“He is out of town, then?”
“Yes — likely to remain away for some weeks,” said Charles Mannering.
“Yes; Ardenbroke and I were very intimate long ago. He knows everything about, me. We Dacres are a scattered family. You are aware that this little visit of mine to London is made under peculiar circumstances. I’m under a condition which embarrasses me extremely. I undertook it entirely to oblige other people; but it prevents my putting myself in the way of recognition. My little mission — a labour of love — would be spoiled entirely if I declared myself, As it has turned out, I am sorry I accepted the condition. If I were in a position to avow myself, I would act with infinitely more decision — infinitely; but without what would now amount to cruelty to, others — a terrible disappointment in fact, and something amounting, after all the trouble I’ve submitted to, and the condition of reserve, to ridicule, as respects myself — I hope in a week, certainly in a fortnight, it will be at an end, and then you will quite understand; you will see clearly how I was circumstanced. No one was ever by nature so little qualified to maintain a mystery, and I assure you it is the most irksome thing I ever undertook. I did not think it would have lasted a week altogether, and I find myself already a fortnight under my incognito, and likely to continue so for as much longer. If I were relieved of it, I could be of very great and immediate use.”
“It’s a great pity you can’t,” said Charles.
“Yes,” said Dacre, “but apart from cruelty, to declare myself at this moment would make me ridiculous, and of course I could not think of doing it — Honour — yes, honour — God bless it — we all respect and wish it well; but honour, as you’ll see in a few days, has nothing to do with this question of ‘reserve or no reserve;’ to declare myself has nothing to do with honour, but it would have a very distinct connexion with absurdity, and that fantastic spirit, ridicule, is the scourge of mankind. There are degrees, you know. Honour stands high; we sacrifice our lives to honour, but honour sometimes to fortune, and fortune itself at times to ridicule. Ridicule, therefore, sits supreme: no thunder so stunning as its titter, no tropical lightning like the half-hidden gleam of its eye, no crashing hurricane like its whisper. You’ve found it so, and so did I, and so does all the world. Pray forgive my interruption — talking nonsense while weighty matters call you away — — “ he glanced at the papers on the table, “so, with many apologies, I’ll say goodnight.”
With a smile he was about to turn to the door, but Charles Mannering interposed —
“Pray, one word more. You used the phrase curious; you said that this affair was very curious, you recollect, and you were good enough to say you would tell me how by-and-by.”
“Oh? a little curious naturally yourself.”
Mr. Dacre smiled, and returned a step or two to the table.
CHAPTER II.
ONE — TWO — THREE.
“YES,” continued Mr. Dacre, “I’ll tell you why I said it was curious. It was apropos of that part of your story which recounted the threat in the letter, which promised to send, as a present to Miss Gray, my poor hand, made up in lint. It is highly melodramatic, and even comical; but it is also curious, because I was fired at last night.”
“Fired at? Really! Are you serious?”
“Quite serious, although, perhaps, the subject is a little ridiculous; because I do believe if they had shot me, from what I have reason to know of them, if they are the villains I suspect, this hand of mine would have been left at the door of Guildford House, precisely as they promised, this evening.”
Surely you have taken some steps — I should certainly acquaint the police,” said Charles, incredulous, but still a good deal shocked.
“Very kind of you, but it is already done — there is no objection to that. They don’t know that I connect them with the attempt. What I must conceal is the fact that I have got a clue by which I may yet reach them with certainty.”
“How was this attempt made, Mr. Dacre — where did it happen?”
“I’ll tell you. Do you know a road near Islington, where they are building a church or a meeting-house — a large place of worship, with three great trees growing in a clump beside it? There is a dead wall opposite, and a portion of the building has hardly risen above the foundations. I had driven to a place called Duckley-row, close to that, to see an accountant on business for a few minutes. As I got out of my cab, I saw some one get out of another, on the other side of the street, and he walked slowly up and down as if looking for a particular house. That is all I recollect of him. He was so employed when I went into Mr. Edgecombe’s house.”
“You did not see him fire at you?”
“I could not say whether it was he. I have only that unreasoning, intuitive belief, on which all my life I have so much relied, that it was the same man, that he was there watching me, and that he waited for, followed, and fired at me when I came out.”
“How did it happen, exactly?”
“The road in front of the building I’ve mentioned is very much cut up, with very deep ruts, so I told the driver to take his cab down and wait for me about fifty yards beyond it, where the trees are. As I reached the front of the building I was fired at, and a bullet struck the road a few yards before me. I turned about and saw the flash of a second shot which passed over my shoulder, close by my head.”
“How far away?”
“I should say about five-and-thirty yards. The shot came from the field close by the road, and over the fence, and that part of the road was in deep shadow. I was going on at a good pace, and picking my steps, zig-zag, and this it was, I think, that saved me.”
“It could not have been a pistol at that distance,” said Charles.
“Quite too far, too much force, too loud a report, and a devilish stinging whistle by my ear. No one but a mug would have tried a pistol at that distance. I had one then, I have one now” — he lifted a revolver from his coat pocket— “but I did not think of using it at thirty yards. I ran back to have my chance at close quarters, but he had run for it, and so I returned with my hand in my pocket, and not in that of Miss Gray’s correspondent. Will you kindly tell Miss Gray that I have better hopes than ever of bringing those villains to justice, or at least to submission; and I really must say good night at last; good night.”
Charles Mannering accompanied him to the door, holding a candle.
“Don’t mind, pray don’t, “ said he.
But Charles was determined to be polite, and he saw, leaning with his back to the wall, a small man with a loose black wrapper about him, and a low-crowned felt hat. He seemed to have been waiting for Mr. Dacre, and he had taken up a position on the lobby between his door and the descending flight of stairs.
“More than fifteen minutes waiting; you said ‘twouldn’t be five,” said this figure, snarling with something of the peculiar intonation of the Jewish race.
Charles thought he saw Mr. Dacre make a slight gesture of caution, but his back was turned and he was moving towards this discontented person, while at the same time Mr. Dacre said quietly, “That’s right — a cab waiting? Do you get on and see.”
The little man in the black wrapper, Charles felt, looked at him from under the leaf of his broad hat, before running downstairs, which he did without saying another word. He thought this person was affecting to be a servant, a character which Dacre seemed to put upon him, and so, he first and Dacre following, they went down the stairs. Charles Mannering stept to the window on the lobby, and looking out saw these two persons walking side by side, as it seemed in confidential talk, toward the Temple-bar entrance of this series of quadrangles. He made up his mind to join them, got his hat in a moment, and shutting the door, ran downstairs. Here was, perhaps, some light to be had upon the right reading of Mr. Dacre’s mystery. He would go boldly up and join him, he did not care a farthing what he thought. He owed a duty to his cousin — second or third we must allow, but still his kinswoman — Miss Laura Gray, and every material for conjecture was valuable.
They must have quickened their pace very much, however, for they had already got out of sight. Following the direction they had taken, on entering the next square, he saw three persons walking rapidly into that which lay beyond it. In two of these he thought he recognised Dacre and the little man in the loose black coat; but they had got round the corner too quickly, and were too far away for certainty.
Charles had got into the spirit of the chase, and — shall I tell it? — he actually ran a part of the diagonal distance in hopes of overtaking them. He was saved from an awkward success, however, by the speed with which the shorter distance was traversed by these three persons, and he got in time to the lamp near Temple-bar to see a cab door shut, and Dacre, from the window, smiling a farewell to him, and his hand waving as it drove away. He would have liked to pursue, but there was no cab at hand, and a moment after he bethought him how unwarrantable and even outrageous his pursuit would have been, and returned to his rooms, recovered from his momentary intoxication, and very well pleased that he had failed.
CHAPTER III.
AN INVALID.
DACRE sat back in the cab, the sole of one foot on the, edge of the opposite cushion. The little man in the black wrapper sat beside him, and opposite that unknown person sat a burly gentleman, with broad shoulders and a florid face, and an expression of sly self-confidence.
It was the pleasure of Mr. Dacre to be silent, and these gentlemen, as in the presence of one of superior rank, when they spoke together, did so in an under tone, advancing their heads.
At last Mr. Dacre, no doubt amused by his ruminations, burst into a sarcastic laugh, which having indulged without vouchsafing any explanation to his companions, who seemed to count for next to nothing, he relapsed into silence.
This silence lasted till they had nearly reached St. Paul’s Churchyard, when Mr. Dacre produced a cigarette, and with a laconic “Light, please,” procured from the little person beside him that necessary appliance.
The cigarette did not last long, and when it was expended he looked, for the first time, out of the window.
“Is it far to this house?” he asked of anyone who might please to answer.
“Quite near,” said the little man at his elbow.
He continued to look listlessly from the window, humming an air. They had turned up, to the left, a street near Cheapside.
“If it’s much further, you may go on, gentlemen, if you like, but I shall leave you and go home.”
The cab drew up, however, almost as he spoke.
“This is it — here’s the house,” which he pronounced oushe.
“You’d better go and try whether he can see us,” said Dacre, in the same careless, haughty way.
Out got the little man; the door was already open, and he asked the dowdy maid who stood by it —
“How is Mr. Gillespie tonight?”
“Poorly, sir.”
“Well enough to see us, do you think — two gentlemen with me — expecting us — eh?”
“Didn’t hear, sir.”
“You know me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’ll go up and ask him how he does.”
He went to the cab window first.
“She says he’s ailing,” said the little man at the window. “Shall I run up and see?”
“Are you sure it’s only gout?”
“That’s the ticket — gout it is.”
“Well, tell him he’d better see me now, for I’m hanged if I come here again.”
And Mr. Dacre leaned back again in his cab, and waited silently for the return of the little gentleman in the black wrapper.
“He’ll do himself that honour,” said the little man, in a tone of ceremonious banter, himself opening the cab-door for Mr. Dacre, who jumped out and ran up the steps, followed by the gentleman in black, and the athletic gentleman with the florid face and broad shoulders.
“He says two of us is as much as he can stand,” said the little man to the sly philanthropist, who thereupon nodded, and disengaging a short pipe from his pocket, enjoyed a smoke before the steps.
The little gentleman in black being more at home than his companion, led Mr. Dacre upstairs, and knocking at the drawingroom door, introduced him.
Mr. Gillespie was seated in an easy-chair, with his hand in flannel, and a table with several phials and a tablespoon, with a drop of some undesirable fluid drying in its hollow.
The invalid was that gentleman with a long, square head and white hair whom we saw before in the same box with Mr. Dacre at the opera.
“Can’t get up, sir, to receive ye — laid here, sir — in tether — gout — nae respecter o’ persons — ye’ll excuse me.”
“I’d rather you didn’t under any circumstances. I hate a fuss,” said Dacre, taking a chair. “I shouldn’t think of treating you with any ceremony.”
“Ye’r right, sir, ye’r verra right — we’ll go straight to the point, sir — each wi’ other — and what for no?” said the old gentleman drily, with a little wag of his head. “Ye might a fetched lawyer Larkin here, too, for ’twas after his pipe the jig began. I’d a liked verra well to see him here.”
“I think there are quite enough here as it is,” said Mr. Dacre, “unless, as Mr. Larkin is so religious, you might have enjoyed his conversation in your present invalided state.”
“Never you fash your beard a-bout that,” said Mr. Gillespie, who, in his sick-room and gouty collapse, was talking in the broad Scotch of his early days. “I’ll do weel enough. I had enough and mair o’ that sort o’ clavering in my young days, in Glasgow, to last me the leave o’ my years — d — them! I tell ye, sir, there’s mair hypocrisy and downright wickedness comes o’ their cant and rant, and Sabbath rules, than is to be found in the same compass in a’ the world beside. But there’s not much amiss wi’ me. Ye’r not to suppose I’m coming out o’ this feet foremost. I’ll be all right again, mon, in nae time, — only a touch o’ the gout — deil gae wi’t.”
“Now, Mr. Gillespie, you give me the paper,” said Dacre. “It’s growing late.”
“H’m! Well, I’ve been thinking o’ that,” said the invalid.
“So have I,” said Mr. Dacre.
“And it’s all settled,” interposed the little gentleman in black, with a surly and pallid face, and prominent dark eyes.
“An’ what for no? Why deil flee awa’ wi’ ye, mon, d’ye think, loss or no loss, I’d think o’ backing out o’ my bargain; na, na, Mr. L. But this I say, sir, it’s a very great confidence and a trust I would na’ think o’ placing if ‘twere na’ for the undoubted respectabeelity o’ the party; ye ha’ known me a long time, sir, and I think yell say I’ve been of use to you on occasion.”
“You let me and Ardenbroke — I wonder he didn’t recognise you the other evening — into two or three very profitable speculations.”
The invalid chuckled cynically at these words, looking at the label of his medicine bottle, which he turned slowly about in his fingers.
“Ye’ll be meaning that Hotel thing, and that silver mine; well, that’s a gude wheen years bygane,” said he, turning on a sudden a little angrily on the young gentleman, and fixing his shrewd and grim eyes from under their white penthouse upon the young man, while he still held the phial up between his finger and thumb.
Mr. Gillespie had a temper which he was now rich enough, on occasion, to indulge.
“Why, if ye play at bowls, you’ll meet with rubbers,” interposed the little man hastily. “My governor was in that himself and got out of it bad enough, and it’s more than ten ago.”
“Ten years or twa, it don’t matter, we’ve heard o’er much o’ that; folk must creep before they gang; every man must win his ain experience, sir; wise men could not pick up money if there were no fules to throw it about. I always said, a mon must use his brains, and what’s their proper object but the fules that Providence throws in his way? Dang me, sir, life’s a game like ony ither; if I leave a blot, and the dice serve, ye’l
l hit it, and what for no? And if ye do the same — I’m talking too much; this ‘ill not serve my hand.”
“No, nor your head. Can’t you let a thing pass?” urged Mr. Levi.
“It’s all right enough,” said Mr. Gillespie, looking at his large gold watch which lay upon the table. “It’s time I should have them drops; I’ll ask you for them, Mr. L.; will ye measure two o’ they spoonfuls into that glass? — and — we’ll let byganes be byganes, sir, and I drink to ye,” he added, facetiously, with a nod to Mr. Dacre.
“And now that you are at leisure, Mr. Gillespie, we’ll exchange papers, please, and I shall go.”
The old gentleman signed to Levi, who seemed familiar with the arrangements of his room, to bring him his desk.
“Tis not one man in a thousand I’d do it for,” muttered Gillespie, as he handed it to Mr. Dacre, who placed it beside a counterpart which he took from his coat pocket. The writing was very short; the comparison hardly lasted two minutes, and be signed one which he handed to Mr. Gillespie, and placed in his pocket the other bearing that gentleman’s signature, and some other signatures beside.
“Good night, sir,” said Mr. Dacre, walking out of the room, followed by Mr. Levi.
When they reached the landing Mr. Dacre paused. The hall-door was half open, and they could see the companion they had left outside, walking to and fro beside the cab, smoking.
“I’ve a mind to drive out to Brompton. We don’t want that great, hulking fellow any more; we’ll send him off — eh?”
He glanced at his watch.
“Hallo! later than I thought — no, I shan’t mind,” and Dacre jumped into the cab.
CHAPTER IV.
A CONFERENCE.
WHILE Dacre was resolving, for reasons of his own, against visiting Guildford House for some time longer, Charles Mannering was making his way there in a cab.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 453
