The King of Diamonds Part 32

"Ten years' penal servitude, four years' police supervision, my wife dead, and my children lost, all through a smack on the head given me by Philip Anson," he communed. "Here's to getting even with him!"

It was a strange outcome of his long imprisonment that the man should have acquired a fair degree of culture. He was compelled to learn in jail, to a certain extent, and reading soon became a pleasure to him.

Moreover, he picked up an acquaintance with a smooth-spoken mate of the swell mobsman and long firm order--a dandy who strove to be elegant even in convict garb. Mason's great strength and indomitable courage appealed to the more artistic if more effeminate rogue; once the big man saved his comrade's life when they were at work in the quarries.

The influence was mutual. They vowed lasting friendship. Victor Grenier was released six months before Mason, and the latter now crossed the river again to go to an address where he would probably receive some news of his professed ally's whereabouts.

Grenier's name was imparted under inviolable confidence as that which he would adopt after his release. His real name, by which he was convicted, was something far less aristocratic.

Philip's driver, being of the peculiar type of Londoner which seems to be created to occupy the d.i.c.ky of a hansom, did not take his master down Park Lane, along Piccadilly, and so to Pall Mall. He loved corners. Give him the remotest chance of following a zigzag course, and he would follow it in preference to a route with all the directness of a Roman road.

Thus it happened, as he spun round Carlos Place into Berkeley Square, he nearly collided with another vehicle which dashed into the square from Davies Street.

Both horses pulled up with a jerk, there was a sharp fusillade of what cabmen call "langwidge," and the other hansom drove on, having the best of the strategical position by a stolen yard.

Philip lifted the trapdoor.

"Has he a fare, Wale?"

"Yes, sir, a lydy."

"Oh. Leave him alone, then. Otherwise, I would have liked to see you ride him off at the corner of Bruton Street."

Wale, who was choleric, replied with such force that Philip tried to say, sternly:

"Stop that swearing, Wale."

"Beg pawdon, sir, I'm sure, but I wouldn't ha' minded if it wasn't my own old keb. Didn't you spot it?"

"You don't tell me so. How odd!"

"And to think of a brewer's drayman like that gettin' 'old of it.

Well----"

Wale put the lid on in case his employer might hear any more of his sentiments.

Philip, leaning back to laugh, for Wale's vocabulary was amusing, if not fit for publication, suddenly realized the queer trick that even the events in the life of an individual have of repeating themselves.

In one day, after an interval of many years, he had been suddenly confronted by personages connected with the period of his sufferings, with the very garments he wore at that time, with the cab in which he drove from Clerkenwell to Hatton Garden. Abingdon had dined with him; Isaacstein had sent him a message; his driver, even, was the cabman who made him a present of two shillings, a most fortunate transaction for Wale, as it led to his selection to look after Philip's London stable.

All who had befriended the forlorn boy in those early days had benefited to an extraordinary degree. The coffee-stall keeper who gave him coffee grounds and crusts, the old clothes man who cut down the price of his first outfit, Mrs. Wrigley, going hopelessly to her toil in a Shepherd's Bush laundry; Mr. Wilson, of Grant & Sons, the kindly jeweler of Ludgate Hill, were each sought out, and either placed in a good business or bounteously rewarded for the services they had rendered. O'Brien, of course, was found a sinecure office at the Mary Anson Home.

As for the doctor, he owed his Harley Street practice to the millionaire's help and patronage.

It is worthy of note that Philip never wore a watch other than that presented to him by the police of the Whitechapel Division.

It was an ordinary English silver lever, and he carried it attached to a knotted bootlace.

Did he but know how far the historical parallel had gone that day--how Jocky Mason had waited for hours outside his residence in the hope of seeing him and becoming acquainted with his appearance--he might have been surprised, but he would never have guessed the evil that this man would accomplish, and, in some measure, accomplish unconsciously.

He was not in his club five minutes when a friend tackled him for a concert subscription.

"Anson, you are fond of music. Here is a new violinist, a Hungarian, who wants a start. I heard him in Budapest last autumn. He is a good chap.

Take some stalls."

Philip glanced at the program.

"Eckstein at the piano. I see! He must be a star. Who is the soprano? I have never heard her name before."

"Miss Evelyn Atherley," read his friend over his shoulder. "I don't know her myself. Dine with me here to-morrow night. We will go and hear the performance afterward."

"Can you distribute stalls among your acquaintances?"

"My dear fellow, I will be delighted. Sorry I can't help Jowkacsy a bit myself."

"You are helping him very well. I will take a dozen; two for you and me; ten elsewhere, for the claque."

"You _are_ a good chap. h.e.l.lo! There's Jones. Jones is good for a couple. Don't forget to-morrow night."

And the good-natured enthusiast, who was a terror to many of his friends, ran off to secure another victim.

Philip had sent his hansom home. Shortly before eleven he quitted the club, intending to walk to Park Lane by a circuitous route, long enough to consume a big cigar.

He chanced to pa.s.s the hall in which the concert was to take place. A few people were hurrying from the stage door. Evidently a rehearsal had just taken place. A short man, with a huge cl.u.s.ter of flowing locks, that offered abundant proof of his musical genius, ran out with a violin case in his hand.

He was about to enter a hansom waiting near the curb, but the driver said:

"Engaged, sir."

The man did not seem to understand, so the cabby barred his way with the whip and shook his head. Then the stranger rushed to a neighboring cab rank--evidently an excitable gentleman, with the high-strung temperament of art.

A lady quitted the hall a few seconds later.

"Are you engaged?" Philip heard her ask the cabman.

"No, miss."

"Take me to No. 44, Maida Crescent, Regent's Park," she said. After arranging her skirts daintily, she entered the vehicle.

"That is odd," thought Philip, who had witnessed both incidents in the course of a six yards' walk. He glanced at the cabman, and fancied the man gave a peculiar look of intelligence toward a couple of fashionably dressed loungers who stood in the shadow of the closed public entrance.

The two men, without exchanging a word to Philip's hearing, went to a brougham standing at some little distance. They entered. The coachman, who received no instructions, drove off in the same direction as the hansom, and, as if to make sure he was being followed, the cab driver turned to look behind him.

Once, in Naples, Philip saw a man stealthily following a woman down an unlighted alley. Without a moment's hesitation he went after the pair, and was just in time to prevent the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin from plunging an uplifted stiletto into the woman's back. The recollection of that little drama flashed into his mind now; there was a suggestion of the Neapolitan bravo's air in the manner in which these men stalked a girl who was quite unaware of their movements.

He asked himself why a cabman should refuse one fare and pick up another in the same spot. The affair was certainly odd. He would see further into it before he dismissed it from his thoughts. The distance to Maida Crescent was not great.

While thinking he was acting. He sprang into the nearest hansom.

"A brougham is following a hansom up Langham Place," he said to the driver. "Keep behind them. If they separate, follow the brougham. When it stops, pull up at the best place to avoid notice."