The Disentanglers Part 19

'And a dynasty based on the roulette-table, . . . '

'Oh, the Prince of Scalastro!' cried Logan.

'I see that you know the worst,' said the Earl.

Logan knew the worst fairly well. The Prince of Scalastro owned a percentage of two or three thousand which Logan had dropped at the tables licensed in his princ.i.p.ality.

'To the Prince, personally, I bear no ill-will,' said the Earl. 'He is young, brave, scientific, accomplished, and this unfortunate attachment began before he inherited his--h'm--dominions. I fear it is, on both sides, a deep and pa.s.sionate sentiment. And now, Mr. Logan, you know the full extent of my misfortunes: what course does your experience recommend? I am not a harsh father. Could I disinherit Scremerston, which I cannot, the loss would not be felt by him in the circ.u.mstances.

As to my daughter--'

The peer rose and walked to the window. When he came back and resumed his seat, Logan turned on him a countenance of mournful sympathy. The Earl silently extended his hand, which Logan took. On few occasions had a strain more severe been placed on his gravity, but, unlike a celebrated diplomatist, he 'could command his smile.'

'Your case,' he said, 'is one of the most singular, delicate, and distressing which I have met in the course of my experience. There is no objection to character, and poverty is not the impediment: the reverse.

You will permit me, no doubt, to consult my partner, Mr. Merton; we have naturally no secrets between us, and he possesses a delicacy of touch and a power of insight which I can only regard with admiring envy. It was he who carried to a successful issue that difficult case in the family of the Sultan of Mingrelia (you will observe that I use a fict.i.tious name).

I can a.s.sure you, Lord Embleton, that polygamy presents problems almost insoluble; problems of extreme delicacy--or indelicacy.'

'I had not heard of that affair,' said the Earl. 'Like Eumaeus in Homer and in Mr. Stephen Phillips, I dwell among the swine, and come rarely to the city.'

'The matter never went beyond the inmost diplomatic circles,' said Logan.

'The Sultan's favourite son, the Jam, or Crown Prince, of Mingrelia (_Jamreal_, they called him), loved four beautiful Bollachians, sisters--again I disguise the nationality.'

'Sisters!' exclaimed the peer; 'I have always given my vote against the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill; but _four_, and all alive!'

'The law of the Prophet, as you are aware, is not monogamous,' said Logan; 'and the Eastern races are not averse to connections which are reprobated by our Western ideas. The real difficulty was that of religion.

'Oh, why from the heretic girl of my soul Should I fly, to seek elsewhere an orthodox kiss?'

hummed Logan, rather to the surprise of Lord Embleton. He went on: 'It is not so much that the Mingrelians object to mixed marriages in the matter of religion, but the Bollachians, being Christians, do object, and have a horror of polygamy. It was a cruel affair. All four girls, and the Jamreal himself, were pa.s.sionately attached to each other. It was known, too, that, for political reasons, the maidens had received a dispensation from the leading Archimandrite, their metropolitan, to marry the proud Paynim. The Mingrelian Sultan is suzerain of Bollachia; his native subjects are addicted to ma.s.sacring the Bollachians from religious motives, and the Bollachian Church (Nestorians, as you know) hoped that the four brides would convert the Jamreal to their creed, and so solve the Bollachian question. The end, they said, justified the means.'

'Jesuitical,' said the Earl, shaking his head sadly.

'That is what my friend and partner, Mr. Merton, thought,' said Logan, 'when we were applied to by the Sultan. Merton displayed extraordinary tact and address. All was happily settled, the Sultan and the Jamreal were reconciled, the young ladies met other admirers, and learned that what they had taken for love was but a momentary infatuation.'

The Earl sighed, '_Renovare dolorem_! My family,' said he, 'is, and has long been--ever since the Gunpowder Plot--firmly, if not pa.s.sionately, attached to the Church of England. The Prince of Scalastro is a Catholic.'

'Had we a closer acquaintance with the parties concerned!' murmured Logan.

'You must come and visit us at Rookchester,' said the Earl. 'In any case I am most anxious to know better one whose ancestor was so closely connected with my own. We shall examine my doc.u.ments under the tuition of the lady you mentioned, Miss Willoughby, if she will accept the hospitality of a kinsman.'

Logan murmured acquiescence, and again asked permission to consult Merton, which was granted. The Earl then shook hands and departed, obviously somewhat easier in his mind.

This remarkable conversation was duly reported by Logan to Merton.

'What are we to do next?' asked Logan.

'Why you can do nothing but reconnoitre. Go down to Rookchester. It is in Northumberland, on the Coquet--a pretty place, but there is no fishing just now. Then we must ask Lord Embleton to meet Miss Willoughby. The interview can be here: Miss Willoughby will arrive, chaperoned by Miss Blossom, after the Earl makes his appearance.'

'That will do, as far as his bothering old ma.n.u.scripts are concerned; but how about the real business--the two undesirable marriages?'

'We must first see how the land lies. I do not know any of the lovers.

What sort of fellow is Scremerston?'

'Nothing remarkable about him--good, plucky, vain little fellow. I suppose he wants money, like the rest of the world: but his father won't let him be a director of anything, though he is in the House and his name would look well on a list.'

'So he wants to marry dollars?'

'I suppose he has no objection to them; but have you seen Miss Bangs?'

'I don't remember her,' said Merton.

'Then you have not seen her. She is beautiful, by Jove; and, I fancy, clever and nice, and gives herself no airs.'

'And she has all that money, and yet the old gentleman objects!'

'He can not stand the bristles and lard,' said Logan.

'Then the Prince of Scalastro--him I have come across. You would never take him for a foreigner,' said Merton, bestowing on the Royal youth the highest compliment which an Englishman can pay, but adding, 'only he is too intelligent and knows too much.'

'No; there is nothing the matter with _him_,' Logan admitted--'nothing but happening to inherit a gambling establishment and the garden it stands in. He is a scientific character--a scientific soldier. I wish we had a few like him.'

'Well, it is a hard case,' said Merton. 'They all seem to be very good sort of people. And Lady Alice Guevara? I hardly know her at all; but she is pretty enough--tall, yellow hair, brown eyes.'

'And as good a girl as lives,' added Logan. 'Very religious, too.'

'She won't change her creed?' asked Merton.

'She would go to the stake for it,' said Logan. 'She is more likely to convert the Prince.'

'That would be one difficulty out of the way,' said Merton. 'But the gambling establishment? There is the rub! And the usual plan won't work. You are a captivating person, Logan, but I do not think that you could attract Lady Alice's affections and disentangle her in that way.

Besides, the Prince would have you out. Then Miss Bangs' dollars, not to mention herself, must have too strong a hold on Scremerston. It really looks too hard a case for us on paper. You must go down and reconnoitre.'

Logan agreed, and wrote asking Lord Embleton to come to the office, where he could see Miss Willoughby and arrange about her visit to him and his ma.n.u.scripts. The young lady was invited to arrive rather later, bringing Miss Blossom as her companion.

On the appointed day Logan and Merton awaited Lord Embleton. He entered with an air unwontedly buoyant, and was introduced to Merton. The first result was an access of shyness. The Earl hummed, began sentences, dropped them, and looked pathetically at Logan. Merton understood. The Earl had taken to Logan (on account of their hereditary partnership in an ancient iniquity), and it was obvious that he would say to him what he would not say to his partner. Merton therefore withdrew to the outer room (they had met in the inner), and the Earl delivered himself to Logan in a little speech.

'Since we met, Mr. Logan,' said he, 'a very fortunate event has occurred.

The Prince of Scalastro, in a private interview, has done me the honour to take me into his confidence. He asked my permission to pay his addresses to my daughter, and informed me that, finding his ownership of the gambling establishment distasteful to her, he had determined not to renew the lease to the company. He added that since his boyhood, having been educated in Germany, he had entertained scruples about the position which he would one day occupy, that he had never entered the rooms (that haunt of vice), and that his acquaintance with my daughter had greatly increased his objections to gambling, though his scruples were not approved of by his confessor, a very learned priest.'

'That is curious,' said Logan.

'Very,' said the Earl. 'But as I expect the Prince and his confessor at Rookchester, where I hope you will join us, we may perhaps find out the reasons which actuate that no doubt respectable person. In the meantime, as I would constrain n.o.body in matters of religion, I informed the Prince that he had my permission to--well, to plead his cause for himself with Lady Alice.'

Logan warmly congratulated the Earl on the gratifying resolve of the Prince, and privately wondered how the young people would support life, when deprived of the profits from the tables.

It was manifest, however, from the buoyant air of the Earl, that this important question had never crossed his mind. He looked quite young in the gladness of his heart, 'he smelled April and May,' he was clad becomingly in summer raiment, and to Logan it was quite a pleasure to see such a happy man. Some fifteen years seemed to have been taken from the age of this buxom and simple-hearted patrician.

He began to discuss with Logan all conceivable reasons why the Prince's director had rather discouraged his idea of closing the gambling-rooms for ever.

'The Father, Father Riccoboni, is a Jesuit, Mr. Logan,' said the Earl gravely. 'I would not be uncharitable, I hope I am not prejudiced, but members of that community, I fear, often prefer what they think the interests of their Church to those of our common Christianity. A portion of the great wealth of the Scalastros was annually devoted to ma.s.ses for the souls of the players--about fifteen per cent. I believe--who yearly shoot themselves in the gardens of the establishment.'