by Grant Allen
CHAPTER XXXIX.
HUNTED DOWN.
THAT night Mr. Solomons slept at Paul’s lodgings.
About seven in the morning, before either of them was up, the detective came once more, all radiant in the face, with important tidings. He asked to see Sir Paul Gascoyne. As soon as Sir Paul came out into the little study and sitting room to meet him Mr. Sherrard jerked his head mysteriously toward the door of Mr. Solomons’ bedroom, and observed in a voice full of confidential reserve, “I didn’t want too much to upset the old gentleman.”
“Have you got a clew?” Paul asked, with profound interest.
And the detective answered with the same mysterious air, “Yes, we’ve got a clew. A clew that I think’ll surprise him a little. But we’ll have to travel down to Cornwall, him and me, as quick as we can travel, before we can be sure of it.”
“To Cornwall!” Paul repeated, astonished. “You don’t mean to say the thief’s gone down to Cornwall, of all places in England?”
For Nea lived in Cornwall, and hallowed it by her presence. To think that a man who stole bonds and scrip should have the face to take them to the country thus sanctified by Nea!
“Well, no,” the detective answered, pointing with his thumb and his head once more in a most significant fashion toward the room where Mr. Solomons was still in unconscious enjoyment of his first slumber for the night; for he had lain awake, tossing and turning, full of his loss, till five in the morning. “He aint exactly gone there; but we’ve got to go there ourselves to follow him. The fact of it is, I’ve come upon a trace. We were working all evening at it, our men from the yard, for we thought from his taking it all in a check to bearer he was likely to clear out as fast as he could clear; and we’ve tried to find where he was likely to clear out for.”
“And what have you discovered?” Paul asked, breathless.
“Well, we tracked our man from the brokers’, you see, to a money-changer’s in the Strand,” the detective responded, still very confidentially. “It was lucky the old gentleman got wind of it all so soon, or we mightn’t have been able to track him so easily. After a month or two, of course, the scent mightn’t lie. But being as it was only last Friday it happened, the track was pretty fresh. And we found out at the changer’s he’d offered two hundred pounds in Bank of England twenties for French notes of a thousand francs. That was all right and straightforward to be sure. But here’s where the funny part of the thing comes in. From the changer’s in the Strand, he went straight down to Charing Cross Station, and at the little office there, by where the cabs drive out, he changed back the French thousands, d’ye see, for Bank of England tens again.”
And the detective closed his left eye slowly and reflectively.
“Just to confuse the trace, I suppose,” Paul put in, by way of eliciting further communication.
“That’s it, sir,” the detective went on. “You’re on it like a bird. He wanted to get a hold of notes that couldn’t be tracked. But all the same we’ve tracked ’em. It was sharp work to do it, all in one night, but still we tracked ’em. We’d got to do it at once, for fear the fellow should get clean away; so it put us on our mettle. Well, we’ve tracked ’em at last. We find eight of them notes, balance of passage-money, was paid in on Monday at the Royal Mail Steam Company’s office in the City.”’
“You don’t mean to say so!” Paul exclaimed, much interested. “By whom, and to where, then?”
“By a dark young gentleman, same height and build as Mr. John Howard Lewis, and about the same description as to face and features, but blacker in the hair, and curlier, by what they tell us. And this gentleman had a mustache when he took the tickets first on Tuesday week; but the mustache was shaved off when he paid the balance of the passage-money on Monday. It was twelve at night when we hunted up the clerk who arranged the passage, at his lodgings at Clapham; but he remembered it distinctly, because at first he didn’t recognize the gentleman owing to the change in his personal appearance; and then, later, he recollected it was the same face, but close-shaven since he called first time about the berths: so that pretty well fixes it.”
“But he paid eighty pounds,” Paul said, unsuspecting-even so, “if he got rid of eight of them. Where on earth was he going to, with a passage money like that then?”
“Well, it wasn’t all for himself,” the detective answered drily, still eyeing him close. “It generally aint. We count upon that, almost. There’s mostly a woman at the bottom of all these ’ere embezzlement or robbery cases. The gentleman gave the name of Burton, instead of Lewis, at the Royal Mail Company’s offices, and he took two berths for himself and Mrs. Percy Maybank Burton. When a gentleman’s got two names at once, there’s usually something or other to inquire into about him. Often enough he’s got a third, too. Anyhow, the eighty pounds he paid was for balance of passage-money for himself and lady.”
“Where to?” Paul asked once more.
“To Buenos Ayres,” the detective answered with pardonable pride. “And I thought I’d better tell you first, so as not to make it too great a shock, don’t you see, for the poor old gentleman.”
“Too great a shock!” Paul repeated, bewildered.
“Well, yes. He mightn’t like it, you know. It might sort of upset him.”
“To know you’ve got a clew?” Paul exclaimed, much puzzled.
“Well, not exactly that,” the detective answered, gazing at him with a sort of gentle and pitying wonder. “But to hear — that the person has gone off with a lady.”
“I don’t quite see why,” Paul replied vaguely.
The detective seemed amused.
“Oh, well, if you don’t see it, perhaps he won’t see it either,” he went on, smiling. “Of course, it aint no business of mine to object. I’m a public officer, and I’ve only got to do my duty. I’m going down to Cornwall to try and arrest my man, but I thought, perhaps, you or the old gentleman might like to come down and help me to identify him.”
“To identify him!” Paul echoed.
“Well, to secure him, anyhow,” the detective answered cautiously. “You see, I’ve got out a warrant for his apprehension, of course — in different aliases; and we may as well have all the information we can, so as to make quite sure beforehand of our capture. But we must go by the 9.40 from Paddington anyhow.”
“Where to?” Paul inquired, more mystified than ever.
“To Redruth and Helston,” the detective replied, coming down to business. “From there we’ll have to post to the Lizard and try to intercept him.”
“Oh, I see,” Paul said, “you want to stop the steamer?”
The detective nodded.
“That’s it,” he assented. “He’s aboard the Dom Pedro from Southampton for Brazil and Argentine ports. She don’t call for mails, unfortunately, at Falmouth; but she may be caught off the Lizard still, if we make haste to stop her. If not, we shall telegraph on to Rio and Buenos Ayres, and an officer’ll go out by Lisbon, on the offchance to catch him under Extradition Treaty.”
“You settled all that to-night?” Paul asked, amazed at this promptitude.
“Yes; we settled all that in the small hours of the morning. It’s a big affair, you see, and that put us on our mettle, and I’ve come to know if either of you want to go down to the Lizard along of me.”
“For whom is the warrant?”
The detective looked hard at him.
“For Percy Maybank Burton,” he answered with one eye closed. “You see, that’s the only certain name we’ve got to go upon, though there’s an alias to the warrant — alias John Howard Lewis, and others. He gave his name as Burton to the company, of course, and he’s Burton aboard. We didn’t get none for the apprehension of the woman. She aint identified yet; but if the young chap comes off, of course she’ll follow him.”
“Of course,” Paul answered, without much knowing why. For he had no reason on earth for connecting Mme. Ceriolo directly or indirectly with the unknown criminal. If he had, perhaps he might have
spoken with less of certainty.
“What’s up?” Mr. Solomons called out from the passage putting his head out of the door at sound of the detective’s voice.
The officer, in carefully guarded terms, explained to him in full the existing state of affairs.
Mr. Solomons didn’t take long in making up his mind. “I’ll go!” he said briefly. “I’ll catch the scoundrel if it’s the last thing in this world I ever do. The rascal, to try to rob Leo and me like that. He shall have fourteen years for it, if there’s law in England. Hard labor, penal servitude. Only I ain’t fit to go down there alone. If I catch him it’ll make me so angry to see him I shall have a bad turn with my heart: I know I shall to a certainly. But no matter, I’ll go. I only wish Leo was in England to go with me.”
“Well, he aint,” Mr. Sherrard answered in the same short sharp tone in which he had spoken before; “so if you mean to come you must make up your mind to come as you are, and get ready instanter.”
But if Mr. Solomons had “come as he was” the authorities of the Great Western Railway would have been somewhat surprised at the apparition of a gentleman at Paddington Station in slippers and nightshirt.
Paul considered a moment and looked at the old man. Mr. Solomons was undoubtedly a hale and hearty person in most respects; but his heart was distinctly unfit for the sort of strain that was now being put upon it. Paul had noticed the day before how the arteries in his forehead had bounded with excitement, and then how the veins had swelled with congested blood as the fit passed over. If he went down to the Lizard alone with the detective, and put himself into a fume trying to catch the robber of his bonds, Paul hardly liked to answer for the possible consequences. And strange as it may sound to say so, the young man had a curious half-filial sentiment lurking somewhere in his heart toward the old Hillborough money-lender. He had never ceased to feel that it was Mr. Solomons who had made him what he was. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Solomons he might still have been lounging about a stable in Hillborough, instead of writing racy and allusive middles for the Monday Remembrancer. He hesitated for an instant to press himself upon his old friend — the third-class fare to Cornwall and back mounts up, I can tell you — but in the end his good-nature and gratitude conquered. “If you care for my company I’ll gladly go with you, Mr. Solomons,” he suggested timidly.
Mr. Solomons wrung his young friend’s hand with affectionate regard. “That’s very kind of you, Sir Paul,” he said; “that’s very, very kind of you. I appreciate it that a gentleman in your position — yes, yes, I know my place,” for Paul had made a little deprecatory gesture— “should be so good as to desert his own work and go with me. But if you go you must let me pay all expenses, for this is my business; and if Leo had been in England Leo’d have run down with me.”
“Well, make haste,” the detective said drily. He had a singularly reticent manner, that detective. “You’ve no time to lose, gentlemen. Get your things together and put ’em into a hansom, and we’ll drive off at once to Paddington together.” —
CHAPTER XL.
“CORNWALL, TO WIT.”
ALL the way down to Redruth and Helston, Paul noticed vaguely that both his fellow-travelers were silent and preoccupied. Mr. Solomons, when he spoke at all, spoke for the most part of Lionel, and of this wicked attempt to deprive him of his patrimony. More than once he took a large folded paper out of his pocket, of very legal aspect, bearing on its face, in most lawyer-like writing, the engrossed legend, “Will of Judah P. Solomons, Gentleman.” This interesting document he opened and showed in part to Paul. It was a cheerful and rather lengthy performance of its own kind, marked by the usual legal contempt for literary style, and the common legal love for most pleonastic redundancy; everything was described in it under at least three alternative nouns, as “all that house, messuage, or tenement and everybody was mentioned by every one of his names, titles, and places of residence, whenever he was referred to, with no stops to speak of, but with a graceful sprinkling of that precious word “aforesaid” as a substitute in full for all punctuation. Nevertheless, it set forth in sufficiently succinct terms that the testator, being then of sound mind and in possession of all his intellectual faculties as fully as at any period of life, did give and devise to his nephew, Lionel Solomons, gentleman, the whole of his estate, real or personal, in certain specified ways and manners and for his own sole use and benefit. The will further provided that in case the said Lionel Solomons, gentleman, should predecease the testator, then and in that case testator gave and devised all his estate aforesaid, real or personal, in trust to the Jewish Board of Guardians of London, to be by them applied to such ends and purposes, in connection with the welfare of the Hebrew population of the Metropolitan Postal District, as might to them seem good in the exercise of their wise and sole discretion.
“It was every penny Leo’s, you see,” Mr. Solomons repeated many times over with profound emotion; “every penny Leo’s. All my life’s savings were made for Leo. And to think that rascal should have tried to deprive him of it! Fourteen years shall he have, if there’s law in England, Sir Paul. Fourteen years, with hard labor, too, if there’s law in England.
As for Sherrard the detective, that moody man, he smiled grimly to himself every time Mr. Solomons made these testamentary confidences to his young friend; and once he ventured to remark, with a faintly significant air, that that would be a confounded fine haul of its sort for the Jewish Board of Guardians, if ever they came in for it.
“But they won’t,” Mr. Solomons answered warmly. “They’ll never come in for it. I’ve only put it there out of a constitutional habit of providing beforehand for any contingency. My heart aint what it used to be. Any sudden shock now ‘ud bring it up short like a horse against a hedge he can’t take. I just added that reminder to the Board of Guardians to show I never turned my back upon my own people. I’m not one of those Jews afraid and ashamed to be known for Jews. A Christian I may be; a man can’t be blamed for changing his religious convictions — on sufficient grounds — but a Hebrew I was born and a Hebrew I’ll remain to the end of the chapter. I won’t ever turn my back upon my own kith and kindred.
“There’s some as does,” the detective remarked enigmatically, and relapsed once more into the corner cushion.
It’s a long way from Paddington to Helston; but the weariest day comes to an end at last; and in time they reached the distant Cornish borough. It was late at night when they disembarked on the platform, but no time was to be lost; if they wanted to stop the Dom Pedro as she passed the Lizard Light, they must drive across at once to the end of the promontory, to arrange signals. So they chartered a carriage without delay at Helston station and set out forthwith on their journey across the long dark moor in solemn silence. They were in no mood for talking, indeed. The day in the train had tired them all, and now they must snatch what sleep they might, against tomorrow’s work, in the jolting carriage.
The drive across the tableland of the Lizard is always, even by day, a wild and lonely one, but on this particular night it was wilder, lonelier, and darker than ever. More than once the driver pulled up his horses in the middle of the road to consider his way, and more than once he got down and walked some yards ahead to see whether by any chance he had missed some familiar landmark. On each such occasion, Mr. Solomons’ fretfulness and anxiety visibly increased. At last he could stand these frequent interruptions to the continuity of the journey no longer. He put his head out of the window and expostulated warmly.
“What are you waiting like this for, man?” he cried in an angry tone. “Don’t you know your way? I declare it’s too bad. If you couldn’t find the road from Helston to the Lizard, you oughtn’t to have taken us. There’s thousands at stake — thousands of pounds worth of bonds that rogue has stolen; and if we’re not at the Lizard in time to catch him, he may get clean off with them to South America.”
The man looked back at his fare with a half-contemptuous glance. “That’s the way of all you London peopl
e,” he answered gruffly with the stolid Cornish moroseness. “Always a fault-finding. And yet there’s fog enough, they tells me, too, in London!”
“Fog!” Mr. Solomons ejaculated, catching hastily at his meaning with the quickened perception that comes at any great critical moment of life.
“Aye, fog,” the man answered. “Lizard fog, they calls it. Fog that thick you can’t hardly see your hand before you. It’s bad enough driving over Helston moor dark nights anytime; but with fog like this, it’s a toss-up if ever we get at all to Lizard Town.”
Mr. Solomons gazed out blankly into the black night. He saw it at a glance. It was all too true. A finger-post stood by the roadside opposite, but even with the light from the carriage-lamp falling full upon it, he could hardly make out its shape, far less its lettering, through the dim, misty shroud that intervened between him and the roadside. He flung himself back on the cushions with a groan of despair. “If we go on at this snail’s pace,” he cried in the bitterness of his heart, “we shall never reach there in time to stop her. That thief’ll get off clear with the bonds to South America, and Leo’ll be ruined!”
The driver laughed again in the old man’s face — the hard, dry, sardonic Cornish laugh. “That’s the way of you London people,” he repeated once more, with the critical frankness and openness of his race. “Thinks you knows everything, and aint got no common gumtion about anything anyhow! Why, who supposes the steamer can get past the Lizard in a fog like this, when we can’t so much as find our way on the open road across the moor by dry land from Helston? What delays us’ll delay her. She’ll anchor till morning, and wait for it to clear, that’s what she’ll do, unless she bears away out to sea southward. She couldn’t get past the lighthouse in this sort of weather, could she?”
“No; couldn’t she, though?” Mr. Solomons cried, appeased and relieved. “You think she’ll wait till the fog lifts in the morning?”
