“Splendid! And now, Mr. Armourer, do you mind sending that train of
yours on? I think we’ve had all the publicity we require this
afternoon.”

“And the trolly?”

“Of course, I was forgetting that. You might ask those grinning
lunatics to get it off the line until the train has gone, then put it
on again and push it back to Jesselton. I’ll pay ’em when they’re
ready to start.”

“You’re not going on?”

The older man shook his head resolutely.

“I’m not going on one of those ghastly things again--in the interests
of science or anything else. You can make your mind quite easy about
that.”

“But, father,” protested the girl, “how are we going to get back?”

He stroked his beard.

“We shall place ourselves unreservedly in the hands of the local
magistrate. I’m not so certain he oughtn’t to arrest us both in any
case. We appear to have been breaking the law!”

He crossed the line and picked up his camera.

“I suppose I ought to tell you, Mr. Armourer, that I’m Professor
Herbert Standen and this is my daughter Joyce. I’m interested in a
good many things, but my pet subject is Poisons. And,” he added, “if I
knew of a suitable one at the moment, I’d cheerfully administer it to
the Director of Railways--or whatever he styles himself--who beat me
at golf yesterday and suggested this infernal trolly-ride!”

He examined the camera and, setting it down tenderly at his side,
straightened a leg of the collapsible tripod over his knee. Apparently
satisfied that the total damage to his property was small, he cast an
appreciative eye over the landscape.

“This is certainly a very beautiful spot--very beautiful. What do you
think of it, Joyce?”

The girl was standing a few paces from them, shading her eyes with her
hand.

“It’s simply glorious,” she said at length. “I love it.”

Armourer excused himself and hurried off to stimulate the coolies into
action. He returned in half an hour to find the professor and his
daughter down by the water’s edge.

“It’s all clear now,” he explained, “and I’ve taken the liberty of
squaring your men for you. I’m afraid I didn’t give them all they had
expected; but it was a good deal more than they deserved. You’d better
come up to my place and see if you think you will be comfortable
enough there.”

The professor stuck his hands in his pockets and favoured the younger
man with an amused smile.

“You don’t for one moment suppose I’m going to plant myself and family
on you at a moment’s notice?”

“I’m afraid it’s Hobson’s choice. You see, there’s only one train up
and one down a day--and that’s the last of any sort until to-morrow
morning.”

He indicated a faint line of grey smoke that still hung above the
trees.

Standen looked startled.

“But, bless my soul, we ought to have taken that, then?”

“Certainly, if you wanted to get back to-night. But you told me to
send off the trolly and the train and indicated at the same time that
you didn’t desire publicity, so I thought the best thing you could do
was to stop the night at my bungalow.”

The professor called to Joyce.

“Do you hear that, my dear? Mr. Armourer says we’ve to put up with
him, as there’s nothing to take us to Jesselton until to-morrow.”

Joyce gasped and spread out her hands.

“But I haven’t brought a thing--not even a tooth-brush!”

Armourer laughed.

“We can fix you up with that all right,” he assured her. “There’s an
estate shop within a mile of my house. If there’s anything else you
really require, you had better write a little note to Mrs. Battiscombe
at Rembakut--and one of my men will run over before dinner.”

He picked up the professor’s camera and tripod and crossed the line.

“Does tea appeal to you at the moment, Miss Standen?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

“Then follow me. I can promise you a cup in ten minutes.”

The professor took up the rear, shaking his head at intervals.

“I’m extremely grateful to you, I’m sure,” he panted, as they reached
the summit of a steep incline, “but I hate putting anybody to an
inconvenience.”

“You’re not,” the magistrate laughed back at him. “You’re doing me a
great honour. It’s three weeks since I had a visitor of any sort.”

He extended an arm and pointed to a spot where the shingled roof of a
new bungalow showed amid a veritable forest of growing rubber.

“That’s Moberly’s place. He’s the manager of the estate I told you
about when we were discussing tooth-brushes. It’s one of the best
bungalows out here.”

“It looks simply topping,” commented Joyce, who was by this time
thoroughly reconciled to the prospect of a night spent without her
luggage and secretly exultant that the accident had put an end to what
had promised to be a dull and uninteresting afternoon.

“His rubber looks well,” said Standen. “There’s been a lot of good
work put in there.”

“Oh, he’s thorough,” agreed the magistrate. “That dreary-looking
atrocity right ahead of us is my shack.”

Joyce looked.

“It seems quite a big place.”

“Oh, it’s not the size I complain of. As a matter of fact it suits me
pretty well, but when visitors come along its many defects have a
habit of becoming apparent. However, you’ll see what it’s like for
yourselves.”

As they crossed the wide stretch of grassland in which the building
lay, a couple of terriers bounded down the steps and came scurrying to
meet them.

It was somewhere between tea and dinner that Armourer, returning from
an excursion to Moberly’s estate shop, found Joyce alone on the
verandah.

He dropped quite a fair-sized parcel into her lap.

“Well, there’s your tooth-brush,” he said.

She wrinkled her forehead.

“But this isn’t all tooth-brush!”

“No,” admitted the magistrate, “it’s not; but it all comes under the
category of toilet requisites--except the chocolates--and they’re
supposed to be bad for teeth! Where’s the professor?”

She shook her head.

“I haven’t the least idea. He’s wandered out somewhere.”

Armourer scanned the landscape.

“Does he often do this?” he inquired.

“Oh yes; more often than not, in fact.”

“What a singularly convenient sort of parent!”

Her dark eyes met his and they were full of merriment.

“It’s not always convenient, you know, to be left like this. Father’s
quite capable of dumping me anywhere--and forgetting where he’s put
me, just like he does with his umbrella.”

“But he _will_ come back, of course?” inquired Armourer with mock
anxiety.

“Of course. Don’t you want him to?”

He sat down opposite her and, clasping his hands over one knee, he
appeared to be thinking deeply.

“My proper answer would be--yes, most certainly; but what I really
want to say is that, if I am to be employed as a left-luggage office
by absent-minded professors of poisons--er--well, it occurs to me that
you’re rather the sort of baggage I should like to be left behind and
never claimed! Now, that was really clever; wasn’t it? Do look at that
sunset! It’s the only decent thing about here I’ve got to show you.”

She sprang to her feet and ran to the rail. Armourer stood close
behind her, and for a matter of seconds an exceedingly beautiful
brunette and a particularly good-looking young man remained in close
proximity, the last eerie rays of a departing sun bathing them in an
unearthly pallor.

The glory of the heavens--now that the sun had gone--left her
breathless and trembling.

She looked up at him.

“I have never seen anything like it,” she murmured. “Isn’t it just
wonderful?”

“By Jove, it is,” averred Armourer; but he was looking at her, and for
him the glories of the Eastern sunset were forgotten.