The Seeds of Enchantment | Page 7

into a run.
Phu-nan, the little brown servant, stood for a moment irresolute. Then,
taking the half-empty basket and de Gys' sun-hat, he, too, followed.
By the time Phu-nan reached his master's apartments Melie was lying
flat on the great bare bedstead. Over her, carelessly drawn
mosquito-curtains brushing his shoulders, bent the doctor. De Gys, fists
clenched, stood motionless in the centre of the room. A pile of papers
and a bamboo table lay, overturned, between the mats on the red brick
floor. Beyond, through the "ehik" curtains, Phu-nan saw the third white
man a tall silhouette against the balcony window.
Silently the "boy" set the table on its legs and commenced to re-arrange
the papers.
"I should like the fan started. Full speed, please," called Beamish's
voice, coldly professional. De Gys stepped to the switch by the door,

clicked it on. The wooden ceiling-fan began to revolve, gathered speed.
A breath of cooling air circulated down through the heat of the room,
quivering the papers on the table, the muslin curtains round the bed.
"You!" ordered de Gys to his servant, "wait outside the door."
Phu-nan salaamed; withdrew. Beamish finished his examination, closed
the curtains, and turned to de Gys.
"Elle est morte--" he whispered.
"Dead!" For a moment the Frenchman's eyes gazed blank incredulity.
Then rage blazed in their red-brown depths. "Liar!" the voice, keyed to
frenzy, seemed torn from the huge frame. "Liar! she cannot be dead. It
is impossible."
"Elle est morte," repeated Beamish, and felt himself tossed aside so that
he staggered against a long rattan chair, only just recovered balance in
time to see de Gys' hands, grown suddenly gentle as a girl's, pulling
apart the flimsy muslin round the bed.
"Yes, she is dead. Poor, poor little woman," thought de Gys. All the
quick rage in him was extinct. He knew only infinite pity, infinite
sorrow, and deep down in his wanderer's heart, pain. For though he had
known many women, this one he had loved.
She lay there so quietly; alabaster-white in death. Death had smoothed
all terror from her face: her face showed like a waxen magnolia-bloom
against the spread gold of her hair. Death had smoothed all movement
from her long limbs, from her impulsive hands: her hands rested on her
bosom like two fallen petals of some great white flower.
"But this is not Melie," he thought, "this is only the husk of Melie, the
beautiful husk of a soul I hardly knew."
Very reverently he bent and kissed the gold hair, the white forehead,
the two hands lying petal-like on the rounded breasts. Very quietly he
drew the mosquito-curtains; turned to Beamish.

"Your pardon, doctor."
Beamish took the outstretched hand; murmured awkwardly: "C'est
triste, Sympathie" And the Frenchman understood. ' Dicky, too, his
long friend, the Colonel Smith of old days, was beside him; he could
feel Dicky's hand on his shoulder. "Courage, mon vieux, we have seen
death before, you and I."
The Frenchman came to himself. "Yes," he said a hint of the old
gasconade in his tone "we are old friends, you and I and death. Only..."
The voice quivered. A sob shook the great shoulders. "Doctor, of what
did she die?"
Without a word Beamish walked over to the outer door; locked it. Then,
"Where do these lead?" he asked, pointing to a flight of wooden steps
in the far corner of the room.
"Only to the bath-room."
"And the sitting-room? Is it safe? Can we talk there without being
overheard?"
"Yes."
De Gys led way through the "chik" curtain; closed the folding doors
which divided the apartment; closed the shutters; clicked on light and
fan; arranged cane chairs round the cheap European table. The three sat
down. "Of what did she die?" repeated de Gys. For answer, Beamish
fumbled in his coat-pocket, drew out and laid on the table a flat case set
with white stones that glinted like diamonds in the shadeless glare of
the pendent electric.
"If he will tell me what is in that box" Beamish spoke in English to
Dicky, and his voice was a pregnant suspicion "I may be able to tell
him the cause of his wife's death. She was his wife, I suppose," the
doctor went on.
"Your pardon, doctor," interrupted the Frenchman, "but I am not quite

ignorant of your language. Nor do I like mysteries. Be frank, please."
Beamish hesitated; blushed; began: "I found the box when I undid her
blouse. She was clutching it to her breast as she died. Afterwards, I
looked in the box." He hesitated again. "Your wife died of heart failure,
Monsieur, but before I can certify her death as due to natural causes,
you must answer one question. Did your wife take drugs?"
"Not drugs," answered the Frenchman. "A drug. And