A Fascinating Traitor Part 39

"But we will finish the Thibet history, if I have to go out there myself and get the honest information." Whereat old Fraser feebly smiled and opened his heart to Alaric Hobbs at once. When a bustling country magistrate arrived to potter around, Andrew Fraser was astounded to see the General's aid-de-camp lead out the man whom the two officers had guarded, and send him off to St. Heliers under a military guard.

"Hold this man only as a suspicious person. There may be some mistake.

They say he is known at Rozel Pier as an honest man," said the aide.

"The real robbers seem to have escaped in the boat. The dying robber did not seem to know this person, who has undoubtedly borne a good character for a month past at the Jersey Arms as a lodger." It was true, and even the befuddled Simpson, on his questioning, only could falter that he had been attacked by three unknown footpads. He failed to make any charge against the mute Jack Blunt. "This man is a proper, decent fellow enough," kindly testified the old soldier.

In vain Andrew Fraser raved to the Magistrate, demanding that Major Hardwicke and Captain Murray should explain their past conduct. "I am directed by General Wragge to say that he will visit you, himself, officially, to-morrow, Professor Fraser, and he will have an important governmental communication for you. Until then, I desire these two gentlemen to be allowed to remain in your house. They will remove all their luggage this evening." And then, old Fraser, with a presage of coming trouble, shivered in a sullen silence. Conscience smote him, sorely.

"The lost jewels!" In fact, a handsomely appointed carriage and a van, in the afternoon, removed all of the effects of the two pseudo "orientals," who, half an hour after the carriage had arrived, appeared in their respective undress uniforms of the Royal Engineers and the Eighth Lancers, to the dismay of old Fraser--now affrighted at his dangerous position. There was gloom in the house now, for Miss Nadine Johnstone flatly refused to even see her guardian a single moment! And Simpson, alone, sat in conclave with Major Hardwicke, who had learned privately of the secret removal of Alan Hawke's body to St. Heliers.

Messengers, in uniform, coming and going rapidly, were hourly admitted to Major Hardwicke's presence, and already a pale-faced woman was on her way from Geneva to rejoin Madame Alixe Delavigne, at the old chateau mansion where Captain Murray only awaited the arrival of Anstruther now ready to open his siege batteries on the man who had covered up his brother's crime. There was not a word to be gleaned from the authorities, and St. Heliers was simply convulsed in a useless fever of curiosity. Even Frank Hatton, representing the London press, was muzzled. Not a soul was, as yet, permitted to approach the old martello tower, where Alan Hawke had faced the Moonshee, "man to man." A squad of coast guardsmen sternly picketed the vicinity of Rozel Head. And a great smuggling raid was the only accepted explanation to the public.

Captain Murray had duly reported the completion of all the Major's carefully matured preparations, and fled away to await the arrival of Justine Delande and Captain Anson Anstruther.

It was a sunny morning, two days later, when Major Hardwicke descended at Simpson's summons, dressed in his full uniform, to the great library, where several grave-faced visitors were now awaiting a formal interview with the agitated Professor Andrew Fraser. The young Major's face was simply radiant, for Mattie Jones had just given him a letter and a nosegay, sent by the young heiress, who had already read a dozen times her lover's smuggled love missive of this fateful morning.

"To-day will decide all. And you will be to-morrow as free as any bird of the air. Then, darling, it will be only you and I, all in all to each other forever more! I will send for you. Wait for me. Our hold on Andrew Fraser is the deadly grip of the criminal law. He must yield."

"The flowers are from Miss Nadine's breast; she sent them to you, with her dearest love," cried Mattie, who rejoiced in the private a.s.surance that her own liberal-minded sweetheart was soon to be discharged 'for lack of evidence.' Captain Eric Murray had obtained a complete deposition, which the magistrate representing the Parliament of Jersey had accepted as State's evidence, under the special orders of the Home Office.

In Andrew Fraser's study, the sallow face of Professor Alaric Hobbs was seen bending over many doc.u.ments and papers. He was not only busied as a volunteer lawyer for Fraser, but was now the commentator and collaborator of that famous interrupted work, "The History of Thibet."

"Say! Go light now on the old man!" prayerfully whispered Alaric Hobbs, drawing Major Hardwicke into the study. "Captain Murray is a devilish good fellow. He is going to make this great traveler, Frank Hatton, my friend. And you'll both be benefactors to 'Science,' if you drop masquerading and post me honestly on Thibet. You are a dead winner in the little social game here. You get the girl--that's all you want.

She's a nice girl, too! I'll make the old boy come down and be reasonable. I helped you out, you know. You owe me a good turn, you do."

"All right, Professor Hobbs. I believe I do owe you my wife to be. They would have carried her off or injured her in some way," said the now anxious Hardwicke.

"You bet your sweet life they would!" said the strange Western savant, more forcibly than elegantly. "They would have had the ransom of a prince, or else they would have chucked her in the channel! That was their game!"

In the library, General Wragge, Captain Anstruther and Captain Murray faced Professor Andrew Fraser, whose face was as set as a stone sphinx.

His feeble heart was thumping, for the stolen jewels were not his to return now. He cursed the day he had lied about them.

The old General gravely said: "Professor Fraser, I desire to say that Captain Anson Anstruther represents both her Majesty's Government and His Excellency, the Viceroy of India. There is a magistrate waiting in the house even now, and I recommend you to seriously consider the words of the Captain. If you are officially brought to face your past refusal to his just demands, I fear that you will be left, Sir, in a very pitiable position. I will now retire until you have conferred with the representative of the Indian Government. Remember! Once in the hands of the authorities, your person and estate will suffer grievously if you have conspired against the Crown."

Andrew Fraser's eyes were downcast as Captain Anstruther, with a last glance at his friend, then locked the door. "Now, Sir, I repeat to you for the last time the official demand which I made in London upon you as executor of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, to surrender certain jewels wrongfully withheld, a list of which I have furnished you, as the property of Her Majesty's Indian Government, and which stolen property I now demand on this list."

There was a long pause. "I cannot! They are not in my possession! I know nothing whatever of them," faintly replied the startled old miser.

"I warn you that I have a search warrant, particularly describing the articles stolen and the place of their concealment, and a magistrate now awaits my slightest word," said the aid-de-camp sternly.

"Do with me as you will. You will not find them! I know nothing about them," faltered the desperate old man. He was safe against arrest, he hoped.

"Then, I will serve the warrant," remarked the Captain, as Andrew Fraser's head fell upon his breast. A fortune lost, and now, shame and perhaps prison awaited him.

"One moment," politely said Major Hardwicke. "Do not serve the warrant.

I will surrender the Crown's property, which I have discovered under the floor of this man's study, where he feloniously hid them after denying their possession."

"Thief and deceiver!" shrieked Andrew Fraser. "You lied your way into my house! You have now conspired against my dead brother's estate!" He was shaking as with a palsy in his impotent rage. "And you would rob me!"

"You hardened old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour,"

sternly said Major Hardwicke, "to consider the propriety of resigning instantly your executorship of your brother's estate in favor of your son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward!

You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your accounts pa.s.sed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her marriage. This alone will save you from a felon's cell. She shall be free. Douglas Fraser may be made the sole trustee of her estate until the age of twenty-one. On these two conditions alone will I consent to veil the shame of your brother and spare you, for we have traced the stolen jewels, step by step, with the list, the insurance, and the delivery by Hugh Johnstone to you. If you wish to stand your trial for complicity in the theft and concealing stolen goods, you may. General Willoughby, General Abercromby, and the Viceroy of India have watched these jewels on their way. And I came here only to recover them, and to free that white slave, your poor niece!"

There was the sound of broken wailing sobs, and the three officers left their detected wrong-doer alone. Out on the lawn, the young soldiers joined General Wragge, who now looked impatiently at his watch. It was but a quarter of an hour when old Andrew Fraser tottered to the front door. "What must I do? I care not for myself!" he cried plucking at Major Hardwicke's sleeve. "Only save Douglas, my boy, this public shame!"

"It rests all in your hands, Sir," gravely answered the lover. "Shall I call Miss Johnstone down now to have you express your consent and sign these papers in the presence of the General?" Major Hardwicke saw his enemy weakening, even as a child.

"Yes, yes, anything, only get her away out of my sight--out of my life!"

groaned the broken old miser, whose sin had found him out. "But, you'll keep all this from Douglas--the story of a father's disgrace? I did it all for Hugh!"

"The family honor is mine, now, Sir! I will save your niece all suffering!" stiffly replied the Major, as he boldly mounted the stair.

Captain Anstruther led Andrew Fraser aside. "I had the papers drawn up at once so that you would not be humiliated in public by your obstinacy, and General Wragge will now witness them. He has offered the hospitalities of his family to your niece until she is made a wife."

"I am ready," tremblingly said Professor Fraser, and in haste a singular group soon gathered in the library. A notary and the magistrate entered with due professional decorum.

And then, Captain Anstruther, addressing the executor, in the presence of the gray-bearded old General, repeated the words of voluntary resignation and surrender of all rights as guardian over Nadine Johnstone, first taking his written consent to the marriage. There was not a word spoken as the trembling old scholar hastily signed the papers presented to him. Then he turned to the sweet woman clinging to Major Hardwicke's arm. "I'll be thankful to ye if ye leave my home to me in peace, as soon as ye can! Janet Fairbarn will be my representative!"

With a last glance of cold aversion at Hardwicke, he bowed to the Commander of the forces, and then tottered across the hall to his study, when the tall form of Alaric Hobbs hovered at the door.

"My dear child," kindly said the old veteran General, lifting her trembling hand to his lips, and bowing reverently, "Let me be, this day, your father, as you are soon to be born into the service. Here, Major Hardwicke, I give her to you to keep against the whole world, if the lady so consents." Nadine's answer was an April smile, when her lover clasped her hand, and then she hid her blushes on Hardwicke's breast.

"Take me away forever from this horrible prison-house," she whispered.

"Mrs. Wragge's carriage will be here at four for you, and we will have a little dinner en famille at seven, Miss Nadine, for you," said the happy General, as he jingled away, his dangling sword, jingling medals, and waving white plume, making a gallant show. It was truly "an official capture."

"Now," whispered Captain Murray to Hardwicke, "I will clear out with Anstruther, and at once deliver over the unlucky jewels to him to be sealed up and deposited with General Wragge until the Viceroy's orders are received. I've a cablegram that Ram Lal has been arrested.

"And I fancy Miss Nadine will be astonished at seeing two new faces at the dinner table. Let Simpson and the maid at once pack all her belongings, for we can not trust her with this old wreck of humanity.

He is half crazed already. I will cable and write to Douglas Fraser that 'ill health' forces the old gentleman to at once give up his trust. Now, I belong, in future, only to Mrs. Eric Murray, of the Eighth Hussars. I throw up my job as an all-round Figaro!"

"Stay a moment," said Major Hardwicke to Captain Anson Anstruther, when Nadine had fled away to prepare for her flitting from the unloved granite fortress.

"When do you go over to London, Anstruther?" said Major Hardwicke, for he now nourished a scheme of "social employment" for the brilliant staff officers. He was short only a groomsman.

"Not till after I am married," remarked the relative of the great Viceroy. "I have done my duty to Her Majesty," he laughed, "and now, I am going to do my duty to myself!" Whereat Harry Hardwicke was suddenly aware that Cupid carries a double-barreled gun, sometimes. In her own apartment, Nadine Johnstone listened to Janet Fairbarn's sobbing plaint, as the heart-happy Mattie Jones flew around the rooms making her young mistress's boxes. Nadine was still in an entrancing dream of freedom, life, and love, and the cunning Scotswoman's plaint was all unheeded.

Major Hardwicke was announced, "upon urgent business."

"I cannot tell you yet, darling, just how we vanquished the old ogre," said he. "Be brave, and remember that a feast of long-deferred love-tidings awaits you to-night. I have already sent away all my own luggage. A horse and a well-mounted orderly will be here at four, and so I shall not lose you from sight even a moment until you are safe in General Wragge's home at Edgemere. Let the maid return alone here to-morrow and remove all your effects we may overlook. I will dispatch the luggage and ride after your carriage."

"The proprieties, you know," he laughed, as he vanished, after stealing a kiss.

"The master's in a woeful way," mourned Janet. "To think of your father's only bairn leaving her ain house so! The master's half daft with his troubles, for they've scattered and lost the bit bookie--the work of years!

"Though there's the braw American scholar, tho', to aid him now.

He hates you, my poor bairn, for your poor dead mother's sake! It's afearfu' hard heart these Frasers carried. I know them of old!"

"Do you mean to tell me that the 'Banker's Folly' is really my own house?" said Nadine, her cheek flushing crimson at the insult to the memory of her beloved dream mother.

"In truth, it's yer very ain, my leddy. Old Hugh bought it for his last home," whimpered the housekeeper.

"Then you may tell Andrew Fraser," the spirited girl cried, "that I will never cross the threshold again, where I have been kept under a jailer's lock under my own roof tree! Let him write his wishes to Douglas--Douglas is a gentleman. I will keep silent for the sake of the man who was a kindly brother to me on my voyage. But to Andrew Fraser, I am dead for evermore! My life of the future has no place for a half-crazed tyrant--the man who tried to bruise the broken heart of an orphan of his own blood. We are strangers forevermore. And I will leave old Simpson here as my agent to keep the possession of this place in my name. I will write Douglas, so that his old father may live out his days here in peace!"