The bait did not draw.
“Yes,” he answered, “but you see in a city like London, a person is not an individual, he is only one of a throng! To use rather a vulgar exemplification of my meaning, the Londoner’s bulk of humanity is so very vast, he rarely takes the trouble to sample it!”
“I see the idea,” I rejoined; “perhaps that is what the poet meant when he wrote about the ‘little look across the crowd,’—there is seldom time to have much more! Owen Meredith, was it not?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied simply.
“Ah, of course not; men do not go in for poetry, do they?”
“Well, I can’t say; personally I am not one of the lady-novelist’s heroes who are too languid to read anything excepting an occasional French novel, but nevertheless, quote Béranger with singular appropriateness when it is required to give point to a paragraph. I have read poetry in my time, and enjoyed it!”
“You surprise me,” I remarked satirically; “I imagined such frivolities as crewel-work and Tennyson were confined to us! How chilly it has grown!”
“Chilly,” he cried, “are you indeed!”
“Yes, the wind has changed, I fancy; I wish my maid had brought a wrap!”
“You should walk about for a while,” he advised; “it is only keeping in one position.”
“Whatever the cause may be the effect is decidedly unpleasant; and look, it is beginning to rain!”
It was indeed, I rejoiced to note! Two great drops had already splashed upon the gravel at our feet, and the skies were lowering.
“Oh, Dunstan, why didn’t you bring my wooley!” I exclaimed reproachfully. “You know how easily I take cold; I have nothing to protect my throat!”
“Allow me to supply the deficiency as well as I can?” suggested our companion. “Let me lend you this handkerchief; it will be better than nothing. We are only ten minutes from your hotel!”
At last!
“Oh, thank you,” I murmured, thank yon extremely if I shan’t he robbing you! But how shall I send it back? I won’t hear of taking you out of your way; it promises a regular downpour, and you are not staying at the Central, I think?”
“No,” he replied nonchalantly, “I merely dined there this evening for a change; pray don’t trouble to send it though! Keep it until we meet tomorrow; I may trust to be so fortunate I hope? Good night!”
“Good night, then, and thank you again!” Belay for a needless instant was unendurable; no sooner had he left us than we sped homeward. Dunstan preceding me, I mounted the staircase to my room, hastily closed the door, and tore the handkerchief from my neck. It was of silk, and, as I had anticipated, it bore an embroidered monogram. Trembling with excitement I held the corner beneath the lamp; the initials were “J.V.”——I have found my man!
CHAPTER VII.
GRAND HÔTEL CENTRAL,
November 1st.
IT is the third morning since the occurrence I recorded last.
The following afternoon I penned my daily report, containing on that occasion the communication of my discovery, and at six o’clock descended to the dining-salon devoutly wishing Jasper Vining might he there once more. In this particular I was doomed to he disappointed, though there was a mitigating circumstance in the shape of a pleasing item of intelligence imparted by José, from which I was able to ascertain the ingenious alias my prey has chosen.
This humble instrument of justice informed me the gentleman concerning whom I had inquired the night before, was, he had learnt par hazard, a visitor at the Hôtel de Bragança; he was a “Mr. Vane,”—“Jack Vane.” “So far so good,” I thought, as I subsequently reviewed the position of affairs whilst disrobing. “I now know his nom de guerre and his address!”
Therefore when I opened my eyes in the early sunshine yesterday, and saw Dunstan standing at my bed-side with a cup of coffee, I felt at once I had awakened in the best of spirits. a He would naturally have allowed twenty-four hours to elapse before appearing here to reclaim his property,” I told myself, “but to-day,—to-day, surely he would come.” Yet, the briskness with which I made my toilette notwithstanding, yesterday was destined to prove one of the most perplexing and unsatisfactory of my life, for, in writing you up to date, my confidant, let me put it down without any circumlocution,—he did not come! Ho; on Saturday evening I parted from him on the Promenade; to-day, Tuesday, at 5 p.m., by the indisputable evidence of the clock in my own apartment, we have still not met again.
How this is a great deal more than a blow to my vanity; it is a serious impediment to my plans. What is to be done? Let me think! There is one way: the handkerchief must be sent round to him with a polite acknowledgment of my obligation. This method of proceeding is certainly liable to suggest an undue curiosity on my part to have discovered what he omitted to state, his name and where he lodged, but I cannot afford to be hyper-delicate, and after so flattering an indication of the impression he has made on my susceptible heart, if I know anything of mankind he will dine here to-night beyond the shadow of a doubt.
“Dunstan,” I exclaim, “take some tissue-paper out of a bonnet-box, and wrap up the handkerchief very neatly; then go round to the Hôtel de Bragança with it, and ask for our man, of course as ‘Mr. Vane!’ ”
“Yes, ma’am,” replies Dunstan, “what am I to say?”
“Say Mrs. Lea desired you to restore it, and to thank him exceedingly for the loan; that is all, but speak nicely, as if Mrs. Lea thought a lot of his lending it!”
“Yes ‘m!” And presently she departs.
Have I been wise, I speculate; will he leap at the conclusion I am an adventuress, and give me a wide berth, or (still more horrible contingency) under the idiotic belief, become so very conciliatory that I, on the contrary, shall be compelled to steer clear of him? It has been a bold move, but I remember Mr. Claussen’s interpretation of “Tout vient à lui qui sait attendre,” and decide I have done right!
I wonder if I may hope to gather any notion of what he intends from the account of my messenger. She has been long enough gone in all conscience; I waited an eternity before I permitted myself to look at the time.
Half-an-hour, three quarters of an hour loiter by, (they do not “pass,” time never does when one is in a fever of impatience) and yet she does not return. One would imagine it was a pilgrimage to the Rua do Ferrejial! Can he be out, and is she remaining there to see him, or has she lost herself in a labyrinth of unfamiliar streets? I have just determined in fayonr of the latter explanation when the door is flung suddenly ajar, and Dunstan arrives.
Something in her face startles me; instinctively I feel she has important news.
“What is it??? I demand.
“I went to the hotel,” she gasps, “and I asked for ‘Mr. Vane!’ ”
“Yes,—well,—go on woman! Why, you have the handkerchief in your hand,” I cry; how’s that?”
“Because ‘Mr. Vane’ sailed yesterday by the ‘Grantully Castle’ for the Cape!”
With this particular she sinks into a chair, and we gaze at one another in woe-begotten silence.
I rally with a forlorn idea.
“Then we must cable—somewhere, and have him taken when he lands!”
The stray crumb of consolation is denied me.
“Can’t!” she says, “Only me and you know he’s Vining; he’s not been identified yet by any of the clerks or people who knew him in England, and I’ll lay a wager Mr. Bazalgette reckons that necessary before we can get an arrest!”
Bécasse, simpleton, imbecile that I was, the man suspected me, and I had forgotten I was in a port!
“Perhaps one of the Lombard Street fellows is on the way out now!” she continues.
“The report of the discovery only went Sunday; it’s not delivered yet!”
“So much the better!”
“Well, if we can’t cable, what are we to do?” I moan.
Her answer is a terse one:
“Go after him!”
It seems to me corr
ect as well.
“Make haste,” I exclaim, “run downstairs, seize someone, the head-waiter, José, anybody, and find out when the next steamer goes.”
And in the interval I march up and down from wall to wall in the manner of a frenzied Miss Trotwood, or a wild animal first caged.
In ten minutes Dunstan reappears accompanied by a sober functionary who has evident doubt about her sanity.
“There is no steamer for nearly a month,” she ejaculates.
“Is that so?” I inquire anxiously of the official. “Yes, madame; only the ‘Castle’ line puts in at Lisbon, the next will be the ‘Pembroke Castle’ on the twenty-eighth.”
“Is there another line, then?”
“Certainly,” he assures me in perfect English, “there is the ‘Union.’ The ‘Union,’ and the ‘Castle’ leave England on alternate weeks, but only the ‘Castle’ vessels touch here, and, of them, only one in every two.”
It sounds like algebra.
“A Cape steamer of one sort or the other leaves London every week, if I understand yon; are you sure of that?”
Yes, he is quite sure.
“Can you give me a ‘Bradshaw’?”
The ‘Bradshaw’ is forthcoming, and three heads are simultaneously bent over its pages.
There is a train at half past eight this evening, November 1st. By dint of much study we ascertain that, taking it, we shall get to Madrid at 1.35 P.M. to-morrow; have five hours’ ‘wait’ there; be in Paris early in the morning the day after, and (cry Dunstan and I triumphantly in a breath) reach London at 5.10 P.M. on the fourth.
“Pack, pack, pack. We’ll do it together!”
We fling our things wildly into the trunks, dragging dresses from pegs, and shoes from under the toilet-table. We have two hours fifteen minutes to do it all in. Surrounded by a pile of garments I pause for rest, and recollect I must wire our projected movement to Mr. Bazalgette. I ring the bell.
“Make out my bill, please,” I request; “let me have a foreign telegraph form at once, and should any letters come for me after my departure, forward them to me in London at the Charing Cross Hôtel.”
“Yes, madame.”
My throat is parched, and I feel as if I had not been to bed for a fortnight. I glance around; Duns tan’s countenance resembles an exhausted chimney-sweep’s.
“One moment,” I add, “and send me up a pint bottle of champagne.”
Two hours later we bid adieu to the Grand Central, bound for the Cape of Good Hope.
CHAPTER VIII.
ABOARD S.S. DRUMMOND CASTLE,
November 26th.
HOW long it is since I have made an entry! This though has been from no lack of leisure, but rather for dearth of incident, for what can be more monotonous than life aboard ship under conditions like mine! There is, however, my interview with Mr. Bazalgette which I have postponed recording.
I reached London at the hour I had calculated to behold it, and drove with Dunstan immediately to Queen’s Row. I found the office open, and the partners within. They had naturally received the intelligence of Jasper Vining’s presence in Lisbon, and were perplexed at the message announcing my return.
When I explained it, Mr. Bazalgette told me, more kindly than I had expected, that my general proceedings had been satisfactory, but had my experience been wider, I should have kept a more careful watch on the man when once he had been found. My departure with Dunstan for South Africa he viewed as a matter of course, she and I being, after the encounter, the most useful agents he could employ.
I asked him if her information had been authentic when she declared the arrest could not be procured without identification by someone to whom Vining had been personally known. He replied:—
“On the continent such confirmation would have been resorted to because it would have been the easiest form of testimony to lay before the authorities, who would demand what evidence was furnished beyond corresponding initials, and the resemblance to the photograph. But in the Cape this method would not be readily adopted owing to the distance; there what would be advisable after running him to earth would be to obtain proof of him possessing some portion of the property of which he had defrauded the firm.”
“But,” I remonstrated, “the property is money! You surely don’t require me to swear to sovereigns; or to recognise bank-notes whose numbers the firm itself cannot know?”
“You forget,” he spoke with the tolerance Richelieu or Machiavelli might have shown to the argument of a precocious schoolboy, “you forget Messrs. Wynn and Co. state he defrauded them of two bonds of Egyptian Unified Loan, one for a thousand, the other for five hundred pounds. How, as far as such a thing can be ascertained, these bonds have not been disposed of; a cute man who meant to get rid of them would have done it without wasting an hour, and Vining is a cute man; what’s the deduction? He holds them still, and haying already made a haul of forty thousand, didn’t reckon it good enough to risk being spotted for such a comparatively small affair as their sale!”
“Granted,” I persisted; “admit he did not sell them, it does not follow he kept them!”
“A business-man does not destroy marketable stock!”
“Well then, he has them, but I can’t rummage his boxes till I touch them with my fingers!”
“Now look here, Miss Lea” (it sounded quite funny to be called ‘Miss’ Lea again), “I do a great deal more with you than I do with many of my agents, I can tell you,—I give you my reasons! Listen to this: Vining is a gambler; if you had not met him when you did in Lisbon, you would have met him in a week’s time, directly the season commenced, at Monte Carlo, I’d give odds on it; our ill-luck has been that you ran across him too soon, or too late, for in Monte Carlo he could hardly have escaped you so easily. That’s past; what I mean now is that he’ll gamble wherever lie may be, and there is no question of forty thousand pounds in the hands of a man like him being esteemed the fortune it would be by you or I” (Mr. Bazalgette also shares the belief that “ ‘I’ is so much more genteel than ‘me!’ ”) “Suppose he is pressed for ready money, we don’t want to wait so long if we can avoid it, but it’s one chance, suppose he’s short, what will he do then?”
The conclusion was obvious.
“The bonds!” I answered.
“Precisely,” responded the detective; “and though I want to recover as large a part of the swag as possible, the chief thing I go for is to take the man himself!”
“Do you think, bearing his propensity in mind, he could have squandered so big a sum in six months?” I queried.
“I think,” he retorted, “the Cape will help him, and when you do meet him you won’t be troubled to stand by, and view him pitching Messrs. Wynn and Co.’s coin about long, for he won’t have over much left!”
And after a week’s delay in town through having reached England just one day too late for the “Trojan,” it was with this not very brilliant prospect of success I resigned myself to braving a journey to South Africa.
I believe that is the right term; in books they always talk of “braving” a journey, as inevitably as they speak of the “good ship Twaddle ploughing the main,” but anyhow it is correct in my case. It does require bravery to lie back calmly in a deckchair the whole long morning and weary afternoon when every nerve is strained in anticipation of arrival.
Bravery?—Well, say “Endurance!” The qualities are near akin, though the latter unreverenced word has to slink through the language associated with so far less pretentious a meaning ;—definition probably due to the fact that men write dictionaries, and women endure!
I am beginning to hate this glittering expanse of sea without the relief of a sail. I am beginning to detest the evening refrains with which we are regularly enlivened (?) in the saloon; to lament the Bay of Biscay was ever created to lure weak tenors into warbling nautical ballads, and be sorry the nuisance of a “Midshipmite” was saved. If he had perished perhaps the “Cheery lads, yo ho,” would not have made up a song about him!
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br /> Madeira was welcome: it took me out of myself (and the vessel) for a little while, since we went ashore in a party, and coming back, found the deck converted into a kind of temporary Lowther Arcade, and a swarm of tiny boats full of merchandise and boys bobbing alongside. It was amusing to see these curly-headed urchins, with eyes as marvellously blue as the waves, diving for sixpences, and re-appearing triumphantly with the rescued silver between their teeth. The island was picturesque, too; indeed, I secretly rejoiced the “Grantully Castle” had not touched there, and Vining could not have baffled me by making it his destination.
Alas, the variety was of brief duration, and presently we saw Madeira fade behind us (it ought to be “to something-ward,” I expect, but I do not know what!), and once more returned to the tedium of maritime life.
Why is water so pleasant to hear in small quantities, and so depressing in large? I can listen to the splash of a fountain for hours; the roar of the ocean depresses me!
“Delightful,” I have heard women say of some such voyage; “I was so sorry when we sighted land!” I wonder if they really were, or if the charm existed, like the fascination of one’s schooldays, in retrospection alone? From perception I am inclined to divide it into three parts: the first week, when each individual privately reflects how enjoyable the trip would be in different company; the second, when they have all grown sociable, and consider one another the most agreeable people they ever met; and the third, when everybody is inexpressibly tired of everybody else.
And how kind an interest the female passengers display to ascertain my reason for visiting the colony! Do men cross-examine their own sex so rudely?
Happily my explanation was invented before I came on board. I am a widow going out to see my younger sister and her husband, who will shortly join me in Cape Town. What an exposure if I left this lying about; nine “ladies” out of ten would read it before restoring it, with the casual remark that they had “picked it up below just two minutes since!”
Mr Bazalgette’s Agent Page 5