Chapter XVIII: The Professor Changes His Views

The verandah was empty when the three men came clattering up the steps in their heavy boots with the terriers yapping excitedly at their heels.

Battiscombe dropped into a chair.

He caught Michael’s eye.

“Well, the place is still here!”

Armourer stretched his weary limbs.

“Yes, it’s here right enough, as you say. How do you feel, professor?”

The professor was peering round him anxiously.

“Pretty fit, thanks. I don’t think I shall be altogether sorry when I’m in bed.”

Battiscombe looked at his feet.

“Lord! we’re in an unholy mess! That was your precious short cut from Vance’s, Michael! Kuraman warned you there might be swamps at that end of the valley.”

His colleague laughed.

“I was badly out there,” he admitted. “Well, I suppose it’s a quick drink and bed. Wonder where Trevor is.”

Joyce appeared suddenly at the doorway of her room, followed by the second assistant.

She ran to her father.

“I’m so glad you’ve all got back safely. We were beginning to wonder what had happened. We’ve had a perfectly ghastly time since you left.”

She bent down and kissed his forehead.

“What’s been the matter?” he asked.

She looked back at Trevor.

“You’d better tell them, hadn’t you?”

Trevor walked up to Armourer.

“I’ve a piece of bad news for you,” he said. “Your servant--Mai-Heng--has been killed by the crimson butterfly.”

All three started and Battiscombe sprang to his feet.

“What’s that?”

The planter passed a weary hand across his forehead.

“Mai-Heng is dead. I found him in there”--he pointed to Armourer’s room. “He had unearthed that confounded ornament from somewhere and I found it between his fingers.”

Armourer shot a glance at Battiscombe.

“I told you I’d left it in my clothes.

“When I opened the door,” pursued Trevor, “the butterfly flew past me and frightened Miss Standen. I tried to kill it, but missed--and it flew away. The pendant didn’t seem to be a pleasant sort of thing to carry about with one, so I chucked it into a corner. The next thing that happened was a white arm groping through a doorway for it. This fresh development rather staggered us. By the time we’d gathered our wits together, the chain had somehow found its way round Mrs. Battiscombe’s neck--and the queer thing is that she looks as fit as a fiddle.”

The professor was fidgeting with his glasses.

“It’s really very remarkable,” he murmured to himself. “You’re quite certain in your own mind that you actually saw the insect? You’ll pardon my asking an apparently foolish question, but quite a number of queer bugs fly about on a tropic night--and it would be perfectly simple to make a mistake.”

Joyce shook her head.

“We weren’t mistaken, daddy. It crawled up the wall and stayed there for some time.”

“And Mai-Heng died with the Butterfly pendant in his hand?”

“Yes,” said Trevor, “and the same peculiar mark was across his chest.”

Battiscombe, who had been pondering deeply, asked the next question.

“And you say that my wife got up from her bed and picked the thing from the floor?”

“I don’t,” retorted Trevor. “I can only tell you the facts exactly as they happened. Miss Standen saw the arm and we both found the Butterfly at Mrs. Battiscombe’s throat. She was lying much as Miss Standen had left her, the curtains were tucked in all round the bed; there was nothing in fact to indicate that she had moved.”

“It couldn’t get there by itself.”

“I know that.”

“If my wife did take it, how did she know it was there on the floor close by the door of her room?”

“How did she know it was in the house at all?” interposed Armourer.

“She couldn’t have known, unless she had listened; and she couldn’t very well have listened because she was ill. Anyhow, the thing’s round her neck and any of you who want to can see it for yourselves.”

Battiscombe emitted a deep sigh.

“And to think that we let Abu-Samar slip through our fingers!”

Trevor stared.

“What the dickens has Abu-Samar to do with it?”

Armourer tapped out his pipe.

“Everything, apparently.”

“But he hasn’t been near the place.”

Battiscombe reached over the decanter.

“Trevor hasn’t heard about the latest developments,” he said slowly. “Heaven knows only what Dr. Abu-Samar has up his sleeve. Among other things he’s a conjurer--a sort of native magician--and the professor’s theory is that he breeds those butterflies.”

Trevor found his hat.

“This is getting too deep for me,” he complained, “I’m paid by a lot of niggardly directors in London to plant rubber and there’s a clause in my contract which says I’m not to interest myself in any other business. Does anybody know where they put my pony?”

Armourer stepped between him and the exit.

“You’re not going back to-night?”

“You can bet your life I am. It’s close on one now--and I have to be down in the coolie-lines at five-thirty. Besides, your house isn’t elastic.”

“I could fix you up somehow.”

Trevor shook his head.

“It isn’t worth the bother; thanks all the same. There’s a good moon again now and I can be back at my place in under three-quarters of an hour. If you take my advice, you’ll leave the pendant where it is, and sleep with your doors and windows closed.”

“What about Mrs. Battiscombe?”

Trevor paused on the top step.

“As I was saying just before you came in, Mrs. Battiscombe’s worn the charm before--and it didn’t hurt _her_. If that idea doesn’t appeal to you, you’d better go out and bury it. Good night, everybody!”

Armourer went down after him.

“A nice young fellow that!” commented the professor.

He looked round to see that Joyce had fallen asleep in her chair.

“She’s had a rough time,” said Battiscombe softly. “You’d better get her back to Jesselton to-morrow.”

“She won’t go until Mrs. Battiscombe is better,” declared her father.

“Then as soon as my wife is fit to be moved we’ll pack them both off to the coast. This is no place for women at the moment.”

“The extraordinary thing is,” said the professor, “that until Armourer brought that wretched talisman here it was one of the most charming spots it had ever been my good fortune to encounter. I am contriving now to keep quite an open mind with regard to this peculiar sequence of events. Until an hour or so ago I must confess I was bigoted. It seemed so utterly absurd that an inanimate red stone on a gold chain could have the remotest connection with a poisonous and highly vicious insect. Mind you, I am not yet prepared to admit that any such connection exists; but, with this further development fresh in our minds, it would be the sheerest folly to ignore the apparent significance of the presence of that ornament in any given place.”

Battiscombe’s red face bore a troubled expression.

“And so----?”

“And so, before we retire to-night, we must follow Trevor’s second suggestion and bury it somewhere, marking the spot so that we may be able to find it again.”

“Why not sling it into a swamp? The thing’s unclean.”

Standen stroked his beard.

“No, I shouldn’t suggest that. We may want it again.”

“I shan’t--for one, and I’m willing to wager that the others will be glad to see the back of it.”

The professor suddenly tightened the skin at the back of his left hand, thus imprisoning a mosquito in the act of stinging him, and dispatched it smartly with the other.

“Until the entire mystery is satisfactorily cleared up,” he declared, “it would be a pity to lose sight of so important a clue.”

He kicked the charred basket which now reposed at his feet.

“You forget that an actual specimen of the crimson butterfly has not yet come into my hands. My chrysalis may produce something quite harmless, in which case we shall not only be farther from our goal than ever, but we shall have lost a great deal of valuable time. I must get a crimson butterfly before I can hope to embark upon my investigations.”

“We hope to catch Abu-Samar before long--and my wife may be able to tell us something in the morning.”

The older man shook his head sadly.

“I shouldn’t bank too much on Mrs. Battiscombe’s knowledge, if I were you. Samar has taken to the backwoods--and Borneo is a big place. Possibly he has countless friends in the interior who will shield him. No, Battiscombe, it’s the butterfly we want, and if the ornament can be employed as a bait for these things, I’m going to use it for all I’m worth.”

“It’ll be devilish risky.”

“Of course. Scientific research is usually dangerous. In the unearthing of new secrets investigators play with forces concerning the limits of which they have often not the remotest idea. Still, in the interests of science and humanity, these risks have to be taken. If, indeed, Samar breeds these insects, he may one day let them loose in their thousands, to pick off humanity as the locusts pick off grain. Without a known antidote we shall be in a terrible position; and to discover an antidote one must know one’s poison first. I shall get Armourer to build me a hut in the forest, which I shall endeavour to equip as a rough laboratory. I shall keep the charm hanging there, cover the windows with netting and smear the outer walls with what is commonly known to naturalists as _treacle_. If there is something about the talisman which attracts this form of insect-life, the crimson butterfly should obviously be attracted to that spot.”

Armourer came up the steps.

“Well, you two conspirators, what about bed?--Professor, you’ve yours waiting for you. Jimmy and I are going to fix up temporary quarters in the living-room. It’s a confounded nuisance my man’s gone west, but I know where I can rope in another in the morning.”

The professor came to his feet, dusting cigarette ash from the folds of his tunic.

“Battiscombe,” he said, “do you mind getting me that pendant before we wake Joyce? I shall be obliged, Armourer, if you can show me where to find a spade.”

Armourer laughed.

“You’re not going out again.”

“I am,” Standen assured him. “I’m going to bury the charm before I turn in.”

Armourer threw out his arms.

“Behold!” he cried, “the conversion of an unbeliever!”