The Crime and the Criminal Part 47

"Exactly--as you say--there are."

"You can have that fifty pounds on the understanding that you undertake to place me in communication with my girl within fourteen days. If you don't, next time I find myself in communication with you I'll have value for my fifty pounds. You hear?"

"While you continue, Mr. Haines, to speak so loudly, I can hardly fail to hear."

Mr. Haines covered the money with his hand.

"Swear that you will find my girl for me within fourteen days."

I had noticed Mr. Trevannion's eyes begin to glisten directly the money appeared. He seemed to fear that he might find such an oath a little difficult of digestion. Still he swallowed it.

"I swear."

Mr. Haines turned to me.

"You hear? He says he swears." He removed his hand. "Take the money. If you're lying to me again, when next we meet there'll one of us have fits."

Mr. Trevannion took the money in rather a hurry, as if he feared that, after all, Mr. Haines might change his mind.

"I may truly say, Mr. Haines, that I never saw a father's love which equalled yours. It is a rare, n.o.ble spectacle. It will be my pride, as well as my pleasure, to restore, in the shortest possible s.p.a.ce of time, your child to her father's arms."

"Mind you do."

Mr. Trevannion had disposed of the money. He turned to me.

"Eh, madam, might I have the pleasure of saying one word to you in private?"

"Certainly not."

He seemed surprised.

"With reference to that little matter----"

I interrupted him.

"Mr. Haines, if you are finished with this person might I ask you to relieve me of his society?"

Jack Haines chose to fly into a rage.

"What the devil, sir, do you mean by wanting to speak in private to a lady who's a friend of mine! Outside!"

Mr. Trevannion went outside, Mr. Haines accompanying him to the door to see him go.

The very next day the Corsican brother obliged me with a call--my friend, the gentleman. He came accompanied by a friend--none other than that Lord Archibald Beaupre, of whom he had spoken.

My lord was long and thin and a little weedy. His hair was sandy, and parted, with mathematical exactness, precisely in the middle. It would not be many years before he went bald. His eyes were light blue--the kind of eyes which not only suggest a bad temper, but a senseless temper too. It is excusable--though foolish--to fly into a fury about something. But people with those sort of eyes are apt, when they feel that way disposed, to get into a rage about nothing at all, and to go blind with pa.s.sion when they are at it. Milord's manner was very well.

Only he struck me as being the least bit condescending--as if he was conscious of what a well-born man he was.

It was very kind of Mr. Townsend to bring him, and so I told him.

By the way, all the time I was looking at Mr. Townsend, I could not help my thoughts travelling to Mr. Stewart Trevannion. How alike they were, and yet how different. How came the two lives to be lived on such different roads? Sometime it might be worth my while to improve my acquaintance with Mr. Trevannion. One might acquire from them a sc.r.a.p or two of gossip which might prove useful by and by. Could this man ever be like that man? I doubted it. This had what the other had not--the courage of Old Nick. He would never crouch, whatever else he did.

But, as I was Baying, it was very kind of Mr. Townsend to bring his friend. Although there was something about the fashion of his introduction which, instinctively, put my back up. I wondered what he had said to milord before he came. Nothing could exceed Mr. Townsend's courtesy, but I had a kind of suspicion that he was seeking to recommend his friend to my notice as a subst.i.tute, as it were, for himself. I almost felt as if he were throwing us, with all the delicacy and grace conceivable, at each other's heads. I could have sworn that he told milord, before he brought him on the scene, that I was a rich American widow, and that he had dropped, perhaps, something stronger than a hint that I was just the sort of woman whom it might be worth his lordship's while to marry.

If he had, he had thrown his hint away. He was trying to travel along the wrong line of rails. That bird would not fight. There was only one man's wife I meant to be, and he was himself that man.

They went away together. When they had gone, somehow or other I felt a trifle sore. I was beginning to get into a funny frame of mind. I was half disposed to feel that I should be willing to get my friend the gentleman--to get just him, and nothing more. I had never thought that I should fool like that for any man; or that I could. It puzzled me.

Things went on worse and worse for Tommy. At the close of his next examination before the magistrates, he looked as much like hanging as any man cared to do. As I read, I could scarcely believe my eyes. I stared and I stared. I almost began myself to believe that he must be guilty--that I must be dead. It just showed that things are not always what they quite seem.

A new witness went into the box. He said his name was Taunton. I soon saw that if Tommy was to be hanged it would be Mr. Taunton who would hang him.

It was Mr. Taunton, after all, who had given the police the office. It was he who had delivered Tommy into their hands. He had travelled in the same train with Tommy from Brighton. He had been in the next compartment. He had heard all the argument. And, from what he said, he must have been listening for all that he was worth.

But there! When I read all that was in the paper, I gasped for breath.

In imagination I already saw the rope round Tommy's neck.

Who would have thought that it ever would have come to that?

Two or three days afterwards I received a shock. I was looking through the morning paper when I came upon a paragraph which sent all the blood running out of my finger-ends--or it seemed to. It was in the column of daily gossip. Here it is:--

"An engagement is announced between Mr. Reginald Townsend, one of the best known and most popular society figures, and Dora, daughter and only child of Sir Haselton Jardine. We understand that the marriage will take place very shortly. This announcement will be received with the wider public interest in view of the position of counsel for the Crown which Sir Haselton Jardine will occupy, should Mr. Thomas Tennant have to stand his trial for the Three Bridges murder. It is understood that the trial will be set down for the next Lewes a.s.sizes. In that case the judge will be Mr. Justice Hunter."

When first I saw the thing all that struck me was the bold fact of the engagement--that it was announced. On a re-perusal, it began to occur to me that the announcement was rather oddly worded. It might almost have been done with malicious intent. Beginning with marriage, it ended with murder.

A comfortable juxtaposition!

What was more, there seemed to be more murder in it than marriage. The stress seemed to be laid upon the murder. Certainly the impression likely to be left upon the imagination of the average reader was a combination of blood with orange blossoms.

I wondered who had inspired the paragraph in that peculiar form, and what would be my friend the gentleman's sensations if, as I had done, he should chance to happen on it unexpectedly.

But, still, the engagement was announced.

That thing was sure!

The more I thought of it, the more I went all hot and cold. No wonder I had hated her directly he had told me that such a creature was in the world. Her name was Dora! What a name! It sounded Dolly. It must be her money he was after. He could not care for a woman with a name like that. She must be brainless!

Well, other women had money; and brains as well.

So the newspaper man had been given to understand that the marriage was going to take place very shortly. Was it? A marriage was going to take place very shortly. But not that one. We should see!

I pranced about the room; I worked myself into a rage. I felt that I must have it out with some one.

And I had. I had it out with Tommy's wife!

It was all that paragraph.