“Sir,” says David Arden, “I am now convinced that I must have been mistaken; but I cannot deny myself the honour of being presented to Madame St. Ange, and I assure you I am quite ashamed of the annoyance I must have caused you, and I offer a thousand apologies.”
“Not one, pray,” replies the Frenchman, with great goodhumour and gaiety. “I felicitate myself on a mistake which promises to result so happily.”
So side by side, at a leisurely pace, they pursued their way through these silent streets, and unaccountably the conviction again gradually stole over Uncle David that he was actually walking by the side of Mr. Longcluse.
CHAPTER LXXXIII.
A SHORT PARTING.
The fluctuations of Mr. Arden’s conviction continued. His new acquaintance chatted gaily. They passed a transverse street, and he saw him glance quickly right and left, with a shrewd eye that did not quite accord with his careless demeanour.
Here for a moment the moon fell full upon them, and the effect of this new light was, once more, to impair Mr. Arden’s confidence in his last conclusions about this person. Again he was at sea as to his identity.
There were the gabble and vociferation of two women quarrelling in the street to the left, and three tipsy fellows, marching home, were singing a trio some way up the street to the right.
They had encountered but one figure — a seedy scrivener, slipshod, shuffling his way to his garret, with a baize bag of law-papers to copy in his left hand, and a sheaf of quills in his right, and a pale, careworn face turned up towards the sky. The streets were growing more silent and deserted as they proceeded.
He was sauntering onward by the side of this urbane and garrulous stranger, when, like a whisper, the thought came, “Take care!”
David Arden stopped short.
“Eh, bien?” said his polite companion, stopping simultaneously, and staring in his face a little grimly.
“On reflection, Monsieur, it is so late, that I fear I should hardly reach my hotel in time if I were to accept your agreeable invitation, and letters probably await me, which I should, at least, read tonight.”
“Surely Monsieur will not disappoint me — surely Monsieur is not going to treat me so oddly?” expostulated Monsieur St. Ange.
“Goodnight, Sir. Farewell!” said David Arden, raising his hat as he turned to go.
There intervened not two yards between them, and the polite Monsieur St. Ange makes a stride after him, and extends his hand — whether there is a weapon in it, I know not; but he exclaims fiercely, —
“Ha! robber! my purse!”
Fortunately, perhaps, at that moment, from a lane only a few yards away, emerge two gendarmes, and Monsieur St. Ange exclaims, “Ah, Monsieur, mille pardons! Here it is! All safe, Monsieur. Pray excuse my mistake as frankly as I have excused yours. Adieu!”
Monsieur St. Ange raises his hat, shrugs, smiles, and withdrew.
Uncle David thought, on the whole, he was well rid of his ambiguous acquaintance, and strode along beside the gendarmes, who civilly directed him upon his way, which he had lost.
So, then, upon Mr. Longcluse’s fortunes the sun shone; his star, it would seem, was in the ascendant. If the evil genius who ruled his destiny was contending, in a chess game, with the good angel of Alice Arden, her game seemed pretty well lost, and the last move near.
When David Arden reached his hotel a note awaited him, in the hand of the Baron Vanboeren. He read it under the gas in the hall. It said: —
“We must, in this world, forgive and reconsider many things. I therefore pardon you, you me. So soon as you have slept upon our conversation, you will accept an offer which I cannot modify. I always proportion the burden to the back. The rich pay me handsomely; for the poor I have prescribed and operated, sometimes, for nothing! You have the good fortune, like myself, to be childless, wifeless, and rich. When I take a fancy to a thing, nothing stops me; you, no doubt, in like manner. The trouble is something to me; the danger, which you count nothing, to me is much. The compensation I name, estimated without the circumstances, is large; compared with my wealth, trifling; compared with your wealth, nothing; as the condition of a transaction between you and me, therefore, not worth mentioning. The accident of last night I can repair. The original matrix of each mask remains safe in my hands: from this I can multiply casts ad libitum. Both these matrices I will hammer into powder at twelve o’clock tomorrow night, unless my liberal offer shall have been accepted before that hour. I write to a man of honour. We understand each other.
“EMMANUEL VANBOEREN.”
The ruin, then, was not irretrievable; and there was time to take advice, and think it over. In the baron’s brutal letter there was a coarse logic, not without its weight.
In better spirits David Arden betook himself to bed. It vexed him to think of submitting to the avarice of that wicked old extortioner; but to that submission, reluctant as he is, it seems probable he will come.
And now his thoughts turn upon the hospitable Monsieur St. Ange, and he begins, I must admit not altogether without reason, to reflect what a fool he has been. He wonders whether that hospitable and polite gentleman had intended to murder him, at the moment when the gendarmes so luckily appeared. And in the midst of his speculations, overpowered by fatigue, he fell asleep, and ate his breakfast next morning very happily.
Uncle David had none of that small diplomatic genius that helps to make a good attorney. That sort of knowledge of human nature would have prompted a careless reception of the baron’s note, and an entire absence of that promptitude which seems to imply an anxiety to seize an offer.
Accordingly, it was at about eleven o’clock in the morning that he presented himself at the house of the Baron Vanboeren.
He was not destined to conclude a reconciliation with that German noble, nor to listen to his abrupt loquacity, nor ever more to discuss or negotiate anything whatsoever with him, for the Baron Vanboeren had been found that morning close to his hall door on the floor, shot with no less than three bullets through his body, and his pipe in both hands clenched to his blood-soaked breast like a crucifix. The baron is not actually dead. He has been hours insensible. He cannot live; and the doctor says that neither speech nor recollection can return before he dies.
By whose hands, for what cause, in what manner the world had lost that excellent man, no one could say. A great variety of theories prevail on the subject. He had sent the old servant for Pierre la Roche, whom he employed as a messenger, and he had given him at about a quarter to eleven a note addressed to David Arden, Esquire, which was no doubt that which Mr. Arden had received.
Had Heaven decreed that this investigation should come to naught? This blow seemed irremediable.
David Arden, however, had, as I mentioned, official friends, and it struck him that he might through them obtain access to the rooms in which his interviews with the baron had taken place; and that an ingenious and patient artist in plaster might be found who would search out the matrices, or, at worst, piece the fragments of the mask together, and so, in part, perhaps, restore the demolished evidence. It turned out, however, that the destruction of these relics was too complete for any such experiments; and all that now remained was, upon the baron’s letter of the evening before, to move in official quarters for a search for those “matrices” from which it was alleged the masks were taken.
This subject so engrossed his mind, that it was not until after his late dinner that he began once more to think of Monsieur St. Ange, and his resemblance to Mr. Longcluse; and a new suspicion began to envelope those gentlemen in his imagination. A thought struck him, and up got Uncle David, leaving his wine unfinished, and a few minutes more saw him in the telegraph office, writing the following message: —
“From Monsieur David Arden, etc., to Monsieur Blount, 5 Manchester Buildings, Westminster, London.
“Pray telegraph immediately to say whether Mr. Longcluse is at his house, Bolton Street, Piccadilly.”
No answer reached him that nig
ht; but in the morning he found a telegram dated 11.30 of the previous night, which said —
“Mr. Longcluse is ill at his house at Richmond — better to-day.”
To this promptly he replied —
“See him, if possible, immediately at Richmond, and say how he looks. The surrender of the lease in Crown Alley will be an excuse. See him if there. Ascertain with certainty where. Telegraph immediately.”
No answer had reached Uncle David at three o’clock P.M.; he had despatched his message at nine. He was impatient, and walked to the telegraph office to make inquiries, and to grumble. He sent another message in querulous and peremptory laconics. But no answer came till near twelve o’clock, when the following was delivered to him: —
“Yours came while out. Received at 6 P.M. Saw Longcluse at Richmond. Looks seedy. Says he is all right now.”
He read this twice or thrice, and lowered the hand whose fingers held it by the corner, and looked up, taking a turn or two about the room; and he thought what a precious fool he must have appeared to Monsieur St. Ange, and then again, with another view of that gentleman’s character, what an escape he had possibly had.
So there was no distraction any longer; and he directed his mind now exclusively upon the distinct object of securing possession of the moulds from which the masks were taken; and for many reasons it is not likely that very much will come of his search.
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
AT MORTLAKE.
Events do not stand still at Mortlake. It is now about four o’clock on a fine autumnal afternoon. Since we last saw her, Alice Arden has not once sought to pass the hall-door. It would not have been possible to do so. No one passed that barrier without a scrutiny, and the aid of the key of the man who kept guard at the door, as closely as ever did the office at the hatch of the debtor’s prison. The suite of five rooms upstairs, to which Alice is now strictly confined, is not only comfortable, but luxurious. It had been fitted up for his own use by Sir Reginald years before he exchanged it for those rooms downstairs which, as he grew older, he preferred.
Levi every day visited the house, and took a report of all that was said and planned upstairs, in a tête-à-tête with Phœbe Chiffinch, in the great parlour among the portraits. The girl was true to her young and helpless mistress, and was in her confidence, outwitting the rascally Jew, who every time, by Longcluse’s order, bribed her handsomely for the information that was misleading him.
From Phœbe the young lady concealed no pang of her agony. Well was it for her that in their craft they had exchanged the comparatively useless Miss Diaper for this poor girl, on whose apprenticeship to strange ways, and a not very fastidious life, they relied for a clever and unscrupulous instrument. Perhaps she had more than the cunning they reckoned upon. “But I ‘av’ took a liking to ye, Miss, and they’ll not make nothing of Phœbe Chiffinch.”
Alice was alone in her room, and Phœbe Chiffinch came running up the great staircase singing, and through the intervening suite of rooms, entered that in which her young mistress awaited her return. Her song falters, and dies into a strange ejaculation, as she passes the door.
“The Lord be thanked, that’s over and done!” she exclaims, with a face pale from excitement.
“Sit down, Phœbe; you are trembling; you must drink a little water. Are you well?”
“La! quite well, Miss,” said Phœbe, more cheerily, and then burst into tears. She gulped down some of the water which the frightened young lady held to her lips, and recovering quickly, she gets on her feet, and says impatiently— “I’m sure, Miss, I don’t know what makes me such a fool; but I’m all right now, Ma’am; and you asked me, the other day, about the big key of the old back-door lock that I showed you, and I said, though it could not open no door, I would find a use for it, yet. So I ‘av’, Miss.”
“Go on; I recollect perfectly.”
“You remember the bit of parchment I asked you to write the words on yesterday evening, Miss? They was these: ‘Passage on the left, from main passage to housekeeper’s room,’ etc. Well, I was with Mr. Vargers when he locked that passage up, and it leads to a door in the side of the ‘ouse, which it opens into the grounds; and in that houter door he left a key, and only took with him the key of the door at the other end, which it opens from the ‘ousekeeper’s passage. So all seemed sure — sure it is, so long as you can’t get into that side passage, which it is locked.”
“I understand; go on, Phœbe.”
“Well, Miss, the reason I vallied that key I showed you so much, was because it’s as like the key of the side passage as one egg is to another, only it won’t turn in the lock. So, as that key I must ‘av’, I tacked the bit of parchment you wrote to the ‘andle of the other, which the two matches exactly, and I didn’t tell you, Miss, thinking what a taking you’d be in, but I went down to try if I could not take it for the right one.”
“It was kind of you not to tell me; go on,” said the young lady.
“Well, Miss, I ‘ad the key in my pocket, ready to change; and I knew well how ‘twould be, if I was found out — I’d get the sack, or be locked up ‘ere myself, more likely, and no more chances for you. Mr. Vargers was in the room — the porter’s room they calls it now — and in I goes. I did not see no one there, but Vargers and he was lookin’ sly, I thought, and him and Mr. Boult has been talking me over, I fancy, and they don’t quite trust me. So I began to talk, wheedling him the best I could to let me go into town for an hour; ’twas only for talk, for well I knew I shouldn’t get to go; but nothing but chaff did he answer. And then, says I, is Mr. Levice come yet, and he said, he is, but he has a second key of the back door and he may ‘av’ let himself hout. Well, I says, thinking to make Vargers jealous, he’s a werry pleasant gentleman, a bit too pleasant for me, and I’m a-going to the kitchen, and I’d rayther he wastnt there, smoking as he often does, and talking nonsense, when I’m in it. There’s others that’s nicer, to my fancy, than him — so, jest you go and see, and I’ll take care of heverything ‘ere till you come back — and don’t you be a minute. There was the keys, lying along the chimneypiece, at my left, and the big table in front, and nothing to hinder me from changing mine for his, but Vargers’ eye over me. Little I thought he’d ‘av’ bin so ready to do as I said. But he smiled to himself-like, and he said he’d go and see. So away he went; and I listens at the door till I heard his foot go on the tiles of the passage that goes down by the ‘ousekeeper’s room, and the billiard-room, to the kitchen; and then on tip-toe, as quick as light, I goes to the chimneypiece, and without a sound, I takes the very key I wanted in my fingers, and drops it into my pocket, but putting down the other in its place, I knocked down the big leaden hink-bottle, and didn’t it make a bang on the floor — and a terrible hoarse voice roars out from the tother side of the table— ‘What the devil are you doing there, huzzy?’ Saving your presence, Miss; and up gets Mr. Boult, only half awake, looking as mad as Bedlam, and I thought I would have fainted away! Who’d ‘av’ fancied he was in the room? He had his ‘ead on the table, and the cloak over it, and I think, when they ‘eard me acoming downstairs, they agreed he should ‘ide hisself so, to catch me, while Vargers would leave the room, to try if I would meddle with the keys, or the like — and while Mr. Boult was foxing, he fell asleep in right earnest. Warn’t it a joke, Miss? So I brazent it hout, Miss, the best I could, and I threatened to complain to Mr. Levi, and said I’d stay no longer, to be talked to, that way, by sich as he. And Boult could not tell Vargers he was asleep, and so I saw him count over the keys, and up I ran, singing.”
By this time the girl was on her knees, concealing the key between the beds, with the others.
“Thank God, Phœbe, you have got it! But, oh! all that is before us still!”
“Yes, there’s work enough, Miss. I’ll not be so frightened no more. Tom Chiffinch, that beat the Finchley pet, after ninety good rounds, was my brother, and I won’t show nothing but pluck, Miss, from this out — you’ll see.”
Alice had
proposed writing to summon her friends to her aid. But Phœbe protested against that extremely perilous measure. Her friends were away from London; who could say where? And she believed that the attempt to post the letters would miscarry, and that they were certain to fall into the hands of their jailors. She insisted that Alice should rely on the simple plan of escape from Mortlake.
Martha Tansey, it is true, was anxious. She wondered how it was that she had not once heard from her young mistress since her journey to Yorkshire. And a passage in a letter which had reached her, from the old servant, at David Arden’s town house, who had been mystified by Sir Richard, perplexed and alarmed her further, by inquiring how Miss Alice looked, and whether she had been knocked up by the journey to Arden on Wednesday.
So matters stood.
Each evening Mr. Levi was in attendance, and this day, according to rule, she went down to the grand old dining-room.
“How’sh Miss Chiffinch?” said the little Jew, advancing to meet her; “how’sh her grashe the duchess, in the top o’ the houshe? Ish my Lady Mount-garret ash proud ash ever?”
“Well, I do think, Mr. Levice, there’s a great change; she’s bin growing better the last two days, and she’s got a letter last night that’s seemed to please her.”
“Wha’at letter?”
“The letter you gave me last night for her.”
“O-oh! Ah! I wonder — eh? Do you happen to know what wa’azh in that ere letter?” he asked, in an insinuating whisper.
“Not I, Mr. Levice. She don’t trust me not as far as you’d throw a bull by the tail. You might ‘av’ managed that better. You must ‘a frightened her some way about me. I try to be agreeable all I can, but she won’t a-look at me.”
“Well, I don’t want to know, I’m sure. Did she talk of going out of doors since?”
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 563