“I’ve ordered it already,” said Mrs. Openshaw; “after what it foretold about my garden I thought I ought to.”
While the general verdict was in favour of the almanac as an inspired production, or, at any rate, a very fair compilation of successful prediction, there were critics who pointed out that most of the events foretold were of the nature of things that happened in one form or another in any given year.
“I couldn’t risk being very definite about any particular event,” said Vera to Clovis towards the end of the twelvemonth; “as it is I have rather tied myself up over Jocelyn Vanner. I hinted that the hunting field was not a safe place for her during November and December. It is never a safe place for her at any time, she is always coming off a jump or getting bolted with or something of that sort. And now she has taken alarm at my prediction, and only comes to the meets on foot. Nothing very serious can happen to her under those circumstances.”
“It must be ruining her hunting season,” said Clovis.
“It’s ruining the reputation of my almanac,” said Vera; “it’s the one thing that has definitely miscarried. I felt so sure she would have a spill of some sort that could be magnified into a serious accident.”
“I’m afraid I can’t offer to ride over her, or incite hounds to tear her to pieces in mistake for a fox,” said Clovis; “I should earn your undying devotion, but there would be a wearisome fuss about it, and I should have to hunt with another pack in future, and that would be dreadfully inconvenient.”
“As your mother says, you are a mass of selfishness,” commented Vera.
An opportunity for being unselfish occurred to Clovis a day or two later, when he found himself at close quarters with Jocelyn near Bludberry Gate, where hounds were drawing a long woody hollow in search of an elusive fox.
“Scent is poor, and there’s an interminable amount of cover,” grumbled Clovis from his saddle; “we shall be here for hours before we get a fox away.”
“All the more time for you to talk to me,” said Jocelyn archly.
“The question is,” said Clovis darkly, “whether I ought to be seen talking to you. I may be involving you.”
“Heavens! Involving me in what?” gasped Jocelyn.
“Do you know anything about Bukowina?” Clovis asked with seeming inconsequence.
“Bukowina? It’s somewhere in Asia Minor, isn’t it—or Central Asia—or is it part of the Balkans?” hazarded Jocelyn; “I really forget for the moment. Where exactly is it?”
“On the brink of a revolution,” said Clovis impressively; “that’s what I want to warn you about. When I was staying with my aunt in Bucharest” (Clovis invented aunts as lavishly as other people invent golfing experiences) “I got mixed up in the affair without knowing what I was in for. There was a princess—”
“Ah,” said Jocelyn knowingly, “there always is a beautiful and alluring princess in these affairs.”
“As plain and boring a woman as one could find in Eastern Europe,” said Clovis; “one of the sort that call just before lunch and stay till it’s time to dress for dinner. Well, it seems that some Romanian Jew is willing to finance the revolution if he can be assured of getting certain mineral concessions. The Jew is cruising in a yacht somewhere off the English coast, and the princess had made up her mind that I was the safest person to convey the concession papers to him. My aunt whispered, ‘For Heaven’s sake agree to what she says or she’ll stay on to dinner.’ At that moment any sacrifice seemed better than that, and so here I am, with my breast pocket bulging with compromising documents, and my life not worth a minute’s purchase.”
“But,” said Jocelyn, “you are safe here in England, aren’t you?”
“Do you see that man over there, on the roan?” asked Clovis, pointing to a man with a heavy black moustache, who was probably an auctioneer from a neighbouring town, and at any rate was a stranger to the hunt. “That man was outside my aunt’s house when I escorted the princess to her carriage. He was on the platform of the railway station when I left Bucharest. He was on the landing-stage when I arrived in England. I can go nowhere without finding him at my elbow. I was not surprised to see him at the meet this morning.”
“But what can he do to you?” asked Jocelyn tremulously; “he can’t kill you.”
“Not before witnesses, if he can avoid it. The moment hounds find and the field scatters will be his opportunity. He means to have those papers today.”
“But how can he be sure you’ve got them on you?”
“He can’t; I might have slipped them over to you while we were talking. That is why he is trying to make up his mind which of us to go for at the critical moment.”
“Us?” screamed Jocelyn; “do you mean to say—?”
“I warned you that it was dangerous to be seen talking to me.”
“But this awful! What am I to do?”
“Slip away into the undergrowth the moment that hounds get moving, and run like a rabbit. It is your only chance, and remember, if you escape, no talking. Many lives will be involved if you breathe a word of what I’ve told you. My aunt at Bucharest—”
At that moment there was a whimper from hounds down in the hollow, and a general ripple of movement passed through the scattered groups of waiting horsemen. A louder and more assured burst of noise came up from the valley.
“They’ve found!” cried Clovis and turned eagerly to join in the stampede. A crashing, scrunching noise as of a body rapidly and resolutely forcing its way through birch thicket and dead bracken was all that remained to him of his late companion.
Jocelyn’s most intimate friends never knew the
