Luttrell Of Arran Part 98

"_That_ is certainly something," replied he, musing.

"Not to say," added Grenfell, laughing, "that we run no great risk in being tired of him, since the mail leaves at ten, and he'll scarcely remain after nine!"

"That is also something," said Sir Within again.

"Here goes, then, for a note; or stay, I'll just see if he be in the house. We shall say six o'clock dinner, and alone; these men abhor the idea of dressing, if they can help it."

Sir Within merely raised his eyebrows, half pitifully, that there were such people; and Grenfell hastened away on his mission. He was back in a moment. "Just caught him getting into a cab; he'll be delighted--he _was_ delighted when I gave him your message. He goes off to-night, as the waiter said, and apparently full of important news. Vyner, it would seem, has come all right. All he told me was: 'Sir Gervais will be on his legs again;' but we'll have it all after dinner."

Sir Within heard the tidings with far less interest than Grenfell looked for. He smiled benignly, indeed; he muttered something about being "charmed to hear it;" and then heaved a heavy sigh and sat down with his back to the light. How heartless and unfeeling did it seem to him to have so much compa.s.sion for loss of mere fortune, and not one word of sympathy for a broken and bereaved heart! What a world it was! What a world of perverted feeling and misapplied generosity!

Grenfell said something about the epicurism of the lawyer cla.s.s, and went off to give special directions about the dinner; and the old man dozed, and woke, and wandered on in thought over the past, and dozed again, till his servant came to apprise him it was time to dress.

It was the first time he was to encounter the presence of a stranger after some months of seclusion, and he shrank from the effort, and would have retreated altogether if he could only have found a pretext.

Conventionalities are, however, the tyrants of such men as himself, and the bare idea of anything unseemly in politeness was unendurable. He suffered his valet, therefore, to restore him to something of his former appearance. His eyebrows were newly tinted and well arched; his furrowed cheeks were skilfully smoothed over and suffused with a soft, permanent blush; and his whiskers were ingeniously brought into keeping with the vigorous darkness of his raven wig, imparting to him altogether a sort of surcharged vitality, that, to an acute observer, might have imparted a sense little short of horror. The very brilliants of his rings caught a twinkling l.u.s.tre from his tremulous hands, as though to impress the beholder with the contrast between splendour and decay.

Nor was his manner less unreal than his appearance. With his darkened eyebrows and his diamond studs he had put on his old tone of soft insinuation, and all that was natural in the Man was merged in the crafty devices of the Minister. No wonder was it M'Kinlay was charmed with a tone and address that had done service in Courts. Sir Within thus "warmed to his work," and actually at last began to feel pleasure in the success he achieved; and even Grenfell, long trained to the habits of the world, was astonished at conversational resources for which he had never given him credit.

Thus happily did the dinner proceed; and when the servants retired, M'Kinlay had arrived at that point of beat.i.tude in which he regarded the company as something superlatively high, and himself fully worthy of it.

"You are on your way to my old friend Vyner, I think?" said Sir Within, with a heartiness that ignored all estrangement between them.

"Yes, Sir; on a pleasanter mission, I rejoice to say, than when I last travelled the same road."

"He is all right again, I hear," said Grenfell, who meant, by an abrupt declaration, to disarm all the conventional reserve of the lawyer.

"Well, that would be saying too much, perhaps--too much; but I hope, Mr.

Grenfell, he is on the way to it."

"With M'Kinlay for his pilot, he'll make the harbour, I have no doubt whatever," said Sir Within, smiling graciously.

"I shall certainly do my best, Sir," said the other, bowing. "Not alone because it is my duty, but that Sir Gervais has been good enough to regard me, for many years back, in the light of his friend as well as his lawyer."

"Of that I am well aware," said Sir Within, lifting his gla.s.s and appearing to be quietly pledging Mr. M'Kinlay to himself as a toast.

"Has the scoundrel who ran away with his securities been caught?" asked Grenfell, impatiently.

"No, Sir; he is beyond being caught--he is dead." After a pause, which Sir Within and Grenfell saw all the importance of not breaking but leaving to M'Kinlay the task of continuing his narrative, that gentleman went on: "It is quite a romance--positively a romance in real life. I'm afraid," said he, looking at his watch, "I shall not have time to tell you the story in all its details. I must start by the ten-twenty train for Lyons."

"We are only a few minutes after eight now," said Grenfell. "Let us hear the story."

"Even in outline," chimed in Sir Within, blandly. "Pray help yourself to the wine--it is beside you."

"I can give you but a sketch--a mere sketch, Sir. It would seem, Sir, that ever since the French conquest of Algeria, a French company has been engaged in the supply of munitions of war to the Arabs, and to this end had established agents at Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco, who were thus enabled to transport these supplies into the interior of Africa. The director of this company was La Harpe, the Parisian banker, with whom Sir Gervais became acquainted through Mr. Gennet, himself the owner of many shares in the undertaking."

Grenfell sighed drearily at the long-windedness which he saw awaited them; but Sir Within looked intensely interested, and M'Kinlay went on, and, with a prolixity that I have no desire to imitate, entered upon the nature of this company, its operations, and its gains. With a painstaking minuteness he described the false trade-marks used to prevent discovery, and how the weapons, which were forged in France, bore the stamp of Sheffield or Birmingham.

"Giving 'La perfide Albion' all the credit of the treachery," said Sir Within, smiling.

"Precisely, Sir," said M'Kinlay, delighted at the attention so graciously vouchsafed him. "I see you understand it all. Indeed, I may remark here, that a very sharp interchange of notes took place between the two Governments on the subject, the French alleging, and with apparent reason----"

"Get on, in Heaven's name, to what concerns Vyner," cried Grenfell, "or it only wants a quarter to nine, otherwise you'll have to leave us without the catastrophe."

"I obey, Sir," said M'Kinlay, with a certain irritation of voice at the same time. "I must observe, you will find it very difficult to fill up for yourselves the gaps you insist on my pa.s.sing over. Mr. Gennet, then, for it is of him you wish me to speak, very soon perceiving that Sir Gervais Vyner was not a man to be drawn into such an illicit traffic, a.s.sumed to have obtained from the Bey of Tunis and others most valuable concessions to mines of various kinds, and by specimens of ore, reports of scientific mineralogists, and such-like, imposed on him so far as to induce him to enter largely into the speculation, not at all aware that every shilling he advanced was directed to the great enterprise of La Harpe and Company. It was not a very difficult task for an accomplished swindler like Gennet to show that the mines, which had no existence, had proved a failure. Indeed, the disastrous issue of the enterprise was so plausibly described, and the affairs were wound up with such apparent fairness, that it was no wonder if poor Sir Gervais actually pitied Gennet, and went so far as to beg he might not be molested. I a.s.sure you, Sir, I have a letter in my desk that says----"

"Nine o'clock!" solemnly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Grenfell, as the hour rang out from a neighbouring steeple.

"I hear it, Sir, and regret much that my time should be so limited; but to resume. So soon as Gennet had established the fact of the mock bankruptcy, he fled from Europe, and it was believed took refuge in America, where he had lived many years as partner in a mercantile house--the firm of Reay, Pate, and Brothers, Forty-sixth-street, New York, large shipowners, and importers on their own account. I feel I am prolix, Mr. Grenfell, even without the admonition of that painful sigh.

But really, gentlemen, I am merely selecting the salient points of a very complicated incident, and not entering upon any but the strictly essential details."

Sir Within a.s.sured him he felt an unbounded confidence in his discretion, and he resumed:

"There chanced to be in the employ of that firm a merchant captain named Dodge, a man of remarkable energy of character and great daring; and here I may mention, as a curious circ.u.mstance, that I once happened by a singular coincidence to meet with this man, and be his fellow-traveller, under no common circ.u.mstances."

"I believe I can recal them," said Sir Within. "I was the guest of my friend Sir Gervais on the night you told a very remarkable story, in which this man's name occurred. The name was a strange one, and it held a place in my memory. If I mistake not, you crossed over to the Arran Islands in his company?"

"I am much flattered to find, Sir Within, that you remember the incident, though I see how trying it proves to Mr. Grenfell's patience."

"Not in the least, if you will only consent to start by the morning's train instead of to-night's. Do that, and you will find you never had a more patient nor more interested listener."

"Perfectly impossible, Sir. I have timed the whole journey by Bradshaw; and to catch the mail-boat--the _Queen Hortense_--at Ma.r.s.eilles, on Sat.u.r.day, I must arrive by the early train, and there is the half-hour now chiming. I trust Sir Within Wardle will forgive my abrupt leave-taking. One more gla.s.s of this excellent claret, and I am off."

"Pray give my very kindest regards to Sir Gervais, and my most respectful homage to the ladies. Though I am not permitted to learn how the good fortune came, let me, I beg, be a.s.sociated with every congratulation the event inspires." And with this Frenchified expression of his satisfaction, the old diplomatist drew himself up like one who felt that he stood once more on his native heath.

So wrapt up was he, indeed, in this revival of an old part he had so long played with success, that he never noticed how Grenfell had left the room along with M'Kinlay, and he sat gazing at the fire and thinking over bygones. Nor was he aware how time flitted past, when Grenfell returned and took his place opposite him.

"I was determined to have all I could get out of him," said Grenfell.

"I jumped into the cab with him, and went to the railroad station. What between his dreary tiresomeness and the street noises as we rattled along, I gained very little; but this much I have learned: That the man Gennet, who had once, as the lawyers call it, 'compa.s.sed' the life of Dodge, by sending him to sea in a rotten vessel, immensely insured, and predestined to shipwreck, was recognised by this same skipper in the street at Tripoli. Dodge, it seems, had just been landed with one other survivor of his crew, having blown up his vessel to prevent its falling into the hands of some Riff pirates, and after unheard-of peril and sufferings was picked up at sea with his companion, both badly wounded by the explosion, though they had thrown themselves into the sea before the vessel blew up. All I could do would not hurry M'Kinlay over this part of the story, which I believe he imagined he told effectively, and I had only got him to Tripoli as we drove into the yard of the station.

While higgling with the cabman and the porters, he stammered out something about Dodge standing at his Consul's door as Gennet rode past with a large suite of Arab followers; that the skipper sprang upon him like a tiger and tore him from his horse. A dreadful struggle must have ensued, for Gennet died of his wounds that night, and Dodge was nearly cut to pieces by the guard, his life being saved by the desperate bravery of his friend, who was at last rescued by the members of the Consulate. The bell rang as we arrived at this critical moment, but I followed him to his compartment, and, at the risk of being carried off, sat down beside him. The miserable proser wanted to involve me in an account of the criminal law of Tripoli when any one holding office under the Bey should have been the victim of attack, but I swore I knew it perfectly, and asked what about Gennet? He then began to narrate how the French Consul, having intervened to defend the interests of his countryman, discovered the whole plot against France, found all the details of the purchase of war materials, bills of lading, and such-like: and, besides these, ma.s.ses of Vyner's acceptances, which had never been negotiated. Another--the last--bell now rang out, and as I sprang from my seat he leaned out of the window, and said: 'Dodge, it is thought, will recover; his friend is now with Sir Gervais, at Chiavari, and turns out to be Luttrell, the young fellow whom we picked up----'

When, where, or how, I cannot say, for the train now moved on, and the tiresome old dog was carried off at a very different pace from that of his narrative."

Sir Within listened with all the semblance of interest and attention.

Once or twice he interjected an "Ah!" or, "How strange!" But it is only truthful to own that he paid very little real attention to the story, and could not well have said at the end whether Dodge was not the villain of the piece, and young Luttrell his guilty accomplice.

Very grateful was he, however, when it ended, and when Grenfell said, "I suppose Vyner has had enough of speculation now to last his lifetime."

"I trust so sincerely," said Sir Within, with a smile.

"It is such rank folly for a man to adventure into a career of which he knows nothing, and take up as his a.s.sociates a set of men totally unlike any he has ever lived with."

"I perfectly agree with you," said the other, with an urbane bow. "You have admirably expressed the sentiment I experience at this moment; and even with my brief opportunity of arriving at a judgment, I am free to confess that I thought this gentleman who has just left us, Mr.

M'Kinlay, I think he is called--a very dangerous man--a most dangerous man."

Grenfell looked at him, and fortunate was it that Sir Within did not note that look, so full was it of pitiless contempt; and then rising, he said, "It is later than I thought. You said something about Versailles for to-morrow, didn't you?"

"I have not heard whether his Majesty will receive me."

Grenfell started, and stared at him. Had it come to this already? Was the mind gone and the intellect shattered?