Here Clement, had he been without a guide, would have wasted precious minutes. But the place had no mysteries for the boy, even on this day of confusion and alarm. Skilled in every twist and turning, he knew no doubt. “This way,” he snapped, hurrying down a long passage which faced the entrance, and appeared to penetrate into the bowels of the building. Then, “No! Not that way, stupid! What are you doing?”
But Clement’s eyes, as he followed, had caught sight of a party of three, who, issuing from a corridor on the right at a considerable distance before them, had as quickly disappeared down another corridor on the left. The light was not good, but Clement had recognized one of them, and “There he is!” he cried. “He has gone down there! Where does that lead to?”
“Lime Street entrance!” the lad replied curtly, and galloped after the party, Clement at his heels. “Hurry!” he threw over his shoulder, “or they’ll be out, and, by gum, you’ll lose him! Once out and we’re done, sir!”
They reached the turning the others had taken and ran down it. The distance was but short, but it was long enough to enable Clement to collect his wits, and to wonder, while he prepared himself for the encounter that impended, how Arthur would bear himself at the moment of discovery. Fortunately, the party pursued had paused for an instant in the east vestibule before committing themselves to the street, and that instant was fatal to them. “Bourdillon!” Clement cried, raising his voice. “Hi! Bourdillon!”
Arthur turned as if he had been struck, saw him and stared, his mouth agape. “The devil!” he ejaculated.
But to Clement’s surprise his face betrayed neither the guilt nor the fear which he had expected to see, but only amazement that the other should be there — and some annoyance. “You?” he said. “What the devil are you doing here? What joke is this? Did your father think that I could not be trusted to see things through? Or that you were likely to do better?”
“I want a word with you,” said Clement. He was in no mood to mince matters.
“But why are you here?” with rising anger. “Why have you come after me? What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll step aside.”
“You can tell me on the coach, then, for I have no time to lose now. I mean to catch the three o’clock coach, and — —”
“No!” Clement said firmly. “I must speak to you here.”
But on that the broker interposed, his watch in his hand, “Anyway, I can stop,” he said. “Who is this gentleman?”
“Mr. Ovington, junior,” Arthur said, with something of a sneer. “I don’t know what he has come up for, but — —”
“But, at any rate, he’ll see you safe to the coach,” the other rejoined. “And I must be off. I give you joy of it, Mr. Bourdillon. Fine work! Fine work, by Jove! And I shall tell Mr. Ovington so when I see him. You’re a marvel! My compliments to your father, young gentleman,” addressing Clement. “Glad to have met you, but I can’t stay now. Fifty things to do, and no time to do ‘em in. The world’s upside down to-day. Good morning! Good morning!” With a wave of the hand, his watch in the other, he turned on his heel and strode back towards the main entrance.
The two looked at one another and the third, who made up the party, a burly man in a red waistcoat and a curly-brimmed Regency hat, surveyed them both. “Well, I’m hanged,” Arthur exclaimed, reverting sourly to his first surprise. “Is everybody mad? Must you all come to town? I should have thought that you’d have had enough to do at the bank without this! But as you must — —” then to the officer, who was carrying a small leather valise, the duplicate of one which Arthur held in his hand— “wait a minute, will you? And keep an eye on us. We shall not be a minute. Now,” drawing Clement into a corner of the lodge, five or six paces away, where, though a stream of people continually brushed by them, they could talk with some degree of privacy. “What is it, man? What is it? What has bought you up? And how the deuce have you come to be here — by this time?”
“I posted.”
“Posted? From Aldersbury? In heaven’s name, why? Why, man?”
Clement pointed to the bag. “To take that over,” he said.
“This? Take this over?” Arthur turned a deep red. “What — what the devil do you mean, man?”
“You ought to know.”
“I?”
“Yes, you,” Clement retorted, his temper rising. “It’s stolen property, if you will have it.” And he braced himself for the fray.
“Stolen property?”
“Just that. And my father has commissioned me to take charge of it, and to restore it to its owner. Now you know.”
For one moment the handsome face, looking into his, lost some of its color. But the next, Arthur recovered himself, the blood flowed back to his cheeks, he laughed aloud, laughed in defiance. “Why, you — you fool!” he replied, in bitter contempt, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Your father — your father has sent you?”
“It’s no good, Bourdillon,” Clement answered. “It’s all known. I’ve seen the Squire. He missed the certificates yesterday afternoon — almost as soon as you were gone. He sent for you, I went over, and he knows all.”
He thought that that would finish the matter. To his astonishment Arthur only laughed afresh. “Knows all, does he?” he replied. “Well, what of it? And he found out through you, did he? Then a pretty fool you were to put your oar in! To go to him, or see him, or talk to him! Why, man,” with bravado, though Clement fancied that his eyes wavered and that the brag began to ring false, “what have I done? Borrowed his money for a month, that’s all! Taken a loan of it for a month or two — and for what? Why, to save your father and you and the whole lot of us. Ay, and half Aldersbury from ruin! I did it and I’d do it again! And he knows it, does he? Through your d — d interfering folly, who could not keep your mouth shut, eh! Well, if he does, what then? What can he do, simpleton?”
“That’s to be seen.”
“Nothing! Nothing, I tell you! He signed the transfer, signed it with his own hand, and he can’t deny it. The rest is just his word against mine.”
“No, it’s Miss Griffin’s, too,” Clement said, marvelling at the other’s attitude and his audacity — if audacity it could be called.
But Arthur, though he had been far from expecting a speedy discovery, had long ago made up his mind as to the risk he ran. And naturally he had considered the line he would take in the event of detection. He was not unprepared, therefore, even for Clement’s rejoinder, and, “Miss Griffin?” he retorted, contemptuously, “Do you think that she will give evidence against me? Or he — against a Griffin? Why, you booby, instead of talking and wasting time here, you ought to be down on your knees thanking me — you and your father! Thanking me, by heaven, for saving you and your bank, and taking all the risk myself! It would have been long before you’d have done it, my lad, I’ll answer for that!”
“I hope so,” Clement replied with biting emphasis. “And you may understand at once that we don’t like your way, and are not going to be saved your way. We are not going to have any part or share in robbing your uncle — see! If we are going to be ruined, we are going to be ruined with clean hands! No, it’s no good looking at me like that, Bourdillon. I may be a fool in the bank, and you may call me what names you like. But I am your match here, and I am going to take possession of that money.”
“Do you think, then,” furiously, “that I am going to run away with it?”
“I don’t know,” Clement rejoined. “I am not going to give you the chance. I am going to take it over and return it to the owner; it will not go near our bank. I have my father’s authority for acting as I am acting, and I am going to carry out his directions.”
“And he’s going to fail? To rob hundreds instead of borrowing from one money that you know will be returned — returned with interest in a month? You fool! You fool!” with savage scorn. “That’s your virtue, is it? That’s your honesty that you brag so much about? Your clean hands? You’ll rob Aldersbury right and
left, bring half the town to beggary, strip the widow and the orphan, and put on a smug face! ‘All honest and above board, my lord!’ when you might save all at no risk by borrowing this money for a month. Why, you make me sick! Sick!” Arthur repeated, with an indignation that went far to prove that this really was his opinion, and that he did honestly see the thing in that light. “But you are not going to do it. You shall not do it,” he continued, defiantly. “I’ll see you — somewhere else first! You’ll not touch a penny of this money until I choose, and that will not be until I have seen your father. If I can’t persuade you I think I can persuade him!”
“You’ll not have the chance!” Clement retorted. He was very angry by now, for some of the shafts which the other had loosed had found their mark. “You’ll hand it over to me, and now!”
“Not a penny!”
“Then you’ll take the consequences,” was Clement’s reply. “For as heaven sees me, I shall give you in charge, and you will go to Bow Street. The officer is here. I shall tell him the facts, and you know best what the result will be. You can choose, Bourdillon, but that is my last word.”
Arthur stared. “You are mad!” he cried. “Mad!” But he was taken aback at last. His voice shook, and the color had left his cheeks.
“No, I am not mad. But we will not be your accomplices. That is all. That is the bed-rock of it,” Clement continued. “I give you two minutes to make up your mind.” He took out his watch.
Rage and alarm do not better a man’s looks, and Arthur’s handsome face was ugly enough now, had Clement looked at it. Two passions contended in him: rage at the thought that one whom he had often out-manœuvred and always despised should dare to threaten and thwart him; and fear — fear of the gulf that he saw gaping suddenly at his feet. For he could not close his eyes, bold and self-confident as he was, to the danger. He saw that if Clement said the word and made the thing public, his position would be perilous; and if his uncle proved obdurate, it might be desperate. His lips framed words of defiance, and he longed to utter them; but he did not utter them. Had they been alone, it had been another matter! But they were not alone; the Bow Street man, idly inquisitive, was watching him, and a stream of people, immersed each in his own perplexities, and unconscious of the tragedy at his elbow, was continually brushing by them.
To do him justice, Arthur had hitherto seen the thing only by his own lights. He had looked on it as a case of all for fortune and the rest well lost, and he had even pictured himself in the guise of a hero, who took the risks and shared the benefits. If the act were ill, at least, he considered, he did it in a good cause; and where, after all, was the harm in assuming a loan of something which would never be missed, which would be certainly repaid, and which, in his hands, would save a hundred homes from ruin? The argument had sounded convincing at the time.
Then, for the risk, what was it, when examined? It was most unlikely that the Squire would discover the trick, and if he did he could not, hard and austere as he was, prosecute his own flesh and blood. Nay, Arthur doubted if he could prosecute, since he had signed the transfer with his own hand — it was no forgery. At the worst, then and if discovery came, it would mean the loss of the Squire’s favor and banishment from the house. Both of these things he had experienced before, and in his blindness he did not despair of reinstating himself a second time. He had a way with him, he had come to think that few could resist him. He was far, very far, from understanding how the Squire would view the act.
But now the mists of self-deception were for the moment blown aside, and he saw the gulf on the edge of which he stood, and into which a word might precipitate him. If the pig-headed fool before him did what he said he would, and preferred a charge, the India House might take it up; and, pitiless where its interests were in question, it might prove as inexorable as the Bank had proved in the case of Fauntleroy only the year before. In that event, what might not be the end? His uncle had signed the transfer, and at the time that had seemed enough; it had seemed to secure him from the worst. But now — now when so much hung upon it, he doubted. He had not inquired, he had not dared to inquire how the law stood, but he knew that the law’s uncertainties were proverbial and its ambages beyond telling.
And the India House, like the Bank of England, was a terrible foe. Once launched on the slope, let the cell door once close on him, he might slip with fatal ease from stage to stage, until the noose hung dark and fearful before him, and all the influence, all the help he could command, might then prove powerless to save him! It was a terrible machine — the law! The cell, the court, the gallows, with what swiftness, what inevitableness, what certainty, did they not succeed one another — dark, dismal stages on the downward progress! How swiftly, how smoothly, how helplessly had that other banker traversed them! How irresistibly had they borne him to his doom!
He shuddered. The officer of the law, who a few minutes before had been his servant, fee-bound, obsequious, took on another shape. He grew stern and menacing, and was even now, it might be, observing him, and conceiving suspicion of him. Arthur’s color ebbed at the thought and his face betrayed him. The peril might be real or unreal — it might be only his imagination that he had to fight. But he could not face it. He moistened his dry lips, he forced himself to speak. He surrendered — sullenly, with averted eyes.
“Have it your own way,” he said. “Take it.” And with a last attempt at bravado, “I shall appeal to your father!”
“That is as you will,” Clement said. He was not comfortable, and sensible of the other’s humiliation, his only wish was to bring the scene to an end as quickly as possible. He took up the bag and signed to the officer that they were ready.
“It’s some hundreds short. You know that?” Arthur muttered.
“I can’t help it.”
“He’ll be the loser.”
“Well — it must be so.” Yet Clement hesitated, a little taken aback. He did not like the thought, and he paused to consider whether it might not be his duty to return to the brokers’ and undo the bargain. But it would be necessary to repeat all the formalities at a cost of time that he could not measure, and it was improbable that he would be able to recoup the whole of the loss. Rightly or wrongly, he decided to go on, and he turned to the officer. “I take on the business now,” he said, sharply. “Where is the hackney-coach? In Bishopsgate? Then lead the way, will you?” And, the bag in his hand, he moved towards the crowded street.
But with his foot on the threshold, something spoke in him, and he looked back. Arthur was standing where he had left him, gloom in his face; and Clement melted. He could not leave him, he could not bear to leave him thus. What might he not do, what might he not have it in his mind to do? Pity awoke in him, he put himself in the other’s place, and though there was nothing less to his taste at that moment than a companionship equally painful and embarrassing, he went back to him. “Look here,” he said, “come with me. Come down with me and face it out, man, and get it over. It’s the only thing to do, and every hour you remain away will tell against you. As it is, what is broken can be mended — if you’re there.”
Arthur did not thank him. Instead, “What?” he cried. “Come? Come with you? And be dragged at your chariot wheels, you oaf! Never!”
“Don’t be a fool,” Clement remonstrated, pity moving him more strongly now that he had once acted on it. He laid his hand on the other’s arm. “We’ll work together and make the best of it. I will, I swear, Bourdillon, and I’ll answer for my father. But if I leave you here and go home, things will be said and there’ll be trouble.”
“Trouble the devil!” Arthur retorted, and shook off his hand. “You have ruined the bank,” he continued, bitterly, but with less violence, “and ruined your father and ruined me. I hope you are content. You have been thorough, if it’s any satisfaction to you. And some day I shall know why you’ve done it. For your honesty and your clean hands, they don’t weigh a curse with me. You’re playing your own game, and if I come to know what it is, I’ll spoil
it yet, d — n you!”
“I don’t mind how much you curse me, if you will come,” Clement answered, patiently. “It’s the only thing to be done, and when you think it over in cold blood, you’ll see that. Come, man, and put a bold face on it. It is the brave game and the only game. Face it out now.”
Arthur looked away, his handsome face sullen. He was striving with his passions, battling with the maddening sense of defeat. He saw, as plainly as Clement, that the latter’s advice was good, but to take it and to go with him, to bear for many hours the sense of his presence and the consciousness of his scorn, his gorge rose at the thought. Yet, what other course was open to him? What was he going to do? He had little money with him, and he saw but two alternatives: to blow out his brains, or to go, hat in hand, and seek employment at the brokers’ where he was known. He had no real thought of the former alternative — life ran strong in him and he was sanguine; and the latter meant the overthrow of all his plans, and a severance, final and complete, from Ovington’s. His lot thenceforth would, he suspected, be that of a man who had “crossed the fight,” done something dubious, put himself outside the pale.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 668
