Lost Sir Massingberd Volume Ii Part 6

"I do not despise you, Marmaduke," Mr. Gerard had replied, in his kind grave voice.

"Ah, sir, I know what you would say," returned the young man with vehemence; "you pity me, and pity and contempt are twin-sisters.

Besides, I am a Heath; you do not wish that blood of yours should mix with that of an evil and accursed race; and, moreover--though that, with a man like you, has, I know, but little weight--I may live and die a pauper."

"My dear Marmaduke," Mr. Gerard had answered, "I cannot conceal from you that there are grave objections to your marriage with my daughter, and more especially at present. We need not revert to the last matter you have spoken of, for wealth is not what I should seek for in my son-in-law; even if it were, your alliance would reasonably promise it, and might be sought by many on that account. As for your being a Heath, that you cannot help; and, with respect to 'blood,' there is more rubbish spoken upon that subject by otherwise sensible folk than upon all others put together. Bad example and evil training are sufficient to account for the bad courses of any family without impeaching their circulating fluids. If your uncle had not happened to be likewise your guardian, in you, my dear young friend, I frankly tell you, I should see no fault, or rather no misfortune; but, since he has unhappily had the opportunity of weakening and intimidating----"

"Sir, sir, pray spare me," broke in Marmaduke, pa.s.sionately; "are you going to say that I am a coward?"

"Heaven forbid, my boy," replied Mr. Gerard, earnestly; "you are as brave as I am, I do not doubt. If I thought you to be what you suggest, I would not parley with you about my darling daughter for one moment. I would say 'No' at once. My Lucy wooed by a poltroon!--no, that is not possible. I do not say 'No' to _you_, Marmaduke."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, sir," exclaimed the young man, with emotion; then added solemnly, "and I thank G.o.d."

"What I do say, however," returned Mr. Gerard, "is 'Wait.' While your uncle lives, I cannot, under existing circ.u.mstances, permit you to be my Lucy's husband. At present, you are only boy and girl, and can well afford to be patient."

"And when we do marry," returned Marmaduke, gratefully, "you shall not lose your daughter, sir, but rather gain a son. My home, if I ever have one, shall be yours also. Pray, believe me when I say that you are my second father, for you have given me a new life."

It really seemed so to him who looked at the sparkling eyes and heightened colour of the speaker, and listened to his tones, so rich with hope and love.

"There is certainly no one so civil as a would-be son-in-law," replied Mr. Gerard, good-naturedly. "I wonder that old gentlemen in my position ever permit them to marry at all."

And thus it had been settled--as I saw that it had been--only a very little while before our arrival in Harley Street.

"And what brings you good people up to town?" asked Mr. Gerard gaily, "without sending a line in advance, which, even in mercy to the housekeeper, you would surely have done, had not the business been urgent? As to your travelling with four horses," added our host slily, "I know so well the pride and ostentation of the clergy that I am not the least astonished at your doing _that_, Mr. Rector."

"Truly, sir, now that I find all safe and well," replied my tutor, "I begin to think we might have travelled in a less magnificent way; but the fact is, that I felt foolishly apprehensive and curious to tell you our tidings. Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath has been Lost since Thursday fortnight, November sixteenth."

"Lost!" exclaimed Mr. Gerard, in amazement.

"Lost!" echoed Lucy, compa.s.sionately.

"Lost!" murmured Marmaduke, turning deadly pale. "That is terrible, indeed."

"Yes, poor wretched man," said Lucy, quickly; "terrible to think that some judgment may have overtaken him in the midst of his wickedness--unrepentant, revengeful, cruel."

"That is truly what should move us most, Miss Gerard," observed my tutor; "it is but too probable that he has been suddenly cut off, and that by violence." Then he narrated all that had happened at Fairburn since the night of Sir Ma.s.singberd's disappearance, uninterrupted save once, when Mr. Gerard left the room for a few minutes, and returned with another bottle of "the particular," which, it seemed, he would not even suffer the butler to handle. Marmaduke sat silent and awe-struck, drinking in every word, and now and then, when a sort of shudder pa.s.sed over him, I saw a little hand creep forth and slide into his, when he would smile faintly, but not take his eyes off Mr. Long--no, not even to reply to hers.

"I think," added my tutor, when the narrative was quite concluded, "that under these circ.u.mstances I was justified in coming up to town, Mr.

Gerard, since it is just possible that Sir Ma.s.singberd may, may----"

"That he may not be dead," interrupted our host, gravely; "there is, of course, that chance, and we must set to work at once to settle the question."

There was a violent ringing at the front-door bell. Mr. Long started up with a "What's that?" Marmaduke's very lips grew white, and trembled.

For my part, I confess I congratulated myself that I was on that side of the table which was furthest from any person who might enter the room.

Lucy alone maintained a calm demeanour, and looked towards her father confidently.

"That is Mr. Clint, I have no doubt," observed Mr. Gerard, quietly. "I sent word to him an hour ago to come directly, and, if possible, to bring Townshend with him. Whether Sir Ma.s.singberd be alive or not, we shall soon discover, for the great Bow Street runner will be certain to find either his body or his bones."

CHAPTER X.

A DETECTIVE OF HALF A CENTURY AGO.

Mr. Gerard had hardly finished speaking, when the butler announced Mr.

Clint and "another gentleman," for even among friends the famous Bow Street officer, exercised his usual caution; and yet there was scarcely a more public character than Townshend, or better known both to the cla.s.ses whom he protected, and to that against which he waged such constant war. His personal appearance was itself sufficiently remarkable. A short squab man, in a light wig, kerseymere breeches, and a blue Quaker-cut coat, he was not, to look at, a very formidable object. But he possessed the courage of a lion, and the cunning of a fox. The ruffians who kept society in terror, themselves quailed before _him_. They knew that he was hard to kill, and valued not his own life one rush, when duty called upon him to hazard it; that he was faithful as a watch-dog to the government which employed him, and hated by nature a transgressor of the law, as a watch-dog hates a wolf. When Townshend fairly settled himself down upon the track of an offender, the poor wretch felt like the hare whose fleeing footsteps the stoat relentlessly pursues; he might escape for the day, or even the morrow, but sooner or later his untiring foe was certain to be up with him. In those early days, when the telegraph could not overtake the murderer speeding for his life, and set Justice upon her guard five hundred miles away, to intercept him, and when the sun was not the slave of the Law, to photograph the features of the doomed criminal, so that he can be recognized as easily as Cain, thief-catching was a much more protracted business than it is now; nevertheless, it was at least as certain.

If the facilities for capture were not so great, neither were the opportunities of escape for the offender so many and various. London was not the labyrinth that it has since become, and if any criminal of note forsook it for the provinces, his fate was almost certain. Travellers did not then rush hither and thither, in throngs of a hundred strong, impossible to be individually identified by the railway porter to whom they surrender their tickets; but each man was entered in a way-bill, or scanned with curiosity by innkeeper and post-boy, wherever his chaise changed horses. When any considerable sum was sent by mail-coach, whether by the government or by London bankers, to their provincial agents, it was not unusual to employ Mr. Townshend as an escort. Nor was it altogether unexampled for him to be sent for, as in the present instance, to unravel some domestic mystery; although he was perhaps the first police-officer who had been so employed, the father of all the Fields and Pollakies of the present day. He was on intimate terms, therefore, with many great people, and an especial favourite with the court, his professional services being engaged at all drawing-rooms and state occasions. This, combined with the natural a.s.surance and sense of power in the man, caused Mr. Townshend to hold his head pretty high, and to treat with persons vastly superior in social station to himself upon at least an equal footing. His easy nod, with which the great Bow Street runner favoured us in Harley Street that evening, upon his first introduction, was not very much unlike the salutation which Mr. Brummel, at the same period, was wont to bestow upon British marquises and dukes.

Having taken his seat at the dessert-table, at the host's desire, he at once began to compliment Mr. Gerard upon the contents of the bottle with the yellow seal, and, in short, behaved himself in all respects as any other guest would have done who was an intimate friend of the family, and had dropped in after dinner upon his own invitation. No sooner, however, did Mr. Clint introduce the subject which had called us up to town, and Mr. Long begin to recapitulate the story of Sir Ma.s.singberd's disappearance, than this singular person dropped at once all social pretension, and showed himself the really great man he was. One gla.s.s of wine was sufficient for him during the whole narration, and that he seemed to sip mechanically, and rather as an a.s.sistance to thought, than because he really enjoyed it, which, however there is no doubt he did.

He only interrupted my tutor twice or thrice, in order to make some pertinent interrogation, and when all had been described (including a slight sketch of Marmaduke's position), he sat for a little silent and noiseless, tapping his wine-gla.s.s with his forefinger, and staring into the fire.

"Well, Mr. Townshend, and what is your opinion?" inquired Mr. Gerard a little impatiently. "Do you think that this Lost Sir Ma.s.singberd is alive or dead?"

"That is a question which a fool would answer at once, sir, but a wise man would take some time to reply to," returned the Bow Street runner coolly, "But one thing you may depend upon, that he will not be 'Lost'

long. I have blotted that word out of my dictionary. I know Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath well, or, at least, I did know him, and that is a great advantage to start with; he was not a man, I should think, to change with age. Tall figure and strong; large piercing eyes; much beard; a mouth that tells he likes to have his own way; and on his forehead a mark as if the devil had kicked him."

"That is excellent," cried Mr. Gerard; "you could not mistake him for any other man in London."

"He is _not_ in London, sir," observed the runner dogmatically. "If he were mixing with the lot that he used to be amongst, I should surely have heard of it; and if he is with people much beneath him in station, I should have learned it still more certainly. As for that, however, he is not one--if I remember him right--to hide himself, or work much underground."

"If you mean that he would not stoop to deception, Mr. Townshend,"

remarked my tutor gravely, "I am afraid you are mistaken; the very money which, as I have said, he obtained from me upon the day of his disappearance, was dishonourably come by. His pretext of the Methodists having bidden for a piece of ground upon which to build a chapel within the Park, and almost opposite the Rectory, was, I have since discovered, entirely false; and I cannot but fear that some judgment has overtaken this unhappy man."

Here, I am sorry to say, that Mr. Clint and Mr. Gerard looked at one another in rather a comic manner, and the Bow Street runner helped himself to a gla.s.s of the particular with an open chuckle.

"Well, sir," responded that gentleman, "you see Judgments isn't much in my way. When I catches a chap, he generally knows its judgment and execution too; but barring that, I doubt whether there is much of a special Providence for rascals--even when they rob a Church minister.

Not, of course, that I am saying Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath, baronet, is a rascal, or anything like it; I never had anything to do with him in all my life before this, and that's a good sign, look you. When I said he was not a man to work underground, however, I did not mean that he would not employ every ingenious device--and the one you mention was one of the neatest I ever heard on--to procure money, but that he is of too domineering and masterful a nature to lurk and spy about. The young gentleman here need not be in much alarm, I think, of his relative's turning up in Harley Street; notwithstanding which, he is a very ticklish customer, no doubt, and one as I should not have been in the least surprised to find myself under orders to fit with a pair of bracelets, for such a thing, for instance, as murder."

I think each of us started and looked at one another in hushed amazement at this statement; and the wine-gla.s.s which Marmaduke was twisting nervously in his fingers, rattled against the table in spite of his efforts to remain calm.

"I mean," observed Mr. Townshend, in explanation, "as the baronet, when I knew him at least, was venomous, yet likewise hasty; and though cunning enough, if his temper got the better of him, would do imprudent things, I remember him well-nigh killing his jockey on the course at Doncaster--it was the second year as ever the Leger was ran for--and all for no fault of his, but just because he didn't win when his master expected it. I remember how the crowd hissed the gentleman, and the ugly look which he gave them in reply. There was no fuss made about the matter afterwards; but Sir Ma.s.singberd had to supply a deal of Golden Ointment to the poor lad's bruises: he was very free-handed with his money at that time. I suppose, by the pace he was then going, that he has not much left."

"He has almost literally not a shilling," replied Mr. Long. "I am quite certain that he had no ready-money in his possession besides the twenty one-pound notes which he obtained from me upon that evening."

"And no means of raising any?" inquired Mr. Townshend.

"None whatever," replied my tutor positively.

"That simplifies the business a good deal," remarked the Bow Street runner, drawing out his pocket-book. "Now, I suppose you kept the numbers of those notes?"

"Yes, I did. Peter, did you not write them down for me?"

"The notes ran from 82961 to 82980 inclusive," said I.

"A very concise and sensible statement, young gentleman,"[1] remarked the police-officer, approvingly; "I should like, however, to see the figures in black and white." When these had been found among certain memorandums of my tutor, Mr. Townshend copied them, and thus continued: "Now, the first thing as has to be done, gentleman all--by which no offence is meant to the young lady--is this: we must go to the Bank of England, and find out if any of these here notes have been paid in since November 16th. If they have been, one of two things is certain--Sir Ma.s.singberd is spending them, or somebody else is spending them for him.

If the latter, it is probable that it is not with his consent; that is, that he can't help it; that is, that he's dead as a ten-penny nail;" and with that the speaker brought down his fist upon the mahogany, as though he were hammering one in.