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QUALINY VIBOU
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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VERITAS
OF THE
ALQUATRIS PENINSULAM AMOI
INAPLE
PRESENTED BY
THE HEIRS OF
NATHAN B. HYDE
828
W8757m
6:
W
THE NIGHT
OF THE 3D ULT.
AUTHOR OF
BY
H. F. WOOD
THE PASSENGER FROM SCOTLAND YARD,"
ENGLISHMAN OF THE RUE CAIN,” ETC.
a
NEW YORK:
GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER
17 TO 27 Vandewater STREET.
1890
บุ
$
<< THE
į
$
THE CELEBRATED
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SOHMER
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4. THE TWO BROTHERS. By Guy de Maupassant,
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!
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
CHAPTER I.
"THERE'S Some of them that lives about here, just like
that, as have come a longer way down in the world than
him," said the man at the corner to Detective Erne.
Detective Erne nodded impatiently, and prepared to con-
tinue upon his nocturnal round. He glanced once more
along the dark, silent by-street, at whose entrance he had
halted, traversing Seven Dials in the direction of Long
Acre, to exchange a few words with the acquaintance.
encountered there, this early purveyor of the poor man's
breakfast; he drew forth his watch, as a church clock
chimed the three-quarters; he gazed upwards at the
clouded sky.
"There was one of them lived at Rochester Chambers,
here, threepence a night, a bad place, that had served his
time as a member of Parliament, and was very near a
title in the nobility. I knew him. He was a customer
of mine. Well, he had come down. Ah-and others!"
"It's the way of the world," said Detective Erne.
The man at the corner, resting against the handle of his
hawker's barrow, poured a little of his own black tea into
a stout mug, and tested its quality.
207516
4
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
'But there was one that was a millionaire, and lived
up this very turning, Paradise Row, in rags, because he
was a miser, Mr. Erne, sir. They couldn't get his rent
from him unless they stole it; and the boys would give
him a bit of silver when they'd backed the winner. Ah,
if the boys had only known in time about the money!
Some of it would have been shifted,-ha, ha! But no !
He dies; and when they find out all about him at the
coroner's inquest, who gets all the money? Who?
Why, the Lord Chancery."
Through a rent in the sluggish clouds burst the bright
rays of the moon. The high dead wall which faced Para-
dise Row stood out with a sudden vividness like a silent
witness abruptly summoned from a sinister obscurity.
To the left of the two spectators, Paradise Row itself re-
mained wrapped in deep gloom, unbroken save at a single
point. At one spot, about midway along the line of build-
ings, a dull, yellow light issued from an open doorway,
bringing faintly into view a drab-hued lintel, a broad white
flagstone, and the remnants of a basement railing.
"Now, the boys say likewise about you, sir, that you're
not among the ordinary that they see. You're too mild,
too much of the gentleman. You're a clever one, they
say, and you've got the education; but what's wanted,
Mr. Erne-you'll excuse me, sir-is, devil."
Detective Erne moved slowly into the narrow thorough-
fare at the extremity of Paradise Row, and there turned,
looking about him absently. The moonbeams faded
again.
"Because, they can cut up this here neighborhood with
their improvements, the authorities can, but they can't
improve the boys; and the boys 'll still be round here.
They've pulled the house down that I was born in, with
their improvements, bad luck to them; but I haven't held
a hawker's license all these years without knowing what's
wanted when you're dealing with the boys; and what's
THE NIGHT. OF THE 3d ULT.
5
wanted, Mr. Erne, is something else as well as ability, and
that's devil. "
Two figures passed out of the open doorway which,
illuminated faintly from within, had formed the single
interruption in the nightly gloom of Paradise Row. They
paused for an instant on the uneven pathway, by the
fwisted railing, their backs turned to the light, and their
faces undistinguishable; then, wheeling to their left hand,
but without ostensible haste, they walked away from the
two spectators towards the far end of the by-street a black
pall.
"Who is that from the Parsonage?" asked Detective
Erne, staring, still absently, in the direction followed by
the figures now lost to sight.
"A couple of the boys, I s'pose," was the reply. The
speaker stacked some freshly-cut bread-and-butter, and
made ready to resume his jaunt. "A couple of them out
on business. A West-end mansion to be cracked by half-
past three this very morning, I daresay. Good luck to
them."
""
"A West-end mansion ! echoed the detective, with a
smile. The two o'clock house, more probably, Richard.”
May be, Mr. Erne, sir; and that's my own station,
likewise, for the market, up till five A. M., and that's where
I'm off to now." He stooped to lift the handles of his
barrow.
((
"Devil?" repeated Detective Erne, half to himself.
It was the night of June third. The warm, oppressive air
was laden in this locality with the unmistakable specific
taint of squalor. A storm had threatened since the morn-
ing, and although no rain had yet descended, rain seemed
imminent. As a cock crowed dismally from a cellar
almost beneath their feet, both men laughed idly. The
rattle of a distant hansom reached their ears with a mo-
mentary distinctness, and, in a moment more had died
away. A woman's shriek, oath and menace, drowned by
6
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT,
a gross voice in drunken recrimination, resounded from
an upper story of the grim dwelling-house by which
they stood.
"Well, you see," resumed the other, regarding the
detective curiously, "the boys ain't been used to kind-
ness, and the most of them don't approve of it. And for
a very good reason. Because, why? Give 'em kind
treatment, and they'll be sure to get careless, or, as you
may say, deteri'ate. And the boys go on in a good spirit,
Mr. Erne, sir-they're sportsmen, they're good sportsmen,
just as you might be yourself. You've got a race-horse;
for instance, that's a fast horse in a race; well, what's the
good of him, at a pinch, against another fast horse that's
a stayer, if his jockey's got no devil? You've got a thief
that's clever, and can get what he likes away from any-
body; well, what's the good of him if he's to be too
tender-hearted for to exercise his trade? You've got a
scrapper that's as game and clever as a backer could
wish to meet with in the West-end on a summer's day;
well, but what's the use of him, inside a ring, if he's to be
kind, if he's to go up to fight a man and fights him with
a kind heart?"
Detective Erne responded with mingled raillery and
impatience. He took leave of his sage counsellor, but at
the same instant, an excited shout impelled them both to
turn back towards Paradise Row.
A tall, stout, bare-headed man, in his shirt-sleeves, was
gesticulating to them from the threshold of the house
already designated as the Parsonage. He repeated the
shout more loudly.
'It's the Parson hisself," said Richard.
The detective ran straight down the middle of the by-
street, to the far end. The bareheaded individual in
shirt-sleeves, having opened his mouth to address him on
his approach, stared open-mouthed as he dashed by, and
then with greater nimbleness than would have been
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
7
expected from a person of his ample frame, set off in pur-
suit. Arrived at the far extremity, Detective Erne strained
his eyes to the utmost to fathom the sombre cross-ways
there confronting him. A light glimmered feebly, here
and there; from more spacious thoroughfares came the
rumble of market wains, winding ponderously into Cov-
ent Garden; almost at hand, but unseen, an uproarious
son or two of the people bawled some senseless phrases
to a tuneless ditty, and banged at closed shutters; but, as
these few seconds passed, no human being, no living
creature, no evidence of life or death, no evidence of
either stealth or movement, was to be discerned along
those paths of crime or secrecy, avenues from Paradise
Row. He swung round to retrace his steps.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Erne!" exclaimed the portly indi-
vidual who had followed in his rear. "I was very
nearly making a mistake. Did you happen to see two
gentlemen' leave my house?"
"What's wrong?" They repaired together to the prem-
ises. The corpulent individual breathed laboriously with
excitement.
"A good many things have happened in my house,"
said he, "that I'll admit; but never this!".
"What is it?
"If there has been bad blood amongst the boys, Mr.
Erne, and I've seen that one meant risking the black cap
for another, I've always and invariably said to them, Mr.
Erne, 'Outside, my lads-not here,' and outside they've
gone like good lads that have respected both my house
and me. But-this!"
"Somebody?" Detective Erne left the phrase un-
completed. His tone apparently conveyed his meaning.
"Yes, there's no mistake about it." The speaker added
a sonorous fragment of blasphemy, by way of emphasis.
"And who?"
"Well, it's the worst case-
""
'
8
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
As they approached the entrance to the "Parsonage
they were met by a police-constable, despatched, as he
at once explained, by "Dick the Flatman," the man who
had been stationed with his barrow at the corner.
"It's the very worst case that could have happened,"
reiterated the proprietor of the restaurant, seriously.
"But it's none of the boys' doing, that I'm sure of. Not
one of the boys would have harmed him."
(C
'Well, who is it, Parson?"
"It's H. R. H."
"H.R. H.!" echoed the detective.
"H.R.H.?"
Ah, you didn't know him, continued the other, with
disappointment; "but the constable here will recollect
H.R.H?"
"I've known him, but not to speak to," replied the
constable; I've known him by sight from the first day
I came on this beat; but he was too proud, being down
in the world, even to speak to a policeman."
"Let us see the body," said Detective Erne,
"and
then we'll send to the station. What are the injuries?"
"A strong hand," pronounced the tall, stout man in
shirt sleeves, leading the way into his establishment-
“one stroke, a keen blade—and the head nearly off."
The daylight would have revealed the following in-
scription beneath the first-floor windows of the parsonage,
Lodgings for single men, 4d. per night." Above the
portals would have been decipherable, painted in long,
thin, black characters, the name of the proprietor, this.
rotund person in snowy shirt sleeves, Ewart William
Parson. The angle of the plain doorway was rounded
and tarnished by the constant passage and friction of
rough jackets; the massive door, wide open perennially,
stood close against the wall, securely fastened; in the
light of the double gas jet which projected from one side
of the capacious passage, the rust of decades upon the
#
..
"C
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
9
iron handle of the massive door, and on the iron band
surmounting it, shone dusky red.
Detective Erne and the police-constable stopped to
observe the movements of a huge cat, which, after bound-
ing from a side entrance, had escaped from the caresses
of their guide to sniff at some barely noticeable macula-
tions along the tiled flooring. The stains lay closer to-
gether, near the spot at which the two figures had halted
on emerging from the house. It was not difficult to de-
termine the nature of these marks-they were drops of
blood. The cat lapped at them with horrible delibera-
tion. Driven into the dark street, the animal crouched
upon the footpath not many yards away, in the direction
which had been taken by the retreating figures, and delib-
erately lapped again at the fresh traces of blood its
eyes phosphorescent in the darkness-two phosporescent
points.
$
"An injury !" murmured the police-constable-
"There's been a struggle. Whoever they were, the par-
ties have been hurt.'
">
The proprietor of the establishment expressed both
acquiescence and dissent. "A wound of some sort,
said he, “but not any injury, as the result of a struggle.
"An injury to the left hand," remarked Detective Erne,
tracking the course indicated by the few drops of blood,
"and probably to the back of the hand or the outside of
the fingers. The man walked on this side from the top
of the basement staircase. He was close to the wall, as
you may see from the general line followed by these
stains; and if the marks upon the dingy whitewash are
not slight smears from the hand, brushing against the
wall as the man passed on, I don't know what they can
be, Parson,"
""
"
"It looks as if you're right," assented Mr. Parson, after
a moment's examination. "The first thing I did was to
ring up my clerk, but he doesn't seem to be awake”—he
10
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.«
pulled vigorously at the bell-handle. "But there was not
much injury inflicted, you may depend upon it, as the
result of any struggle." They descended the basement
staircase "H. R. H. was helpless against attack; he
was an invalid." The police-constable muttered that
this fact was new to him. "Ah, you might not have.
been aware of it," resumed the other, "but H. R. H. had
had a paralytic seizure, some time in the past; yes, it
was partial paralysis"--he ended with a brusque gesture
-"along this side."
The staircase led down into a fairly commodious space
paved with stone. A´doorway upon either hand formed
the only visible means of egress, and of these opposite.
entrances the one lying to the right appeared to have
been permanently barred. "I found everything here ex-
actly as you see it," added the proprietor of the establish-
ment, whom aristocratic patrons in quest of low life and
plebeian sport had long ago named, facetiously as was
their way, the Parson of Paradise Parish-"I found, the
door, here, partly open, and the gas turned down, pre-
cisely as you see. He pointed to the entrance upon their
left.
""
In the rays of the constable's lantern it became pos-
sible to distinguish some few larger blood-marks, corre-
sponding to the traces observed upstairs. The three men
crossed the threshold.
They had entered the vast apartment which served as
a common room for all the tenants of Parson's lodging-
house who might happen to be remaining at home out
of their dormitories. The tenants themselves, the friends
who came to see them, the neighbors in Paradise Row,
and the police, usually spoke of this apartment as "the
kitchen ; Mr. Parson termed it the "hall; whilst the
younger among Mr. Parson's aristocratic visitors would
refer to the place, with strange delight at such perversion
of the sense, as "the chapel." Upon three sides of the
""
"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
II
3
A
room, oblong tables stood ranged against the wall.
row of benches had been pushed to the tables; and
hoisted upon the latter, close up to the wall, a further row
of wooden benches formed a sort of third tier in an im-
provised amphitheatre. Over the naked gas jets, the ceil-
ing was blackened in large patches; the gas itself had
been turned low, but the blaze from the still substantial
fire, crackling in an enormous grate, illuminated at least
one-half of the interior.
"Had someone in to-night?" inquired the police-con-
stable, with a glance at the superposed benches.
'Had some swells in," replied Mr. Parson.
looked in to see some sport."
((
The detective knelt beside the figure which lay mo-
tionless in a pool of blood. "Turn up the gas,” said he.
The sudden flood of light disclosed the death-injury in its
fearful extent. The blood had welled forth abundantly
from a gaping wound in the throat. A strong hand in-
deed, and a keen blade! The head was almost severed
from the trunk.
"They call me the Parson," added the proprietor of
the establishment-"but he's past praying for!"
Detective Erne rose to his feet and held a whispered
consultation with his comrade in uniform. The constable
performed a hasty survey of the surroundings, tightened
his belt, and strode towards the stairs.
،،
"As you go by, ring my clerk down," requested Mr.
Parson, with an oath,
him, he's drunk again, I
suppose I am sorry that this has happened in my
house," he continued, as the policeman's footsteps were
heard mounting the basement staircase-"I'm sorry for
it, and I can't explain it. I'd have staked my property.
that H. R. H. was as safe here as you or me. He had
no enemies, but he had no friends.'
""
"They
How did you discover this?" asked Detective Erne.
By chance. When I last saw him alive it was one
12
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
1
?
o'clock. The swells went away at midnight, and H. R. H.,
who had gone out of the house, as he always did
whenever any swells looked in, came back at about half-
past twelve. The boys had mostly cleared off. A few of
them had gone upstairs to bed; some were starting out,
you know, on work; and the swells had taken the rest
along with them to their clubs; I suppose we shall have
them home in a couple of hours, filthy drunk on cham-
pagne and behaving themselves like blackguards." They
heard other footsteps, descending. "Here's my clerk,
by the step; I want to send him for the man who was in
the company of the deceased when I left him at one
o'clock.'
Mr. Parson moved quickly towards the door and passed
out, intercepting the newcomer's approach.
The instruction with which he promptly despatched
his "clerk" was delivered in tones sufficiently loud to
travel to the ears of Detective Erne; the latter, listening
intently, could detect no additional communication.
"What man was that-the man whom you left with
the deceased at one o'clock?" he asked, on the return of
the lodging-house proprietor.
"It was a person of the name of Mardell," said Mr.
Parson.
"Known to me?"
"I think not."
"A lodger?”
"C
Oh, yes.
"What is he?"
""
"Nobody knows.
Nobody asks. You understand
how things are in a poor man's hotel."
"Is he in the house now, do you think?"
Mr. Parson hesitated. "I don't see why he shouldn't
be," he then replied. "Mr. Mardell came upstairs less
than half an hour after I did. I was in my first floor
office, and he passed me on his way to bed.
'Who's
:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
13
downstairs in the hall, Mr. Mardell?' I said. H. R. H.,"
he told me, 'H. R. H. and a couple of gentlemen?' I
said 'Swells?'
Swells?' 'God knows!' said he 'they were
in evening dress. They've just called, and so I left them.
together.' That was all. Well, you know, Mr. Erne, I
never interfere with the business of my lodgers; that's a
rule I make; and although I may have had my personal
curiosity, I thought it time enough to go down presently;
more especially as one of the visitors was waiting in the
'It will be
passage at the head of the basement stairs.
time enough for me to have a look at them,' I thought,
'when I hear the other taking his departure.' Why did
I want to look at them at all, then, you will ask. Only
because it was the first time, to my knowledge, that any-
one ever came here for H. R. H."
"Well?"
"They were gone before I knew of it." The speaker
uttered these words with a gesture of deprecation. "I ·
don't say I hadn't had my share of champagne and brandy
with the swells that were in to-night. Lord Edgbaston
was one of them-Lord Alfred; Lord Hamyncar was
another; there were 'Euchre' Chase, et cetera; and there
were two or three ladies. But, however it happened,
certain it was that both the strangers were off before I
guessed that they had stirred."
Detective Erne pointed with the heavy walking-stick
which he carried to the empty pockets of the deceased.
The pockets had been turned inside out, and so left.
"That's old mother 'ubbard, all that," exclaimed his
reverence, Ewart William Parson, emphatically. "No
regular hand did that."
"It might be, nevertheless," remarked the other, watch-
ing him.
'You may ask me whether I am certain that there
were any visitors in the house at all, after one o'clock,"
resumed Mr. Parson; "no, I am not certain, but I be-
14
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
lieve there were. I believe I could distinguish someone
waiting, as I have told you."
"Could any persons, other than visitors, have quitted
the premises about that time, without your being aware.
of it? "
"No,'
was the prompt answer, with the prompt
addition, “so that, Mr. Erne, you yourself saw two per-
sons leave?
""
""
Isn't it strange, Parson, that they caught you napping,
an old bird like you!"
The sound of footsteps and voices now came to them
from above. The clerk had presumably fulfilled his
errand.
"Granted that you had experienced some sentiment
that we may call curiosity, Parson, was it not strangely
careless, Parson, to allow these distinguished strangers,
incog., to escape?"
((
'Another in my place might have felt no curiosity,"
replied the owner of the common lodging-house. "Come,
Mr. Erne, you understand us, men in my position! There
is nothing in that, sir." The footsteps descended the
staircase. A man brought up to this, as I was not,
would take as little notice of a king or queen if he'd heard
they were visitors here, as of Dick the Flatman at the
corner. Shall these men come in?"
•
Mr. Parson closed the door, awaiting the response.
"Can no one here say anything as to the antecedents
of the deceased?" demanded Detective Erne.
"If not Mr. Mardell, no one.
"Let the men enter.
An exclamation of surprise and horror broke from the
foremost of the newcomers as he advanced within view
of the corpse. His companion, who had started back at
the same instant with an expression of astonishment, re-
covered his composure almost at once; and it was with
a sardonic contortion that seemed to be the smile of his
99
"9
ŵ
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
15
i
physiognomy that the latter of the two, greeted some-
what deferentially by the lodging-house keeper, as "Mr.
Mardell," stood gazing at the ghastly spectacle before their
eyes. The corpse lay extended upon its back, the head
towards the door.
، ،
'They've fallen out true, his words have," ejaculated
Mr. Parson's clerk.
'Coming events!" murmured Mr. Mardell.
"Coming events cast their shadows,-quite so, just so,"
said the detective. "It appears that you can tell us a
great deal about the deceased.'
، ،
"I? You are mistaken, I am afraid," returned Mr.
Mardell, placidly.
"Oh, yes, you can, sir, I feel sure," urged Detective
Erne, equally placid, "try."
"If Mr. Mardell cannot," interposed the landlord of
the common lodging-house, "no one else upon these
premises can. H. R. H. and Mr. Mardell? no one
knew anything about either of them; nobody wanted to
know we're not inquisitive here; but if you ask me as
to H. R. H. and Mr. Mardell, I should say, Mr. Mardell,
that each of you knew something about the other, and
with regard to H. R H.-"
"To begin at the beginning," demanded Detective
Erne, "who was he?"
.16
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
CHAPTER II.
MR. MARDELL, to whom the question was directly ad-
dressed, answered with a gesture rather more French in
its character than English-a shrug of one shoulder, with
an automatic uplifting of the eyebrows. He was a spare
man, of medium height, and his age might have ranged
from forty to forty-five. An ill-trimmed reddish whisker
covered each cheek; the eyes were gray, the regard fixed
and steady; the countenance was lean, pale and fur-
rowed. The few garments which he had assumed in haste
were frayed and shiny from long use,
"Who was he?" repeated Detective Erne. "Come, I
understood that you were acquainted with his antece-
dents."
"Not I!" returned Mr. Mardell. "Antecedents !
Whose antecedents are known here, or are talked of?
Yours, Parson ? Mine? Your own, Mr. Detective Erne ?
—for I recognize you, of course, although I am happy to
believe that I never attracted your professional notice."
"When did the deceased first make his appearance
here?"
"Some ten or twelve months ago," said the landlord.
"About a year after myself," added Mr. Mardell, “I
remember his arrival.'
'What name did he give??
"None," answered the landlord.
"That is, he gave
me some common name-I forget which, at this moment
-of which we had already in the house a dozen or two.
I told him to choose another, and he said he'd do so. But
he never chose one. The boys called him H. R. H. from
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
17
the first evening. He never came to me about his name
afterwards-it didn't matter-and H. R. H. he continued
for us all."
'Had any of you any specific reason for the sobri-
quet ?"
Detective Erne glanced at the dead man's
features.
"Only what you see.
There was a brief pause.
!
""
In the scrutiny which all
alike now levelled at the ensanguined form an identical
reminiscence might perhaps have been divined.
"Age-?"
His real age was less than you would imagine," re-
marked Mr. Mardell. "He told me only to-night that he
was not much over thirty."
"You do know something of the deceased, you see,
said Detective Erne. "Now let us have an explanation
as to the 'coming events.
"""
"What I was thinking of was this," replied Mr. Mar-
dell, without hesitation, "that since the past few weeks
the deceased had seemed to fancy that his life was in
danger. He had expressed these apprehensions more.
than once to me, and, or one occasion, in the presence
of the clerk. At no other time did he ever allude, even
distantly, to his private affairs or to his previous history.
I paid no attention to those fears; at the Parsonage we
live in the midst of them, don't we, Parson, although the
men themselves do keep their own counsel as a rule."
"Don't you stay at the Parsonage any longer than the
company suits you!" observed Mr. Parson in manifest
resentment.
""
The company suits me better than the best," answered
the other with his inattractive smile.
Detective Erne called upon them to complete their
story without delay.
"Guv'nor," began the clerk, a short, thick-set man,
2
18
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
1
with sandy hair and weak eyes. He blinked a good deal,
and held on to the door.
His employer silenced him with an objurgation, an em-
phatic committal to the bottomless pit. "I left H. R. H.
here, in this hall, at one o'clock," then repeated the Par-
son, “he was in the company of Mr. Mardell.”
•
"What happened between one o'clock and the time at
which you yourself quitted him?" demanded the detec-
tive, turning to Mardell.
"The deceased and I remained talking together for
about twenty minutes," was the reply. "When I både
him good-night he was seated by the fire with his back.
towards the door. At the top of the stairs I found two
gentlemen who had just walked in from the street. One
of them inquired for the deceased."
How-inquired for him? By name, or by descrip-
((
tion?"
"By the usual sobriquet, H. R. H., in the ordinary way
of an inquiry here. Of course, I understand your point,
and I want to aid you as far as possible.
The inquiry
was not whether we had any person here known by this
name or that, but whether H. R. H.' was that moment
downstairs. My answer was what it was bound to be.
I continued on my way upstairs, and the visitor came
down here. I heard him descending the staircase-alone,
I should say. The other, presumably, remained upstairs."
"Could you identify either?"
"No."
""
✓
"What do you remember as details in their attire or
personal appearance?"
(C
Only that they were in evening dress, and wore var-
nished boots or shoes. The one who did not speak stood
with his face away from me, opening and closing his
opera-hat. I had no reason whatever for taking note of
either of them. The one who spoke had a thick dark
beard and moustache. He drawled slightly, and I re-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
19
But
member now thinking that the drawl was affected.
none of all this concerned me; I directed him, and on
my way past the Parson's office, I just mentioned that
H. R. H. had callers.
""
The Parson stooped to examine the corpse more closely.
"Never mind the injuries, and don't disturb the body,"
said Detective Erne. "We shall have the surgeon round
presently. Here are some of your lodgers," he went on,
as the sound of several persons descending the wooden
staircase reached their ears- -“Keep them outside.”
"If you ask me the meaning of my comment, just
now," volunteered Mardell, "Coming events,' and so
forth, all I can say is that it referred to the misgivings
which the deceased had latterly indulged in, and which
I myself had attributed to hypochondriasis, and nothing.
more. There was no reason why I should have connected
this visit, or any of its circumstances with the misgivings,
or the depression, to which, as I tell you, the deceased
would give way.". The speaker hesitated, as a few rough
faces peered into the room, and a group assembled at the
doorway. I paid no attention to those fears," he then
resumed, "because I believed that he was imagining
dangers of an absurd character-danger to his life through
residence in this house, amongst us-danger from one of
us here, perhaps." He glanced towards the stolid faces
at the threshold, and his countenance went all awry again,
with his extraordinary smile.
((
“Guvʼnor—," murmured the clerk, hiccoughing.
"Ah, we'll come to you in a moment," said Detective
Erne.
"It's my guv'nor that I'm a-talking to," retorted the
clerk, feebly, "not you, nor nobody else; my guv'nor."
"I'll sack you,
-you," returned the Parson. "Who's
made him drunk this time?"
"Keep order, boys, expostulated the clerk, as the door
swayed with him, and he stumbled. "Stand back!"
20
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
The unbidden knot of witnesses listened and looked on
with the absolute vacuity of expression which diplomatists
everywhere are said to prize and strive after, but which
would seem to belong to the average town-bred Briton as
his special accomplishment, resource, or gift. On an
emergency, it wrappeth the Briton round like a cloak.
The intelligent' foreigner, deriving much pleasure and
comfort from the exercise and the manifestation of his
own personal intelligence, is usually misled by this phe-
nomenon, and not unfrequently deluded. Each of the
men now stationed at the doorway, doubtless knew that
he, as well as others, must from this night lie under the
onus of a new suspicion; some there must have been in
whose minds rose up deeds enough to blacken them all,
but side by side with evidence hitherto inconclusive.
More than one there may have been whose mental vision
at this instant penetrated repositories of secrets under
lock and key, upstairs; secrets impossible to destroy,、
and hazardous to part with.
"I can tell you something, guv'nor," persisted the
clerk. "It was very likely me that told the gentleman
the name-it was me, I know it." Clutching the door
with his left hand, he extended his right arm in a ludicrous
gesture of entreaty. "Ah, guv'nor, don't you get rid of
me 'Him?' I says-'Why, that's H. R. H. !'"
The effect produced upon three of his auditors by these
closing words emboldened the clerk to harangue his em-
ployer upon the subject of long and faithful service, and
on the recompenses meet for trustworthiness and unflinch-
ing sobriety. No further utterance at all pertinent to the
fate of the deceased could be extracted from him, until
Mr. Parson, suddenly losing patience, submerged the
temperate and devoted servant in a flood of vituperation
and menace. Detective Erne, however, having arrived
at an indication which, though slight, might develop
into a clue, endeavored to secure the sequel for a private
¦
t
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
21
hearing. All this could come out, said he, at the proper
time and place. Parson and the two others would be
cited as witnesses at the inquest on the body; and the
clerk would do well to attend before the coroner in a fit
condition; upon which the clerk demanded tearfully to
be haled before the coroner's tribunal at once.
By his
honor and worship, the coroner, he should be treated with
the integrity and self-respect withheld from him by a
master whom he had served faithfully for years and for
months, and for small wages. He should say to his
honor and worship that the fax of the case were these,
that, "at the Parsonage, the well-known fourpenny-house
off the Dials, he himself was the clerk, on long spells of
hours, and could throw no light on this unfortnit event ;
barring one day, when a stranger, wearing a fur collar
and a dymond stud, not at all the gentleman, come walk-
ing home with H. R. H., and went down into the kitchen
and sat with him, and afterwards, on going out, arksed
who he was, and crossed the clerk's palm.”
"When was this?"
"It was a fortnit ago, the day I remember well, by the
same reason that Warm Isaac here come out of Milbank
on the very next day, and wanted a start.
"Try to refresh your memory as to the appearance of
that man," hazarded the detective. "You will be ques-
tioned about him at the coroner's inquest.
"" 1
""
"Refresh!" the speaker hiccoughed scorn of the impu-
țation, and held on with both hands as the door swerved
violently. "No! not me. Me refresh? You'll believe
that of me, guv'nor, but it ain't true. A man can get tired,
I sh' think, can't he? You're a hard master to me, guv-
'nor, sometimes, but I serve you well; ne'er a fourpence
wrong, and when a man gets tired, he wants a wink of
sleep-a wink of sleep, and all's well.
What do you say,
Isaac?"
<<
'Come," urged the Parson, anxiously, "that man, the
22
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
one who was with H. R. H. a fortnight ago-quite the
gentleman, you say?"
"Him? No, guv'nor. Fur, patent leathers, and dy-
mond. Neither a gentleman nor a gonoph, a mug that
was trying it on, and a trying it on with me! Oh, dear
-well, well! With me, what should you think Isaac ?"
"Was he like any of us here, now?" demanded the
Parson.
“No, he wasn't, guv'nor; because none of us here now
wears a beard and a moustache like a cracksman's bit of
black cloth slipped down. He says to me as he was going
out, me being at the desk side of the passage, having a
cup of tea and water-cresses, which'll let you know the
hour-'Here's something for yourself,' he says, 'be kind
to my friend downstairs.' 'Who's that?' says I to him,
'although, there being nobody but them two about, of
course, I didn't need telling.' 'The gentleman I come in
with,' he says, 'the aristocratic-looking chap that's had a
stroke.' 'Oh, I know who you mean,' I says. You don't
—for a sovereign,' he says—'now come ! it's a sovereign
to a shilling, for a bit of sport, you don't!' Ha ha! To
try it on with me!"
The proprietor of the lodging-house turned to Mr. Mar-
dell. "Did you ever hear of this before?" he asked.
"Did the deceased ever allude to any such visit?"
"Never, never!" was the reply.
"Make it two sovereigns,?" I says, continued the
clerk, lurching from the door to the nearest angle formed
by the wooden benches, "make it two sovereigns to two
shillings and I'll have a go.' And he did. 'It's H. R. H.,'
I says, 'that's who it is-and that's what you want to
know!' 'I don't deny it,' he says, and over he hands the
money. But what's the name that his letters come in?'
'I'll throw that in,' I says, 'he don't have any.' 'I'm
going away to-morrow,' he says, 'and perhaps shan't be
back in England for three or four years; but be kind to
S
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
23
'We've
-name
my friend, be kind to him and take care of him.
got no favorites here,' I says, 'and I can't; but as you're
his friend, perhaps you'll tell us what the-his-
is ?' 'I'd better not,' he says, 'there's some people that
are looking for him. He's been mixing himself up with
politics abroad, you see, and I daresay he keeps himself
quiet; he don't take his walks very far, I daresay?' Per-
haps he do,' I says, 'and perhaps he don't.' I've met him
this afternoon,' he says, 'in St. James's Park, and that's
how I've come across him. You take care of H. R. H.,
and you'll be making friends with me and mine.' And
with that he went."
"It's a long story you've told," said the Parson, you
may have to swear to it, you know."
"I won't swear to it, guv'nor, but it's true."
<<
Did you make any allusion to the matter at any time
to H. R. H. ?”
"C
"Only once, guv'nor, and that was the next day, by the
same reason that I arksed him for a bit of silver with the
rest of us, to start Warm Isaac." The speaker sank down
upon the bench, and lolled his head in the direction of the
enigmatical group assembled at the threshold.
A beetle-browed, cadaverous youth nodded in response
to the appeal.
'And it was a lie," the clerk continued, "H. R. H.,
hadn't been inside St. James's Park at all. 'Make it double,
I says, when he put his name down for Warm Isaac,
'you'll meet your friend again in St. James's Park.' It was
then he told me. 'Well, he'll come back here with a bit
Xx
of money for you, then,' I says. "If he comes back here,
he says, 'it'll very likely be to take my life. It'll happen
in a year or two. They won't believe me; they're afraid,
and they'll take my life.""
A measured tramp of footsteps entering from the street
and passing overhead, threw the concourse of listeners
around the basement doorway into a state of singular
:
24
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Jan
commotion. One of the conspicuous members of the
group slid out of sight, and others evinced a sudden eager-
ness to resume their interrupted slumbers. "Bring the
man back," commanded Detective Erne; "you've not
been allowed to stand by for nothing, my lads. No one
stirs until the search is over." A short, elderly gentleman.
attired in a pair of old boots and a dilapidated overcoat,
stepped up to the detective with a confidential air, and
begged pathetically for consideration to his advanced
years and his treacherous health. "I want to go to bed,"
pleaded the poor old gentleman, piteously; "These late
hours are my ruin." "There's nothing against me, sir,"
protested in a frank, outspoken manner, a type of blue-
eyed, yellow-haired, rosy-cheeked, adolescence-"there's
nothing left against me, Mr. Erne, sir; can't I go?” A
peremptory refusal met them both, and met all similar
requests from their companions.
In the new situation thus suddenly created, it seemed
as though the presence of Death had been forgotten, or
was despised. The glazing blood of a murdered fellow-
creature glistened and darkened horribly beneath the
fierce light of the flaming gas. A heedless movement by
the foremost of the band, antagonists of society as well
as its flotsam and jetsam, and clots of the congealing red
patch, under the forked flame, would have stamped the
impress elsewhere of a naked foot or a nail-studded heel,
and elsewhere would have registered the claim of blood
crying for just vengeance. A trunk almost decapitated;
a crimson wound partly hidden by a matted and discol
ored beard; bareheaded and exsanguious: the corpse
lay unregarded, its upturned, prominent, wide-open eyes
fixed on someone beyond-on someone just now, with
vacillating head and vacant grin. The clerk returned the
stare.
Ordering the men to stand back, and aided by a police-
sergeant who had descended the staircase, Detective
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
25
Erne drew one of the stout benches across the floor in
guise of barrier.
"How long have we got to wait down here?" de-
manded a square-jawed, deep-chested ruffian savagely,
"I'd like to know who's got this up for us !”
"I've my work to go to every morning early," growled
another, in corduroys and a blue woolen jersey, his neck
encircled with a white linen scarf, "I've got a bit of work
in the new streets over the water, and they won't let me
go upstairs to put my clothes on. How's a man to get
his living?"
"They stop a man from his work, and they make a
thief of him theirselves."
"I'm if I do go to my work. You're trying to keep
your wife and children from the rates; you get a bit of
work; and the coppers get you fined for being late.
And when you are fined, what's left? I'm if I go at all.
'Ere, Mr Erne, can't I even go out into the streets?"
'Pass no remarks, my lads," replied the detective,
cheerily. "I'm sorry for you, but it's got to be done."
The elderly gentleman whose habiliments consisted of
a winter overcoat and a pair of boots, approached once
more with heightened persuasiveness of mien.
"'I pre-
sume," said he, "that the constabulary are engaged in the
prosecution of an efficient search? A search of the prem-
ises? An excellent precaution; but, oh dear me, what
a time it will take!" He successfully imitated a subdued
but wheezing cough. "Oh, dear, dear! If I had but
something warm about me, and the evening paper!"
"You've got me and Isaac, ain't that warm enough?"
asked the curly-haired, rosy-cheeked, bright blue-eyed
boy. "Me and Isaac," he repeated, as a neighbor burst
into a gruff laugh, "ain't we warm enough for you, old
Kidbury?"
"Youth is light-hearted ever!" sighed the old gentle-
man. "Blest privilege of youth! Oh, dear, dear-these
26
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
late hours are my death.
Whilst the search progresses,
sergeant, I'll just step upstairs for a copy of a periodical."
He shambled towards the door. The cadaverous young
man addressed as Isaac picked his pocket of a folded
journal, and held out the paper with the title displayed,
Here's the usual, Old Kidd," said the young man. It
was the Christian Cry. "But you haven't got your
spectacles."
"No more I have, Isaac, no more I have?" exclaimed
the old gentleman, urbanely. "I'll just step upstairs for
my spectacles, I will, and then, Isaac, all will be well."
A renewed rebuff, however, awaited him from the con-
stables posted in the basement staircase. There was
nothing for him to do but retrace his steps.
"You're a bad judge to-night, old Kidbury," murmured
Isaac, in the character of jesting friend. "There's some-
thing in my own box, too, that I'd like to throw away,
but I am not agoing to 'show' to him." The other re-
sponded with a parental pleasantry followed by a renewed
attack of the wheezing cough. He retreated to a resting-
place at the rear of his fellow-lodgers, disappearing there-
from presently for a couch on the uncomfortable floor, out
of general observation, under one of the long tables.
The clerk was lapsing into a state of somnolency, in-
duced no doubt by his unaccustomed mnemonic effort.
'Don't you get rid of me, guv'nor" he purred, with a
benign smile. "Served you well and fai'f'lly, I have;
ne'er a fourpence wrong.
((
""
As for the further details elicited, the clerk's description
of the mysterious visitor, who had hinted darkly at the
perils to be feared from a participation in "foreign poli-
tics" had tallied so far with the few vague notes furnished
by Mardell. The man who had sought this interview
with H. R. H. to-night, was presumably the man who had
returned with the deceased, late in the afternoon, a fort-
night ago. He was of the medium height, and power-
FA
+
}
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
27
fully built.
He wore a thick, black moustache and beard;
his complexion was embrowned, perhaps by art, perhaps.
by travel; and his manner of speaking implied either the
affectation of familiarity with high social spheres, or the
endeavor to disguise his own natural voice-to judge
from the clerk's attempt at mimicry, it must have been
the "peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkeyfied pro-
nunciation" which as a great chronicler has pointed out,
says "cage" for "carriage" and for "time," "taim."
No means whatever existed for ascertaining the circum-
stances under which this man and the deceased had
met upon the day in question, a fortnight ago. Indeed,
there was no reason why anything should ever be known
about any of the Parsonage tenants who did not choose
to obtrude their personality. None of them at the Parson-
age would want to know anything about the rest, if they
were strangers. The man who talked about his own
affairs would be roughly taught to respect the obligations
of a life in common. The boys were at home when they
were at the Parsonage, and when the boys were at home,
the last topics to which they ordinarily wished to hear
any reference were those that concerned the interests of
other people. Nor might the Parson himself transgress
the boundaries of a special etiquette imposed upon him
by the delicacy of his position. It was his business to
receive fourpences in exchange for accommodation ap-
proved of by the sanitary inspectors, and not unsatisfac-
tory to the lodger; beyond that it was his business to
know nothing; and in order to arrive at this convenient.
result, securing stability in these relations, the Parson.
forgot a good deal.
One piece of information, however, there was, which
could be communicated freely. The payments of the de-
ceased were made, not by day; week, or month, but quarter-
ly, in advance. Within the week ensuing upon quarter-day,
the deceased would place in the hands of Mr. Ewart Par-
28
THE NIGHT OF THE 3à ULT.
:
son a sum of money more than sufficing for the whole of
his expenses during the three months then to follow. Mr.
Parson had thus acted, to some extent, as his banker ;
and a balance in favor of the deceased would at the
present time be found upon the books upstairs. It was
scarcely conceivable, thought Mr. Parson, that robbery
should have formed the motive of the crime; unless the
criminals could suppose, or could know, that the de-
ceased was in possession of concealed valuables-objects
of great price, perhaps, articles of so great a value, perhaps,
that the deceased dared not avow their ownership, or, it
might be, property of a nature specifically compromising
to the custodian.
The deceased went out very little; but as no one could
say that any missives had ever been delivered at the Par-
sonage for H. R. H., the inference necessary appeared to
be that, on or about each quarter-day, he had attended at
some place or another in person, to receive some fixed
allowance of money. This conjecture Mr. Parson con-
fided in an undertone to Detective Erne, the latter accept-
ing the suggestion with a very successful simulation of
official negligence and superiority.
A hasty step overhead, voices heard in brief colloquy,
and a slight stir among the knot of the desperadoes,
paupers, and latter-day Alsatians, at the foot of the
stairs, heralded the approach of the divisional surgeon.
"On your word, Parson," abruptly whispered Detec-
tive Erne, "what are the daily habits of the man Mar-
dell?"
"Goes out every morning early, comes back every
evening late," was the prompt answer, "and on my
word, I know no more."
"Pays?"
"When he can-by the week, by the ten days, when
he can always pays up in the end."
>>
"Visitors or letters?
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
29
}
"None."
...
'Any of the boys in arrears just now?'
"Not one; except among the thieves, and that nothing
to speak of. You know what it is with the thieves-a bit
irregular with their money, but always paying their way,
and something over.
In company with the divisional surgeon entered a con-
stable, to report upon a variety of interesting discoveries.
in the upper premises.
The first faint rays of the dawn, tremulous visitants at
the improvised and heated theatre of a black night's
tragedy, were entering, too. Pioneers of a new day, and
of light, in their sure but imperceptible descent, they
glimmered upon the iron-barred basement and revealed
its cavernous recess. They touched on the rough iron
bars softly, and they glided through. They paled the
windows, deep, and, from without, almost invisible; at
each grimed glass pane, sightless for what happened
here, they seemed to halt. Later, as the morning grew
more luminous, and the sky less delicately rose, the
dawn would leave its dim blue pallor upon the upturned.
face that lay in the shallow dark pool, the repository of a
secret.
"
""
Elsewhere the dawn was breaking over sweet perfumed
meadows, fair gardens, and fresh glades, gemmed like
the vanished canopy of stars. And, elsewhere, by the
break of day, stood denounced the second of the crimes
that marked this night.
30
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
CHAPTER III.
SIR SYDNEY CHARD, M. P., founder of the house of Chard
& Urwen, dealers in woolen fabrics, Gresham Street, E. C.,
had entered the House of Commons as an independent
member, backed up by more than ordinary wealth, and
by more than average personal obstinacy. He had sub-
mitted to the honor of knighthood as to an insufficient
reward for that species of egotistical obtrusiveness which
friends, flatterers, and dependents describe as zeal in the
service of the community. Sir Sydney was one of those
men who " come forward with great public spirit"; he
had often come forward. That by coming forward he
had achieved very much that would be regarded as of real
general utility was not by any means clear to persons
other than his friends, flatterers, and dependents; nor was
it certain that any time his fellow-citizens had impera-
tively needed any exhibitions or assurances of his public
spirit. He approved heartily, however, of subscription-
lists, and he put his name down on them early. Also,
was he frequently to be found identified with the most
admirable movements due to the initiative of somebody
else; and he certainly did love assertive grievances with
all the force of an assertive. character.
""
People said of Sir Sydney that he made good speechés,
and from his manner of delivering such "few words as
might beseem the occasion, it was plain that Sir Sydney
thought so, too. The excellence of his oratory consisted
in unfailing command over subject-matter that was appar-
ently pertinent, taste in the ornamentation of perfunctory
platitude, and, if the term may be permitted, a perora-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
31
""
tional vigor of both tone and style. His associates in
the city extolled him as a good man for an "unveiling,
a good man for the "chair," an excellent man for deputa-
tions to a Cabinet Minister, or for argumentative ha-
rangues, upon short notice, to turbulent, hungry, and
amendment-moving shareholders. From Sir Sydney's
lips, the loyal toasts at the Guildhall Tavern sounded like
original compositions, whilst the discourse in which at a
Mansion House banquet of considerable solemnity, Sir
Sydney Chard, M.P., once proposed "The Health of the
Ladies," had attracted the notice of the newspaper
reporters themselves, and had secured phenomenal men-
tion, the following day, in print. As an independent
member of the House of Commons, he was well under-
stood to be quite willing, upon such provocations as un-
satisfactory answers from the Treasury bench, to move
the adjournment during question-time, on any of the
Government days.
齐
​It was in connection with a civic ceremonial distin-
guished by the presence of royalty that Sir Sydney had
been created knight. His dependents in the city viewed
their reflected honor with a certain disdain, arising chiefly
from their own asseverations at large that the dignity of
knighthood had already been more than once proffered
and rejected. Sir Sydney himself had heard of these
refusals from so many quarters at so many different times,
that although there was no foundation for the rumor, he,
too, had ended by, to some extent, believing it. And,
having arrived at the conclusion that his public services
would be but inadequately requited by the bestowal of
a dignity which was conferred upon musicians and alder-
men, it was not unnatural that, when the occasion at
length drew near, he should have been perfectly prepared
to acquiesce in the bestowal of a baronetcy, and perfectly
resolved to be in' no way surprised at a life peerage.
Under these circumstances, the honor of knighthood
32
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
devolved upon the senior partner in the house of Chard &
Urwen more as an instalment than as the reward. The
honor and dignity of knighthood was perhaps never so
little prized in Gresham Street. At the same time, he
could not but remember that he was an elderly widower
who contemplated remarriage. Undeniably, therefore,
it did occur to him that appeals to the affectionate respon-
siveness of the beautiful second spouse he dreamed of;
the idol whom he sought, would invest themselves with
the more substantial chances of success in proportion as
they might be weighted with appeals to her material.
interest and her vanity.
Governor of a metropolitan hospital, and deputy-chair-
man of a national bank, Sir Sydney Chard had seemed at
one period to have entered upon the road that leads to
civic pre-eminence. Before the creation of the London
County Council, deputations of his fellow-citizens had
again and again 'approached him with a view to ensure
the representation of their ward by "so public-spirited a
man." This distinction he had invariably declined;
alleging his own unworthiness; the true reason having
been, at first, a shrewd reluctance to identify himself with
a system of local government that he perceived to be
moribund, and, afterwards, a preference for far larger
questions, and for a different atmosphere. His friends
still persist in nominating him for return to the London
County Council, but he still refuses to stand. From the
outset of his political career, as he would tell you himself,
Sir Sydney has consistently preferred the House of Com-
mons; and, in the face of current sneers as to the vestry-
dom of this assemblage, to say nothing of the popular
contempt earned by its occasional proceedings, he takes
some credit to himself for such an avowal of his prefer-
ences.
He went into the House of Commons as an independ-
ent member with advanced views in unexpected directions.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
33
*
His opinions upon topics which were usually included
among the "fads" of both sides would be not infrequently
dismissed by faddists upon each side as crude in the ex-
treme, backward, immature, although such as dealt with.
sociological problems would be found very often, when
compared with the net outcome of much specific faddist
terminology, to coincide with abundance of the theory
declaimed almost by rote by the fad-philosophers them-
selves. The women's-righters claimed him as their own.
But he would have conceded to women something more
than they have ever asked to enjoy. He thought that
women were led in chains; he thought that for a woman
to sink her own name when she contracted the bond of
matrimony alone constituted a gross outrage upon individ-
ual freedom-outrage coupled with insult; the husband's
patronymic forming the stigma of the wife.
He had put
down notice of a motion upon this subject, and intended
to deliver a great speech from his place in the House of
Commons. The name of Sir Sydney Chard was held in
high esteem by spinster ladies who supported resolutions
from the platform of St. James's Hall. And so many nice
girls in society pined for introductions to that dear Sir
Sydney, with his sensible ideas, his gray hair, and his
prodigious wealth, that only his habitual determination
to follow his own bent, stubbornly, could have rescued
him from their agreeable wiles-the artless wiles of sweet
and fond, or proud and very lofty, young things who
'sicken inwardly after an old gentleman's fortune. Gladys,
Hermione, Edwina, Eglantine, fair Inez-all felt quite
sure they could be happy with Sir Sydney. They would
have loved to hear him talk forever upon the feminine
right to an illimitable freedom, and upon girls' rights, and
upon the compensation due from man for past ages of a
barbarous enslavement. No girl, when she married,
should be led in chains. How they would have loved
to help him put in practice these exemplary ideas? How
►
3
34
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
i.
admirably they could have played Enfranchised Lady
Chard! Which of them was there who, all considerations.
weighed, would not gladly have passed a lifetime with
Sir Sydney that is to say, the duration of his own re-
maining lifetime, not of theirs! As for the mammas
without marriageable daughters, some of them felt sorry
for Sir Sydney; others doubted the sincerity of his utter-
ances. They well knew, the mammas, which of the two
parties to the holy state of matrimony had from time
immemorial gone in chains; and when they saw the in-
dependent Woman's Righter, M. P., haranguing a serious
group of spinster reformers in a drawing room, these mar-
ried ladies might possibly have been detected smiling in
their sleeves, had any such superfluous appendages to the
evening apparel of their sex adorned their matronal robes.
Sir Sydney had undergone a couple of defeats before he
obtained his return to the House of Commons, but the
majority which, as a matter of fact, he did eventually
conquer, proved overwhelming. It had been to his inde-
pendence of political party that he had owed his discom-
fitures, he said, and he meant to "try again until he
triumphed." When next he made his effort it was pre-
dicted for him by the electioneering agents who came
down to aid his two competitors that he would
(( once
more vainly woo the suffrages of the electors." Few
persons are not more confident prophets than electioneer-
ing agents, and on the whole, perhaps there are not many
persons who are more generally wrong. The provincial
constituency selected by Sir Sydney for his third essay
had for some time past looked jealously upon the reputa-
tion of a neighboring borough for readiness to thwart
party managers. It had also opposed the application of
some salutary measures of hygiene, newly voted by
Imperial Parliament, its opposition having been charac-
terized by the almost intractable obduration visible in bad
causes. Sir Sydney, too, had spent so very much money,
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
35
in various ways, upon his previous contests that he was
determined to lay out a still larger sum again; and, the
Radical candidate having been helped on by a copious
recommendatory letter from the party chief, whilst the
Conservatives despatched American duchesses to call
upon the poor people, nine-tenths of the electorate
plumped for his opponent Chard. Sir Sydney went into
the House of Commons an independent member—indeed,
the possessor of an enviable independence. As an obsti-
nate man he had been well fitted with an obstinate con-
stituency.
Sir Sydney Chard, M. P., had risen quickly from an
obscure position, but, unlike many men of commerce who
are self-made, he never manifested the least intolerance
of endeavors among his dependents or employees to
make their fortunes in their turns. From his partner, Mr.
Urwen, for instance, he differed in this respect altogether.
Not a single member of the Urwen family could endure
the notion that a servant of theirs, or one of papa's clerks
in Gresham Street, could be at any time nourishing the
hopes and aims to which Mr. Urwen himself had owed
his substantial affluence. Mr. Urwen's union with the
poor and distant cousin of a peer had been blessed with
four daughters and three sons. The cousin had developed
from a plain, practical, and rather amiable young lady, into
a commanding and unreasonable dame, who apparently
strove to prove herself an irksome wife. Although with
her own branch of the family, the peer in question was
well known to be not on speaking terms, she had always
acted since her marriage to the self-made city man, Mr.
Urwen, as if the noble lord's eye were incessantly upon
her, judging the dignity with which she sustained her
partrician relationship. She, accordingly, spoilt her chil-
dren, bored her husband, and rendered her husband odious
to her husband's friends.
Whereas the Urwen family were forced by their preten-
36
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
sions to maintain an outward show quite equal to their
means, Sir Sydney's tastes as well as his domestic circum-
stances, restricted him to a train of life less fashionable,
and comparatively modest. Mrs. Urwen, who required
to be kept in state and magnificence, had almost ceased
to be at home for her husband's old friends and partner
as for various other opulent folk "out of those horrid
warehouses"; and it was a city jest against her husband,
which from his intimates he took in unexceptionable good
humor, that she had almost ceased to be at home to Mr.
Urwen himself. Her sons were to espouse heiresses;
her daughters were to bestow their hands upon the nicest
of rich men. She entertained no doubt that all the best
things were in store for all of them, and, as a consequence
of these fine lessons and of the example daily before their
view, none of her children had learnt that it was neces-
sary to deserve anything.
The four Misses Urwen were highly distinguished and
good-looking damsels, in two markedly different styles.
They seemed to pair like inseparable twins. No man
could have carried off either sister from either pair without
feeling that he was inflicting upon the survivor an irreme-
diable wrong; although, to judge by certain of their utter-
ances, the sisters appeared far too well satisfied with them-
selves alone, to be ever half-satisfied with any species of
matrimonial suitor that could be produced. As a matter
of fact, the right description of eligible personage could
no sooner dawn on their horizon than, in their two dif-
ferent manners, all the four sisters became strategetically
competitive. From their combined and separate assaults,
Sir Sydney had defended his life and home with the
utmost gallantry. Two of them were craving to make an
arch and girlish sort of Lady Chard, pretty and impulsive
with baby mouths and big round eyes; and with a secret
desperation, the same advantage was contested by the
other two, in the style of coldness and of queenliness, the
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
37
style of a remote and proud immaculacy, whose shoe
not any man, neither Tom nor John, nor one that cometh
after, mightier, could be found worthy to unloose. Should
either of these fair sisters eventually prosper in her design
upon Sir Sydney's life, home and purse, she would become
the aunt of a very earnest and attractive young lady of
about her own age, Miss Ida Chard.
Of Mr. Urwen's sons, the eldest, Raymond, had already
to his full contentment disposed of Miss Ida Chard. Sir
Sydney was to make her his heiress, and the eldest son
of Sir Sydney's junior was to make her his wife.
She was
now very near the attainment of her majority, and her
uncle was known to be intending to endow the young
lady handsomely as soon as she should have completed
her twenty-first year. Raymond Urwen had latterly re-
doubled in his rather overbearing attentions towards Sir
Sydney's niece. That those attentions should be promptly
followed by the marriage that might lead to his own ulti-
mate absorption of Sir Sydney's interest in the firm, struck
Mr. Raymond Urwen as the most natural piece of sequence
in the world. He had ordinarily passed for a keen young
man of business-keen and lavish in the pursuit of pleasure.
At twenty-four he had won and lost a great deal of money,
and looked almost forty-two. He attended at the Gresh-
am Street offices of Chard & Urwen with the most scru-
pulous and watchful regularity, but he possessed no status
in the firm, and his presence had never been needed.
His aversion for the gentleman next in authority after the
two partners, viz., Sydney's protege, young Mr. Lester
Brand, who was at present manager of the house, had
dated from the commencement of his own attentions
towards the future heiress, Miss Ida Chard.
As Sir Sydney's only remaining relative, Ida, the sole
child of his younger brother, might well have indulged in
the most flattering expectations. But if there was one
person whom the question of Miss Ida's prospects inter-
+3
38
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ested not at all that person was Miss Ida herself. She
was the most unworldly girl that ever Mr. Raymond
Urwen had seen or heard of-heard of, that is, among
people who really lived. He did not know that she could
be one of the proudest also, and, on occasion, one of the
most resolute and unsparing. She was too beautiful,
too penetrating, and, in a silent way, too frequently scorn-
ful of all that was not poverty, religion, or simplicity, to
form numerous friendships among any but the infirm or
elderly members of her sex. She was at the same time
too diffident and self-depreciatory to please many of the
most infirm and ancient members of her own sex, aware
much more truly of the value of them all. The male
visitors at Oakdene, Sir Sydney's Wimbledon residence,
suspected her in general of affectation. Her father had
struggled through life an unsuccessful man, repeatedly
sacrificing his interest to the loftier standards of principle
and independence, and continually embroiled thereby
with the more practical Sir Sydney. When her father died,
necessitous, prematuredly aged, but to the end accepting
help from no one, unenvious, oblivious to all injury, and
unmoved in his adherence to moral ideals, the young
girl thought that the noblest man the whole world con-
tained had gone from it. If he had succeeded she would
have revered him less.
On the afternoon of June 4, the meeting between Sir
Sydney and his niece was obviously marked by a painful
heightening in the constraint which had latterly sprung up
on either side. During the four years of their residence
under the same roof, their relations had, until latterly,
offered an unchanging spectacle of mutual and cordial
affection and esteem. To-day, as usual, the young lady
had driven her pony carriage to the station to meet Sir
Sydney upon his early return from town. It would have
been impossible for either of them, perhaps, to put into
words the reason for the sudden dumbness which seized
契
​THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ÚLT.
3d
39
them at their greeting. Miss Ida was the first to shake
off the embarrassing spell, and their frequent salutations
with neighbors or acquaintances encountered on their
route rendered the task less manifestly enforced.
"I had a long talk with Raymond," began Sir Sydney.
The remark was aimless enough, but it may have sounded
to Miss Ida like an ominous prelude. "I have seen very
little of him in the city for some time," continued her
uncle, but that has been principally due to my own.
absences. To-day we had quite a long talk.”
< (
Start
The young lady made no answer.
"He has excellent business qualities, I think," resumed
Sir Sydney; "I think he is well fitted for success in
business."
"His sisters are at Oakdene," said the young lady.
"They arrived just before lunch.”
""
They had better stay with us a few days. Raymond
will join us at dinner this evening; his father canno
leave town."
There was a brief silence. "I am sorry Mr. Urwen
cannot be with us," then continued Miss Ida, exerting
herself anew.
"He is detained in town upon a matter in which we
are both concerned," said Sir Sydney, his face darkening.
"Both?"
"He and I—both partners, I mean-although I might
indeed, say that we are all concerned in it." He checked
himself, and then announced hurriedly, in what appeared
to be a tone of intentional significance "Nor are we to
expect Mr. Brand."
A g
The young lady acquiesced with a slight gesture, but
with a slowly deepening color. They drove on for
several moments in fresh silence.
"And I think it would be as well," pronounced Sir
Sydney, ignoring the cause, and uttering his words with.
a measured gravity, "after occurrences which have been
:
A
40
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
brought to my knowledge to-day, I think it would be as
well that Lester's absence should pass totally unremarked.
So far as we ourselves can control that matter, I should
wish that no reference whatever be made to him.'
That would be hardly possible," returned Miss Ida
quietly; "he is so well known to the whole of your guests.
""
}).
They turned into the high-road from which Oakdene
stood back, the model of a suburban mansion, half hidden
by an apparently boundless park.
"Tell me," appealed the young girl, suddenly, in a low
voice," what has happened?"
"You are interested in him?”
She bent her clear gray eyes upon Sir Sydney's com-
pressed mouth and frowning brow. Her looks said frank-
ly "Yes."
Why have you concealed it from me?" Sir Sydney
repeated the question with greater distinctness, as if
determined not to perceive its preposterous character.
"I hope, most sincerely," he went on-"I trust with all
my heart that your own faith may not have been misplaced,
as mine has proved.'
??
<<
، ،
“Oh, how can you speak in this way of him in his
absence! I won't listen. It is unfair—it is wrong!"
'Of course your will dispose of your future as you may
think proper. I can exercise no authority over you, and
shall not attempt to do so. I do not know what corre-
spondence you may have carried on with Lester Brand;
if any, I must beg you to suspend your correspondence
while you remain in my house.
""
"I will leave your house, Uncle Sydney."
"That is nonsense. You will not leave my house, it is
your home, and you are its absolute mistress. But, pray,
consult my wishes upon this particular subject. Beyond
that I have nothing to add, except that I am quite aware
you would be incapable of anything clandestine. I think
that my own complete confidence in you, Ida, as well as
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
41
my strong affection for you-and no influence can ever
diminish that affection"-he paused, and repeated the
words more deliberately-"no influence whatever can
diminish that affection and confidence-should at once win.
your obedience to my wishes. They are reasonable, as you
well know, my child; they are prompted in the interests
of our personal and permanent welfare. I do not exact
your obedience, I desire to win it. Your first impulse,
as a woman, is probably to, thwart my wishes?”
"Was every woman in this humor won!" said Miss
Ida, softly. She smiled, but in her eyes there were tears.
They neared the lodge-gates of Oakdene.
"Is it understood?" demanded Sir Sydney, relaxing
somewhat in the severity of his expression, a severity
which indeed accorded ill with the bridegroom radiance
of his attire.
(6
May I not be told more?"
"In good time. For the present, let us not speak of
him."
}
42
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
CHAPTER IV.
THE moon had risen; it was an evening of loveliness
and calm; Sir Sydney's guests were dispersed in groups
about the sloping lawn in the rear of Oakdene. Along
the ground floor of the house open French windows
disclosed a brightly illuminated interior. Opposite, below
the lawn and gardens, masses of tall and dense trees,
dark and still, shut out the moonlit view as though
they bordered a forest. A murmur rose and fell of soft
voices, and of voices more deeply resonant. The air
was laden with vague perfume from invisible flowers, as
too girlish figures, clad in white, quitting their companions
and sauntering across the lawn, came upon a small party
of gentlemen almost lost to sight beneath the shadow of
the high trees. The gentlemen stopped abruptly in their
conversation, and, after a moment's pause, addressed them-
selves to the new-comers, with evidently a change of topic.
"No, Mr. Powys, no," immediately exclaimed one of
the young ladies. “Ten thousand times, no."
We will not endure it," said the other.
"
"The second time within fifteen minutes that you have
made me that observation," resumed the first. "I don't
ask you not to interrupt your narratives whenever we
approach, but I do say that we oughtn't to be told within
fifteen minutes exactly the same thing twice."
,,
'And it's the second time you have changed the con-
versation markedly," continued the other. 'Yes, most
markedly, sir, the moment you saw us approach."
"My dear Miss Gwendoline."
'My dear Miss Guinevere.
"Raymond told us you were talking crimes."
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
43
P
'Your brother was right. We were."
"Thrilling crimes?"
"Mysterious crimes."
"Well, that is precisely what we want to hear. Come,
Mr. Fenton,
"
"We were talking details," returned the gentleman thus
singled out. "I'm sure you can't want to hear.”
"Yes, if they're true," said Miss Guinevere, "we do,"
"But your brother can tell you more than any of us,
after all."
"Raymond? Oh no-can he really be so interesting?"
Mr. Powys began with a certain bluntness. They had
been talking more particularly of last night's murders.
Murder seemed to have become an epidemic latterly ; but
of the two crimes which had marked the previous night,
one had been committed amid queer and Bohemian sur-
roundings well known to Raymond Urwen. In fact their
brother Raymond had been present at the very place itself
last night. "Not during the committal of the crime, of
course," added the speaker, with a laugh.
"Well, pre-
sumably not," chorused the sisters.
Mr. Powys interpolated an explanation of the pseudo-
clerical cognomen borne by the lodging-house keeper of
Paradise Row.
"Raymond has been to the Parsonage, it appears," he
went on,
"with racing fellows, whom he meets-fellows
that belong to the Mithras Club-sporting lords, you
know, and young actors.'
"Lord Menteath? Lord Alfred Edgbaston? Lord
Hamynçar?" asked one of the young ladies. "They are
great friends of Raymond's."
""
1
"Yes; and last night they had all looked in at this queer
place—the sort of low lodging-house they called the Par-
sonage. The Mithras clubmen go there occasionally for
a little sport. Sport; I like a little sport myself; but I
shouldn't care about it in such company-blacklegs, pick-
}
44
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
pockets, garrotters, burglars-heaven knows what! And
thrown in with these and other ruffians, and desperadoes,
from what your brother tells us, Miss Guinevere, there are
men who figure quite romantically as something very
much more mysterious-as in the present' case.
""
The Misses Urwen, arm in arm, languishing and lisping,
implored their informant to relate the circumstances of the
present case. Their brother had quite horrid tastes, but
it was all horribly attractive.
"Some say that this is a political tragedy," commented
one of the male auditors at the close of the narration-"a
vengeance by some secret society.".
Punishment for non-obedience to a mandate, or for
betrayal of fellow-members to a Government police."
"Not necessarily to either a police or a Government,"
remarked third; "communication of the terms of the
brotherhood to any sort of person, man, woman, or child
outside the League itself—that would suffice, if what one
ordinarily hears about such people and their fraternal
organizations can be depended upon. But who believes
such stuff?”
"I do, for one," exclaimed the Mr. Powys who had
been first interrogated. "A friend of my own
He
checked himself, but, plied with mingled supplications and
banter, presently consented to satisfy his listeners' curi-
osity. As he proceeded, the party were joined by Ray-
mond Urwen.
""
"In that instance," pronounced the latter, "the death
might have been accidental after all."
"It was returned as an accidental death," replied the
narrator.
Raymond Urwen came between his sisters, and passed
an arm round the waist of each. "Are you not dreadfully
terrified?" said he. "You should not have given way
to these little sisters of mine. Whatever occurs to their
heedless heads they ask. Enfants terribles, both of you.
THE NIGHT OF THE 34 ULT.
45
Now run and chatter to Sir Sydney." He dropped his
tone of paternal indulgence, to explain with an apolo-
getic laugh that Sir Sydney spoilt these little girls-had
always spoilt them, and scarcely could permit them to be
a moment out of his sight.
""
"Really now!" "By Jove! "Haw ! "Don't
wonder!" placidly ejaculated four of the imperfectly dis-
cernible listeners. Profiting by the favoring gloom, a
fifth yawned unseen.
"Is she not lovely, Miss St. Maur?" murmured one of
the sisters.
""
"Is she not sweetly fair?" sighed the other. They
gazed across the garden in a sort of innocent rapture.
Against one of the open windows two figures stood out
luminously defined. The figure of Sir Sydney was easily
recognizable; it was his fair-haired companion whom the
foregoing sudden and apparently irrelevant ebullition con-
cerned. So far as could be distinguished Miss St Maur
was, indeed, a brilliant type of blonde, tall, and well-
formed, with something of a haughty negligence in her
pose and carriage.
"She must be most grateful to dear Sir Sydney," said
Miss Gwendoline.
"She will be certain to attach herself most devotedly
to darling Ida," said Miss Guinevere.
And then the two young ladies laughed and sedately
curvetted, and scolded each other in whispers; finally
relapsing into the fixed stare of self-conscious prettiness,
their rosebud mouths just parted to reveal the pearly teeth,
and their bright eyes open wide. The men around them
"Haw'd" a good deal, stroked their moustaches, and shot
their shirt-cuffs with a dignified deliberateness; and to
these mutually intelligible manifestations might have been
limited all further interchange of idea had not one of the
men maliciously indulged in high encomiums upon the
dazzling Adrienne-Miss St. Maur.
46
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Poor old boy," growled one of the party.
The strains of a hidden orchestra stole through the
evening air in a weird and mystic susurration. The scene
should have been different, the personages different; the
measure should have been unnamed.
"A minuet," announced Miss Gwendoline; "is there
no one who will dance it?”
"Boccherini's 5th Quintette," added the amateur 'com-
poser in this group of gentlemen. "May I without
undue acerbity, observe that I shall fully expect the Trans-
atlantic St. Maur to come and tell me all about Boccherini."
"The other day it was a biographical sketch and criti-
cal review of Velasquez," grumbled a neighbor; "and
once before it was a solo on the banjo, and a senti-
mental nigger song. Where did they dig up the banjo?
Own? Shouldn't be surprised myself at-well, anything.
Awful bore so much of it!"
، ،
Right; not much of each, but so much of the little."
"Haw!"
"Humph!" Just so."
"Can't be
..
helped."
"Now, something pellucid in the way of a dissertation
upon geometrical conics-might-
“Oh, but we're too unkind. Who's to be pitied
amongst us all ?"
"You are talking dreadful high treason," cried Miss
Gwendoline.
'
""
"Geometrical conics," resumed the amateur composer.
"Why not? You can get everything out of nice little
cheap handbooks now. Valesquez? Boccherini? Bah!
It was the banjo-execution that had been the most diffi-
cult to acquire. Instrument of the drawing-room, I sup-
pose-over there. Liked it myself. Pom-a-rom-pom-
pom. A breakdown, and the thing was perfect."
The young ladies protested in chorus against such
wicked, wicked high treason. Adrienne St. Maur was
perfectly charming, absolutely enchanting; and, if no one
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
47
knew the smallest bit about her antecedents, why no one
knew the smallest bit about the antecedents of half the
American persons in society. How delightfully uncon-
ventional. They both smiled sweetly again, flirted their
fans, and, as the phrase goes, danced away.
¿¿
"All these travelling American ladies," began Mr.
Raymond Urwen, seem so deuced anxious to convince
you that they are qualified for situations as governesses.
They'll all trot out their bits of hard fact learnt out of the
guide-book. They'll learn whole pages-learn 'em by
heart, by Jove-and trot 'em out to astonish the natives.
Some of the men that want you to believe they've more
taste than the others-I mean the men that don't follow
businesses, you know-get just as bad as the women, as
soon as they come out of their own country, from what
I hear. The business men I can do with; but the 'high-
toned' people don't seem to know anything."
That's like my experience, slight as it's been," con-
curred a bystander ; "and I had a chat just now with
Mademoiselle St. Maur that made me think of it. You've
had a grand view from a mountain somewhere, and you
mention the fact; they'll give you the exact figure of the
mountain's beastly height. You've found yourself with
them down under the ground, in the Catacombs-the
vulgar Catacombs of Paris, we'll say, where there are
rows of skeletons-well the point of interest for them will
have been the exact beastly number of the skeletons. I
met one family that learnt a little out of the guide-book,
by heart, every day, and exercised their memories upon
their neighbors at the table d'hôte. I happened to possess.
the same guide-book, and so I could mark their
progress.
It was very amusing. You'd tackle them with things on
in advance, things they hadn't come up to, and they were
all splendidly abroad but when they did get up it was
capital; they'd bring the conversation back angrily, and
they'd retail everything they'd just learnt as if they had
;
48
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
known it forever. They were high-toned, too, I believe,
when they were at home."
The group thinned. The subject was evidently vested
with but slight general interest.
"You've lived a good deal in the States, Thesiger," re-
marked one of the few who lingered,
"what should you
say?
"As to-what?" responded a gentleman who had not
yet spoken.
"Our fair friend yonder?" interposed Raymond
Urwen.
·
"Mademoiselle St. Maur ?"
"She does not call herself 'Mademoiselle'; she calls
herself Miss' St. Maur."
<<
C
Well, my opinion is," replied Mr. Thesiger slowly,
'that she is not an American.
"}
A pause of some moments ensued.
But
"The best kind of people out there are charming," re-
sumed Mr. Thesiger, "especially to English ideas.
that kind of form-" he indicated Sir Sydney's companion,
now joined by Miss Ida Chard.
Those that I have seen," exclaimed a very young
gentleman, have been awful 'bounders!' Ah, they
don't take in England."
፡፡
Mr. Thesiger hesitated again, and apparently preferred
to leave his sentence unfinished. Presently, when alone
with Mr. Powys, he returned to the topic unsolicited.
"It is a pity Sir Sydney Chard has never travelled
in America," said he. "You can only class American
women by meeting them in their own country; and, of
course, they can be classed, although in Europe they seem
so dreadfully uniform. That affectation of originality, by
the way, which you see in Miss St. Maur, is one of the
conventional and uniform characteristics of young Ameri-
can women."
"Affectation!"
!
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
49
RIY
Why, yes,
returned Mr. Thesiger, unconsciously.
lapsing into transatlantic inflections of the voice, "all
that directness and suddenness, all that show of crude-
ness, varied by glimpses of the very opposite extreme,
whether in language or opinion, or in avowed habit or
experience-all that is a very common affectation in the
young American female.
It's the young nation sort of
thing, don't you know, the supposed freshness and origi-
nality of the country that's 'young yet.' And I maintain
that the entire people are far more used-up than young,
and far more imitative than original. They wouldn't
prize originality so much, if they had more of it. I've seen
so many like this Miss St. Maur.
">
..،
""
"And yet you say she is not American?”
“I should think that she has lived there, and caught
up the pose. May be Colonial, Canadian, or even
English; but I would wager anything that she is not of
American origin. You don't see quite that physical type
in any part of the States. As for the tone, and so forth-
as I say, all that affected independence and originality-
it doesn't mean anything at all, you know. Except
among the very best people, and the very richest people,
too, it's the commonest of poses with American women
up to the age of thirty-five. Each seems to be dying for
you to believe that she's different from the rest; and it
gets too monotonous for anything. It gets really most
fatiguing when you've passed through your noviciate
with them. I'm surprised you've not noticed it."
"Well, you see, I am still in my noviciate," answered
the other, with a laugh. "And this is a case in which
our acquaintance Brand would be more concerned
than I."
"Lester Brand?
""
"Yes. He, too, should have travelled-eh?”
Mr. Thesiger smiled, in his own turn.
true, then?" he asked.
"Is the story
گی
4
50
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
*
"It is said to be the reason of his absence this evening;
and everybody's remarking the portentous fact. You
know how inquisitorial these suburban coteries are.
"Oh, but my dear fellow," exclaimed Mr. Thesiger,
"what is Brand for this woman? On the surface of it,
the question need not be entertained. Is he in love with
her?"
↓
""
"I never saw anything to convince me of it; but Sir
Sydney is supposed to be sternly jealous, and to suspect
a little deception-I won't say on both sides.'
""
'Poor Sir Sydney! And with his experience of the
world. Why, Brand is the merest cipher for an Amer-
icanized woman of this description. With no money, no
prospects of any sudden leap into wealth such as those.
with which she will have been familiarized out there-
nothing to him,' as they would put it-his livelihood or
his career depending upon the subaltern position he holds
with Sir Sydney-why, in her view, Brand doesn't exist.
He must bid high before he can count. Love doesn't
count. Let him bid as high as Sir Sydney Chard, M. P.,
who may be landed in the House of Peers if he goes on
making himself obnoxious. But I should have believed
myself that Brand would have made a different choice."
The other shrugged his shoulders, and a pause ensued.
The figures of Adrienne St. Maur and Miss Chard, saunt- *
ering near them, stopped within earshot.
She thinks we are talking of her," murmured Mr.
Thesiger. “She is afraid that I can class her. Someone
told her that I had lived a good deal in the United States."
Ida's companion, immobile at this moment, formed a
picture which must have wrested admiration from the
most unwilling. In a literal sense she was divinely fair;
and no more shapely creature ever betrayed an honest
man. The moonlight sank upon her upturned head,
flashed in her eyes as in the diamond at each ear, spirit-
ualized the contour of her noble features, dwelt in an un-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
51
certain vaporous diadem upon the loose locks of her light
flaxen hair. The plain dress she wore became the fault-
less shape. It was the figure of a large-limbed blonde,
who at twenty-one may look thirty, and who at thirty-
five will sometimes manage to look twenty; perhaps it
was by the plainness of the dress that attention was
secured to the figure. As Ida herself exchanged some
phrases with the two gentlemen, Adrienne St. Maur
moved onward once or twice, halted, retraced her steps,
and again moved onward, with a curious restlessness.
Was she impatient or ill-mannered? vain of her physique,
or simply ill at ease? Had she acquired the habit of
irritably expecting compliments upon her personal ap-
pearance? Had she at any time accustomed herself to
some sphere where the applause would be immediate,
general, and noisy? She advanced, poised herself, and
half turned away, as though she were engaged in the per-
formance of some plastic rôle; as though, perhaps,
habitually compared by carnal courtiers to this, that, îr
the other Cytheroea, she were emulating the graces of the
exhibition model in the fashionable dressmaker's empo-
rium, as a means of adequately sustaining the character.
She would have been judged by most people a distinct-
ively English type until she spoke.
Mr. Thesiger descanted upon the aspect of the summer
night.
"Minds me of
"It's just lovely!" she exclaimed.
home."
The accent contrasted unpleasantly with Miss Ida's
refined and serious tones.
"A drive by moonlight would be just sweet," continued
The St. Maur, with unnecessary loudness, "or a boat trip
on the river; we'd be two and two. But you've no
rivers, have you; and perhaps it wouldn't be proper?"
She laughed, and fell back a few steps, humming with a
half-learnt bravura the motive from a Wagnerian French
52
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
opera which, as the musicians played again, floated to
their ears.
Will you not favor us with one of your delightful
native chants presently?" asked Mr. Powys, "with-ah
-the accompaniment of that instrument?"
“Would it shock them very much?" Her gesture em-
braced the whole of Sir Sydney's guests, some of whom
were regarding her from afar, as she appeared to be fully
aware.
"Oh, they've heard it before," said Mr. Powys.
"If Sir Sydney asks me," pronounced the fair Adrienne,
in a slightly higher key, "I'll sing, but it must be what I
like. In America, you know, it's the women who decide
things, not the men. The women just do what they like,
and just go where they like, and just choose what they
like, and the men haven't a word to say: but if a
Yankee girl was to do half the things over here that she's
'customed to do 't home, why, you'd be holding up your
hands, I guess. You'd say she wasn't proper.
"Oh, no; we're used to them by this time," said
Mr. Thesiger. “We've had a long spell of them, you
know."
""
(4
Well, I'll sing a little French song that I heard in the
Latin Quarter. It's very wicked. Do you think they'll
understand it?
"I should think they might," replied Mr. Thesiger,
with an amused smile, as though he divined the presump-
tion of the mere Continental smattering. "That is, the
ladies won't understand the wickedness; but the gentle-
men should have a very considerable repertory of their
own, some of them, in half-a-dozen languages.
Ida and Mr. Powys were standing apart.
"Thesiger's agreeably matter-of-fact, isn't he?" re-
marked Mr. Powys.
His companion acquiesced mechanically.
"If Miss St. Maur were to say that she could walk
"""
THE NIGHT OF THE 31 ULT,
53
upon a tight-rope, and wanted to do so just as she is
dressed at present, Thesiger would help her to put the
rope up, from one of those windows to one of the
trees.'
""
"What is she going to do now?" asked the young
girl, absently.
""
Suppose we ran away with them both, Ida," called
the other. "Suppose we disappeared from them all, and
hid ourselves in Sir Sydney's wood! No country girl'
thinks anything of herself in America if she can't climb
a tree or swim across a creek. You've got no creeks
here, have you? But as for the people here, I'd like to see
their faces when they missed us; and, O! I would like
to see Sir Sydney's face when my sweet and gentle voice
answered from the top branches of a tree!"
Her laugh rang out once more. The nasal quality of
her tones, hardly noticeable when she spoke, became
curiously pronounced as soon as she indulged in open
laughter. It appeared to be her cultivated practice to
laugh out freely and loudly, with an appearance of hearti-
ness and spontaneous impulse. Sir Sydney Chard broke
off a conversation with two or three local dowagers on
the subject of the Ladies' Dinner to be given next week
by his City Guild-the Worshipful Guild of Ruff and
Farthingale Makers-to express the pleasure he invariably
derived from the sound of that American young lady's
laugh "There was something about her laugh so joy-
ous and so untrammelled." There was also a note of
defiance in this loud laugh of hers-of defiance, conquest,
and certitude.
}
""
"You don't offer to escort us in an escapade, either of
you, she resumed, apparently in the highest spirits,
"and neither of you shall be my beau. If Mr. Brand
were here he would have braved them all for us-old
ladies, proper people, starched people, everything."
The two gentlemen bowed and smiled, and offered
54
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
their escort-as far, if needful, as the banks of the
Styx.
&
"Yes, and if we threw our rings into the waters, you'd
be afraid of venturing in after them, wouldn't you? You'd
be afraid of the mud; you'd be afraid of looking ridicu-
lous when you came out, now, wouldn't you?”
"Certainly," concurred Mr. Thesiger.
"Come, Ida, dear," said Miss St. Maur, with a flourish
of her arm; "we are not appreciated."
Miss Chard drew aside involuntarily, and then as
quickly yielded, as if in self-reproach. Her companion
looked back over her shoulder with a rather stagey air of
fascination. Their white robes fluttered in a transient
breeze; other figures advanced to meet them; presently
they were lost to view. Mr. Powys and Mr. Thesiger
lighted cigars, and for some instants contemplated in
silence the soft sylvester beauty of the scene.
Stirred by
the gust of wind, the leaves, whispering high up at the
summits of the ash and birch, gleamed under the moon's
rays almost as vividly as the stone fountain that splashed
and rippled close at hand. White shone the faces of
their fellow-guests, revealed, hidden, appearing, disap-
pearing, dotted here and there; as they looked on, their
own faces caught the same ivory pallor ; whilst to their
right, and gazing down upon them, too, the loftiest
windows of Oakdene mirrored the moon's rays like
glittering silver.
"Has seen a lot of life, by Jove," muttered Mr.
Thesiger.
"Think so? Struck me as rather inexperienced," com-
mented Mr. Powys; "of the light and airy order. Will-
ing to have a lark, you know; clever, up to a certain
point, but not quite clever enough.
"I'm very much mistaken," repeated the former, "if
the fair Adrienne St. Maur has not been through a devil
of a lot of life. All that hoydenishness is badly done-too
""
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
55
}
forced, it's assumed, there's nothing in it; and yet the
tone displeases you.".
1
"Yes, the style was bad. But what a handsome girl
she is! Where did she run against Sir Sydney?"
They were pacing backwards and forwards along the
margin of the copse.
"Urwen tells me that they met in Dresden. Sir Syd-
ney was on the Continent for a holiday. He went to
somebody's house-it was some member of a foreign.
colony there-and this Miss St. Maur turned up with
somebody else. It's all mixed up; perhaps they mixed
it up on purpose. The somebody else was an American
widow knocking about the Continent, or something of
that kind. What surprises me is that Urwen should have
been able to ascertain even so much. Sir Sydney had
been staying in Paris previously, and had made some
acquaintances among residents, but not in the English
colony. Miss St. Maur had been living in Paris too.
What kind of Paris-which Paris-I can't tell you.
Urwen says the Lac, but it may have been the boarding-
house. She seems to have picked up the pseudo-Parisian
varnish at any rate, just as she has got hold of that
pseudo-American sprightly-young-girl manner."
"I had fancied," said Mr. Powys, "that she was a
sort of high-priestess of earnestness. When we met, what
I found was what we have just seen and heard.
All my
expectations were falsified."
Oh, but haven't you seen her in that character of the
earnest young woman? Delightful. So meant, and so
clumsy."
"One would have expected Chard to know a little better.
He's old enough, people would say. But the truth is, I
suppose, that he is just getting old enough not to know
((
any better."
"There was a touchstone at hand, too," continued Mr.
56
ULT.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d TTTT
Thesiger, reflectively, "single-minded earnestness, in-
deed! A noble girl."
"Ida Chard. Well, I had fancied that Brand had
been paying some attentions to her, before the arrival
upon the scene of this resplendent Circassian, or what-
ever she may be. It was rather cool on Brand's part.
Who is he? Who ever heard anything about his family?
No one, except, perhaps, Sydney himself. Well, apart
from that, what is he? 'My lieutenant," says Sir Syd-
ney; that is my' subordinate, my servant, head cook
and bottle washer. Enters the firm young, and works
up."
"I see.”
paused.
(4
a
"Yes.
One of those d—d tedious cases that you read
about in books. Thought they didn't exist, but it seems
they do; you know the sort of thing. Marries the em-
ployer's daughter; has it all his own way. In this case
it would have been the niece, of course. Only first of all,
Sir Sydney would have drawn the line; he would have
said "No," at any rate to that. Secondly, there is the
rumor with regard to Lester Brand and the St. Maur; and
thirdly-"
"Thirdly?" asked Mr. Thesiger, as his companion.
幾
​Well, I don't know that there is any "thirdly." But
the young lady herself might choose to pitilessly sacrifice
her good looks, her possessions, and her life to some
cause or other, don't you know-I mean, not matri-
monial. She's just the kind of girl. As for Brand and
the St. Maur, if the notions are well-founded, the one
thing needful for him is, as you say, a very remarkable
change in his fortunes-a very remarkable change in-
deed."
Intercepted sportively by the sisters Gwendoline and
Guinevere as he was passing through the open French
windows with several of his guests, Sir Sydney could but
}
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
57
..
reiterate the playful demand with which he usually met
certain of their artless manifestations. They were arm-
in-arm, and they gave one another tiny pushes; they
jerked one another back, and then they bit their lips, and
then laughed merrily. Sir Sydney inquired, as was his
pleasant custom, what could there be hatching in those.
pretty little heads?
"You say it," archly whispered Gwendoline.
"No, you say it," lisped Guinevere.
Dear Sir Sydney glanced from one to the other, and
waited.
"Everybody wants to hear Miss St. Maur in-to see
her, that is, in-Oh, Gwendoline!" began and broke off
the one.
"Oh, Guinevere !" echoed the other.
"Come, my dears," urged Sir Sydney.
"Was it to see her," demanded Miss Guinevere, in a
loud whisper, "or to hear her? It was to be something
very dreadful.”
It was to be one of those entertainments, you know,
that we mustn't go and see," responded Miss Gwendoline,
breathlessly, "in those low places."
Miss Guinevere completed the indication with a gasp,
"music-halls!" They both blinked their eyes in in-
fantile confusion, and they made charming little half-
smiling mouths.
"My loves!" protested Sir Sydney, but his expression.
and his manner were those of a man who ejaculates
inwardly, adding perhaps a round embellishment-
"vixens !"
Oh, would she not do it well!" chorused the sisters.
"At least, one would think she would do it perfectly."
な
​They had entered the room, and the observation, to-
gether with Sir Sydney's sharp rejoinder, evidently reached
its object. Left severely to herself by every feminine
person save Miss Chard, Adrienne St. Maur despatched at
"
58
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
Sir Sydney a look of the sweetest gratitude, tempered
with dolorous resignation.
"The music-hall style, mamma, too utterly, Tom
says," commented a languid young lady, to the matron
at her side. "And Tom says it's quite the thing, now?”
"Yes, dear, among married ladies," replied the matron,
calmly; "when they have titles."
"But they wear quite extraordinary costumes.
says he trusts she had brought her costume with her.
"I trust so, too, dear.
""
*
Tom
"Cannot she perform without it? Would a quite
extraordinary costume be absolutely necessary?"
"Oh, so little, dear." The matron put up a single eye-
glass, and studied the handsome Adrienne with a patron-
izing forbearance.
"Il s'agit beaucoup de moi, n'est-ce pas ?" murmured
Miss St. Maur, as Sir Sydney joined her.
"Do exactly as you wish," said he, scarcely compre-
hending. His countenance had suddenly flushed; bore
the expression which his niece Ida knew to be premoni-
tory of obstinate resistance to general opinion.
I wish to do what may please you," answered Miss
St. Maur, almost without moving her lips. She led the
way towards the piano.
"If this is no pleasure for you-if this is toil—”
Toil? My life is one of toil. And are we not all
here to work? Is not work for some of us a sublime
privilege ?"
Her own look appeared sublime enough, as their eyes.
Sir Sydney's response was barely articulate.
met.
The pretty sisters Gwendoline and Guinevere, all cap-
tivating daintiness and innocent prattle, pressed forward
again. Would not Miss St. Maur give us something really
and truly "professional?" What? Oh, we didn't know !
Something French, then-very French: to be characteristic
of the student life, the mixed Paris student life. Was it
;
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
59
not greatly mixed, the life-now that there were so
many lady students-gentlemen and lady students to-
gether, in that wicked Latin Quarter. Oh, how jolly! And
might we not hear all about it presently, because from
someone who had actually been through the charming
and wicked Paris student life.
Her student days had hitherto been but brief, came the
reply. Whilst they had endured, study itself had formed
her sole aim and pleasure.
But we had counted most positively upon hearing from
Miss St. Maur's own lips, in that clever style of hers-
because all American girls were so very clever, were they
not, so very, very clever! Oh, could she disappoint us
all so dreadfully! Well, would she not sing? Yes?
Then, might it not be something very French-something
that clever American girls might know and sing, but that
we might not?
#
Adrienne St. Maur turned from the sisters with a curious.
glitter in her blue eyes, and with a sudden hardening of
the face. She sang an air from "Mireille," accompany-
ing herself indifferently well. Her voice had both power
and purity of tone, and she used it with certain effective
tricks of "method" which, although she seemed but half-
taught, betrayed the influence of a teaching that was
presumably French. In the more florid passages her
interpretation became excessively exaggerated and dis-
pleasing.
"Air from Mireille'-precisely what I have been say-
ing," remarked Mr. Thesiger to his companions. He, Mr.
Powys, and Raymond Urwen, had stationed themselves.
at an open window. "Item from conventional Parisian
course for the young women who troop over from America
to study singing with distinguished professors in Paris.
They all sing the same things, in the same way: the
teaching's conscientious, and the material various. They
come over in their thousands, and they're all announced
<
бо
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
as prima-donnas in advance. Is this one, likewise, 'pre-
paring for the operatic stage?' Somebody told me she
had begun her studies in medicine, or painting-which
was it?"
"Both," said
"Ah, just so.
spaces of time.
""
Raymond Urwen; "that is, all three."
Dips into lots of difficult things in short
That's characteristic of the troop.
"You are bitter," said Raymond Urwen.
'troop.'
(C
'I have seen so much of the troopers.
“Aha?”
Plenty of haste, and no speed. Plenty of dabble,
and no real proficiency. Plenty of flashiness, and noth-
ing thorough. That's the type. Ah, I know them on the
Continent, as well as at home. And, with that, and
heaps of what they call 'go, and what their French pro-
fessors call aplomb, and what we ourselves and some of
our countrymen call by a different and harder name-
humph."
The singer had concluded, and was receiving a few
ambiguous compliments from half-a-dozen impressive
ladies. She needed no such ostensible assurances, how-
ever, of her own artistic competence. Her manner might
have excellently suited some popular idol in whom renown
and adulation had developed chiefly a vulgar self-esteem.
Ida, divining with a truer instinct the mockery that lurked
behind the gratulations directed at their complacent guest,
had somewhat impulsively come to her side. She was
rewarded by a movement of disdain, not unmingled with
hostility. The bold airs of victory well befitted the hand-
some St. Maur.
<<
"""
"The
"There's one thing wanting, dear," observed the
matron to her languid daughter. She put down her
single eye-glass. "The bouquet thrown from the side-
boxes."
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
61
"So Tom was saying, mamma. Tom, what were you
saying?"
"The bouquet that's sent round from the dressing-
room," answered Tom, "and is pitched through the cur-
tains of a box that's empty."
"Oh, yes.”
"You would think that Sir Sydney would see, would
you not?" continued the matron. “But men are idiots.
""
"Oh, I don't know," objected Tom.
Sir Sydney saw nothing but a fair face and a finely
moulded form; the lips no longer compressed, but
wreathed in triumphant smiles; the brow no longer
knitted sullenly. The complexion was the tenderest rose-
leaf; the smiling blue eyes, fringed with dark eye-lashes,
seemed almost wanton; her light flaxen hair, as if bound
up in negligence or haste, attained the effect of most ad-
mired disorder. Other pretty faces and good figures there
were, but Sir Sydney had no eyes for them. As for silent
Miss Ida, her serene and simple style of beauty was per-
hnps a little out of fashion. Her dark chestnut hair she
wore untormented; immobile in their habitual shade of
gravity, her pale and regular features might have been held
to betoken prudishness, coldness, lifelessness. There was
certainly no 'go' whatever in Miss Chard—not an atom
of the quality which professors in Paris might prize as
aplomb, and which, when inspiring the gorgeously flores-
cent St. Maur, suggested those designations that were
different and more hard.
L
"She may have passed some years there," repeated Mr.
Thesiger, still referring to the object of his previous com-
ments, "but if she says she is an American ? "
"Aha!"
The brother of the pretty sisters expressed a good deal
by the tone of this ejaculation. He appeared to desire to
push the colloquy further, but any such intention became
frustrated by the return of the two young ladies, again
*
62
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
unwelcome. They greeted Mr. Raymond Urwen with a
vivacious reminder that he had not yet vouchsafed a
word to them upon the subject of the mysterious crimes.
The evening newspapers were full of the occurrences, it
seemed. Someone had just said that the details were
most thrilling. No one knew who the first victim was.
He had always been called "H. R. H." What did it mean?
Mr. Raymond Urwen strove to elude the topic, but the
endeavor proved fruitless. Other persons were listening,
and his pretty sisters plied him with their demands. If
the tale were harrowing, they wanted to be harrowed; if
it were thrilling, they wanted to be thrilled. Why should
not their brother enlighten them? He knew much more
about the matter than the newspapers did. He knew
everything-Mr. Powys had said so.
"I?" protested that gentleman.
"Really--"
"Yes, you said so," insisted Miss Gwendoline, with
agreeable petulance. "You did say so!"
"Oh, you did, you did!" affirmed Miss Guinevere.
And had he not said that Raymond was present?
3
Whether from anger or from embarrassment, Mr. Ray-
mond Urwen appeared for a moment to have lost his cus-
tomary self-control. Doubtless he had had no wish to
find himself in any way associated with the circum-
stances of a crime which had now entered into the
domain of sensational publicity. He would have pre-
ferred to remain mute as to his own acquaintance with
either the parsonage or other resorts of the Mithras men.
But the visit by members of the Mithras Club had already
been included among the details furnished by the earliest
evening newspapers. It was not unlikely that the names
of those members would be brought out during the sub-
sequent inquiry-brought out and generally made known.
The case bade fair to hold a unique position in public.
interest. Perhaps Mr. Raymond Urwen had thought well
to anticipate whatever effect might be produced in his
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
63
own circles by the probable mention of himself, ulti-
mately, as one of the Mithras Clubmen who had visited the
Parsonage on the previous night. He had certainly
spoken of his presence at the lodging-house. In conver-
sation with the group of whom Mr. Powys had formed
one, he certainly had described the haunt presided over
by Mr. Parson in the neighborhood of Seven Dials. But
of his connection with the Mithras Mr. Powys was pre-
viously well aware, and Mr. Powys might have asked the
question he had anticipated. He might have wished to
conceal the fact of his presence at the scene of the crime
on the previous night; people might deem the conditions
and the surroundings rather disreputable; yet inasmuch.
as the matter must come out, Mr. Raymond Urwen had,
doubtless deemed it the more judicious course to narrate
his personal experiences without disguise or delay. The
cause of his embarrassment or anger was perhaps to be
sought in the exaggerated shape which his communica-
tions had so quickly assumed.
"And so you were actually present?" exclaimed the
matron with the eye-glass screwed into one eye. She
affected to construe the words literally. Pray, how did
you manage to escape?
Raymond Urwen clothed his account in a few curt
phrases. With the rest of the Mithras men, he had gone
away from the premises known as "The Parsonage" at
midnight, or perhaps a little before. From the statement
in the evening papers, the earlier of the two crimes had
been committed about a couple of hours subsequently to
their departure. Was it his first visit to the place?
Oh, dear no. He had gone there with Caunter, and
Menteath, and Ivinghoe. Viscount Ivinghoe was one
of the most liberal patrons of the establishment. He
had been taken there originally by "Plunger" Turton,
the fellow who had lost half a million in a year in bets-
""
•
magaling
64
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
bets and sport and so-forth. Wimble, the jockey, accom-
panied him on that occasion, he remembered.
He had probably encountered the man who was known
by this curious sobriquet, then-H. R. H. ?”
No, he believed not; at any rate, not to be aware of
the fact. When any of the Mithras fellows adjourned to
the Parsonage, it was for the sake of the sport which the
place afforded. They did not go there to look up queer
characters or to interest themselves in out-of-the-way
mysterious people. They didn't know who lived in the
house, and they didn't care. Caunter had once recognized
a broken-down trainer of his, a man who used to be in
his employment when he ran horses, and of course they
knew the men who provided sport for them, but other-
wise there was nobody whom they would be likely to
notice.
"Of course," assented one of his hearers. "They
would all know you, but, on your part, you would not
be in the least likely to know them."
CC C
Know me '" echoed Raymond Urwen.
'Know
us 'I can't say, I'm sure, whether they would or not, I
daresay."
"What could possibly be the motive for such a crime?
Do you believe in the secret society tales?"
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"It might be,” observed Mr. Powys, "that the victim
of the Parsonage murder could be identified as Crown
witness in some prosecution."
"Possibly, possibly," returned Raymond Urwen. He
moved away, following, his sisters."
"Or," suggested Mr. Thesiger, with a smile, "he
might have inherited. He might have inherited without
being cognizant of the fact. Suppose the next heir were
cognizant of the fact? Suppose the next heir had traced
him?"
"C
Primo:Who was he?"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
65
"Secundo: had he inherited?
"Tertio: who is the next heir?" The gentlemen agreed
facetiously to suspect of this crime any person of their
own acquaintance who might appear to have suddenly
enriched himself.
{1
""
Preoccupied by doubts and fancies of her own, Miss
Ida lent but scant attention to the sparkling small-talk of
the pretty sisters. There was a demand she would have
wished to make, but could not-a question which the
calm and superior Raymond Urwen before her might
have answered, perhaps more capably than Sir Sydney
himself, had she chosen to speak. She did not speak;
and yet the doubt attained proportions that oppressed her
whole mind.
The evil fortune of Lester Brand?
B
As for Sir Sydney, once more at the side of Adrienne
St. Maur, he seemed irradiated, the happiest of men; he
had doubtless won a treasure. He would have scouted
the notion that the fruition of his hopes and plans could
in any degree whatever be dependent on the resolves or
purposes of Lester Brand, befriended by him years ago,
and until latterly the possessor of his entire confidence.
#4
1
"
66
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
CHAPTER V.
THE second of the crimes which marked the night of
June 3 had been perpetrated in a part of London widely
distant from the environs of the Parsonage. One cir-
cumstance apparently connected the two cases. The
injuries inflicted by the assassin or assassins were pre-
cisely similar.
So far as could be judged, this second outrage had
been committed at an hour later than that which Detec-
tive Erne answered the summons to lodging-house in
Paradise Row. To all appearances, also, apart from its
presumed connection with the earlier deed, it belonged to
the category of more commonplace crime.
No difficulty was presented by the task of identi-
fication. The victim, David Quilter was a middle-aged
man, reputed somewhat eccentric by his associates, but
well esteemed by his employer as sober, indefatigable,
and trustworthy. He was married, and had children;
although upon no unfriendly terms with his family, he
had ceased to reside with them for some time past.
Quilter was in the habit of paying a visit to his family
once a fortnight; and upon those occasions he would
bring with him the fixed allowance sufficing for their
maintenance. He had a turn for mechanical invention,
and had established himself in a small private workshop
of his own contrivance, where he passed his leisure in
labors at the realization of his ideas. By means of a
patent he had once cleared a substantial sum of money,
and he was a man who saved regularly out of his
earnings.
These particulars were furnished by his daily com-
&
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
67
panions "on the rank." David Quilter drove a four-
wheeled cab.
Evidence was promptly attainable as to the movements
of David Quilter up to a certain hour on the evening of
the 3rd. He had driven a passenger to Euston Station,
arriving there at about nine o'clock. At Euston he had
exchanged a word or two with a fellow employee, who
could testify to his having been re-engaged "to take a
party to the West-end." Between his departure from
Euston and the discovery of his dead body in a quiet by-
street at Poplar, what his movements had been no one
could for the moment either testify or suggest.
The crime was discovered shortly after 5 A. M. on June
4. A constable on duty along the narrow thoroughfare
from which the street ran off had noticed the stationary
horse and cab about half an hour previously, but had
concluded that they were simply awaiting some inhabi-
tant of the street, who might be bound for an early train
at a far-off terminus. Observing the cab still drawn up
by the kerb, and unable to distinguish the figure of the
driver, the constable had on the second occasion directed
his steps to the spot, expecting to find that the cabman
had fallen asleep inside the vehicle. Approaching by the
pavement, it was not at the first glance that he had
discerned the nature of the situation. He had then per-
ceived, however, that beneath the vehicle, and between
the wheels, lay the huddled figure of a short, spare indi-
vidual-the cab-driver himself. The feet were in the
direction of the shafts, and, indeed, protruded somewhat
on the side towards the road. The man was dead, the
throat having been cut with frightful severity.
On both sides of the street the blinds were down in the
windows of the houses. Some yards farther along the
first-floor windows were placarded with large white bills,
"To let "; and in front of one of these buildings the soil
of the imperfect pavement had been disturbed, as if by a
مة
.68
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
struggle or a scrambling fall. Here, too, were visible
the first stains in the track of blood which led from the
footway straight to the roadside, and so, along the gutter,
to the spot where lay the corpse. The horse bore signs
of hard work, and had evidently earned his rest. The
cab doors were closed. How long the vehicle had re-
mained thus drawn up at the kerb it was impossible at
the outset to surmise.
Announced simultaneously on the afternoon of the 4th,
these two tragedies aroused extraordinary interest. In
the case of David Quilter, whatever might eventually
prove the true explanation of the crime, there was one
motive which could be at once disposed of; a consider-
able sum of money was found in the possession of the
deceased, and it was clear that he had not fallen at the
hands of common thieves.
Detective Erne, prosecuting his own inquiries, ascer-
tained that, with a single exception, no inhabitant of the
by-street had returned home later than one o'clock. The
individual who formed the exception was a lodger in the
house opposite the spot at which the cab had been aban-
doned. He had reached home at two o'clock precisely,
and at that time the cab was not in the street. He had
immediately gone to bed, and had heard no sound of any
vehicle arriving or departing. Nor had he heard voices.
The inhabitants of the street were chiefly city clerks and
their families, persons of early hours and regular habits.
In spite of their continual complaints, they said, the street
was always ill-lighted, and it might have been upon this
account that it had been chosen at hazard for the rapid
committal of the crime. The cause of death was pro-
nounced by the local divisional surgeon to have been
syncope, due to loss of blood by the severed carotid ves-
sels; insensibility and death had probably been little short
of instantaneous. As in the case of the Unknown, or
"H. R. H.," the injuries were peculiar. From discolorations
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
69
of the surface, and other signs, both victims appeared to
have been seized violently by the throat; the incision
being then made in a downward direction, forward, as
though by the one hand in avoidance of the other, the
latter retaining its grasp. The positions of the apparent
thumb and finger marks, taken with the slight scratches
which seemed to have proceeded from the finger-nails,
indicated the dimensions of an unusually large and power-
ful hand. Further reporting upon the injuries presented by
the body of David Quilter, the divisional surgeon stated
that the impress of the assailant's fingers could be clearly
traceable at the left, not the right, side of the neck, and
that the incision had been from left to right-the left and
right of the victim. He should judge, from appearances
at the margins and extreme limits of the wound, that the
weapon used was broad-bladed, and somewhat curved in
shape, the edge keen, the point dull. The doctor was of
opinion that the assailant had seized and held the deceased
with his right hand, whilst with the other he dashed the
knife or dirk across the throat; and from this he inferred,
in conversation with Detective Erne, that the perpetrator
of the crime was probably a left-handed man.
On his own side the detective had apparently established
that the vehicle was originally drawn up at a point further
along the street-as nearly as possible, in fact, facing the
empty buildings. The attack was made close to the verge
of the footpath, the figures being partially screened by the
cab from chance observation opposite. The wheel marks,
the traces of the horse's hoofs, and the manner in which
the ground had been disturbed upon the footpath rendered
these deductions tolerably manifest. Dragged head fore-
most from the spot at which it had fallen, the body had
been thrown down in the gutter. The horse had then
been backed, and the wheels upon the side towards the
road had passed over the deceased's ankle.
Within the cab, upon one of the cushions of the seats,
$
70
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
marks of blood were displayed, such as might have been
deposited by a bladed instrument hastily wiped. One of
these ran from right to left, another from left to right.
The third consisted of a slight accumulation of blood at
the cushion's border. The seat itself was the one imme-
diately behind the driver, the one which, for the purpose in
question, might be held to have proved the more conve-
nient of access to a non-righthanded man. Detective Erne
concluded that the knife or dagger had first been wiped
backwards and forwards, and had then been brought
quickly down the edge of the cushion. In the latter
movement the passage
of the blade had at one side notched
the dark cloth, but the width of the stain here furnished
the extreme breadth of the instrument employed. Detec-
tive Erne may possibly be considered to have pushed his
calculations to an excess of nicety when he assumed that
the smeared blood-stains from right to left, and vice versa,
supplied as to the length, likewise, an indication tolerably
exact. Both the interior of the vehicle and the ground in
its vicinity were searched with the most scrupulous care,
but without any additional result.
No inhabitant of the neighborhood came forward to
depose to any personal knowledge of David Quilter. His
wife and children lived in a northern district; his own
private lodging had been for some time past in Maryle-
bone. The natural hypothesis of his retention by a "fare"
in the ordinary exercise of his calling, sufficiently ac-
counted for his presence in this particular locality, east.
That David Quilter had played some part in an event
with regard to which he might have contributed valuable
testimony, was the deduction which forced itself irresist-
ibly upon the mind.
Had he shared wittingly in that event? or had he
figured but as an unconscious actor, for whom the an-
nouncements of the morrow would clothe unnoticed
incidents in dire and full significance? If he had been
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
71
suppressed by murderers escaping from a scene of crime,
the fact must be due to special circumstances, argued
Detective Erne, which with the morrow would have ren-
dered him indubitably a dangerous witness. From what
locality had David Quilter been despatched hither? It
was essential to trace his movements throughout the
evening of the 3d. The explanation of this murder in the
east was probably to be sought westward, and the first
practical step accomplished in the task of its elucidation
might yield an unsuspected clue to the more sensational
"mystery" at the Parsonage the mystery of H. R. H.,
whose antecedents and identity, not less than the true
story of his fate, had now become the topic of the wild-
est and most extravagant conjecture.
}
72
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
CHAPTER VI.
As Sir Sydney Chard was entertaining his guests at Oak-
dene on the evening of the 4th, his partner, Urwen, senior,
after dining alone at his residence at Queen Anne's Gate,
was awaiting the arrival of a visitor, with regard to whose
immediate admittance he had given the most express
orders. The visitor proved to be a scrupulously well-
dressed gentleman, of about the medium height, decidedly
dark in complexion, closely shaven, and with handsome
features, of the cast or mould vulgarly termed aristo-
cratic.
((
'Well, Mr. Vowcher," began the host, as soon as they
were seated and secure from interruption, "and how do
you sum up the affair?'
""
Mr. Aaron Vowcher, for it was none other than the
head of the famous inquiry office in Burleigh Street, drew
thoughtfully at his cigar, and then leant forward to reply.
"I sum it up in this way, both as regards the forgeries.
and the defalcations," said he. "They could only have.
been committed by some person intimately acquainted
with the outside operations of your firm; they could only
have been committed by some person intimately ac-
quainted with the internal working of your office; they
could not have been committed by any person other than
a chirographic expert of remarkable adroitness. Now"
"This merely tallies with my own conviction from the
outset."
29
"Now
"There is positively no one but Brand himself!"
¡
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
73
•
"Excuse me," protested the visitor,
"I know what you are going to say.
it in advance.'
but if we"
I have answered
"If we consider the position of Lester Brand," con-
tinued Mr. Vowcher, "we find it certainly to be one
which would fulfil the first two of those conditions; but,
when we come to look into his personal aptitude for the
rôle of forger, we find ourselves absolutely without the
smallest affirmative evidence. He is very far from being
an expert of that kind. He is even notoriously ill-quali-
fied in that direction. The whole of his history, during
the years of his connection with your firm, proves the
fact. As I understand the matter, it was his distaste for
the ordinary clerkly duties which led to his employment.
in the bigger phases of your business, Mr. Urwen-the
outside operations, the main lines, so to speak; and there
he appears to have succeeded at once. Both partners
were pleased with him. He holds testimonials from
you."
٢٠
"From the firm, yes-I admit that," said the junior
partner, with a certain reluctance. "We have tendered
him our acknowledgments from time to time, and the
action has been spontaneous enough on our part. Those
recognitions, however, were made jointly, not severally;
and I myself had no particular concern in the matter.
Individually I am not committed in the least to any esti-
mate of Mr. Brand's deserts. I wish you to comprehend
quite clearly that, after all, I know very little about our
Mr. Brand. He came into the house years ago as a
protégé of Sir Sydney Chard. He was an orphan, and Sir
Sydney had known something of his family-what, I can't
tell you; I don't remember, even if I ever heard it. He
has always been associated more with Sir Sydney's side
of the business than with my own. You have been
enabled to see that for yourself."
The private inquiry officer hesitated, apparently weigh-
74
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
ing his words. "I should say," he resumed, softly, "I
should certainly say that Mr. Brand himself
"
"Of course," interrupted the other, "the forgeries need
not have been the act of Brand personally."
"I know. But, more than that, I should incline to'
the opinion that Mr. Lester Brand is free from the slight-
est participation in any part of the affair.'
"That is a great deal to advance."
"I have not been your gentleman-pupil for nothing,"
answered the inquiry officer, with a smile. "During my
brief stay in your office my opportunities for studying
pretty nearly everyone have been as frequent and as inti-
mate as could be wished. And when the time comes, I
must really thank the firm for so much admirable tuition
in business, supplied gratuitously."
"Oh, well-when that time comes," said the junior
partner, somewhat restive under this tone of jocularity.
"We may ask you to regard it as otherwise than gra-
tuitous."
"It shall be a set-off on my account, sir. But let me
ask you, do you feel absolutely sure that my real capacity
has been unknown to everyone? I don't speak of Sir
Sydney Chard; but-to everyone else?'
•
""
“So far as I am concerned no one except my son has
had the smallest inkling of your errand with us. It has
not been known to either Sir Sydney or anybody else, I
believe, beyond my eldest son and myself. '
"Mr. Raymond Urwen has been aware of the fact?"
The speaker put the question in a tone of indifference,
without raising his eyes from the ground.
"Yes."
"I imagined so."
"He has made some allusion to the subject with
you?"
"None. And yet the last robbery occurred subsequent-
ly to my joining your office."
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d, ULT.
75
As the other did not continue, Mr. Urwen professed
himself unable to comprehend the sequence. "I mean,"
said his visitor, "that there would have been every ex-
cuse for his doing so. It would have been quite natural
that he should have broached the matter-that is all."
"I expressly pledged him to broach the matter to no
person whatsoever," returned Mr. Urwen.
"Not even
to my partner, which, I take it, was in accordance with
your own wish?"
·
"Pardon me, sir. My wish was to confine all knowl-
edge of my employment with you, upon this business, to
my actual employers-viz., yourself and Sir Sydney
Chard. I quite see your special reasons for with-
holding the communication from Sir Sidney Chard until
some definite issue has been arrived at; in itself an
arrangement of that kind is all in my favor, and I have
nothing to object; but-ought I not to have been con-
sulted before the secret of my presence in your offices
was confided to a third person-that is to say, Mr. Ray-
mond Urwen?"
"Oh, but," exclaimed the host, with surprise. "Ray-
mond can give you excellent assistance. I have found
him of great help. You positively ought to secure his co-
operation. I have every respect for your talents, patience,
and resources, Mr. Vowcher, but it is just possible after
all that, from the very nature of our business operations,
the inquiry may be more than you-or anyone else, mind
you, as outsiders, no matter what their skill in ordinary
undertakings-can properly grasp. I mean that you
can't do justice to yourselves. My son Raymond could
aid you materially. Indeed, frankly, it was with that
object that I took him into my confidence. Between you,
Brand can be cornered."
"You start with a bias, you see, Mr. Urwen," protested
the inquiry officer, smiling again.
"Oh, there's no doubt who the culprit is," declared
76
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Mr. Urwen, impatiently. "There's no doubt at all. The
scoundrel! If I hadn't Sir Sydney to consider, he'd go out
before he's an hour older-ay, and on the slenderest par-
ticle of evidence he should be wearing the handcuffs. But
there is Sir Sydney to consider, and the blow will be a
great one to him.
The inquiry officer rose, and took a turn up and down
the room.
"The blow will, of course, be a very great one to
Sir Sydney," resumed the other. "It was to spare him
any needless anxiety or chagrin that I resolved to keep
this from him until we could be surer. If we discovered
that, as a matter of fact, there was no reason to suspect
Brand of plundering us, then we should have every ground
for congratulating ourselves that we had not disturbed
Sir Sydney's long faith in him by baseless communication.
That was my guiding idea. The case must have assumed
some tangible form before we put it before him. Sir Syd-
ney Chard takes strong likes as well as strong dislikes.
A good deal is needed to move him. You have not been
able to see much of him in consequence of the amount of
time he now gives to his public duties, but-
"I saw him to-day," observed Mr. Aaron Vowcher,
lounging to the mantelpiece. "I saw him approach Mr.
Lester Brand, pronounce a few words in an undertone,
and move away without waiting for a response. The
purport of his words, whatever they were, left Brand
utterly astounded."
•
""
"Ah!"
'And I had remarked that a long private interview had
taken place just previously between Sir Sydney and your..
son, Mr. Urwen."
"To-day?”
"This afternoon."
"Has Raymond disregarded my express wishes?" ex-
claimed the junior partner, angrily.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
77
Mr. Vowcher again avoided his gaze, and began to
trifle with his eye-glass. It was an eye-glass with a
black rim, and he swung it by its narrow black silk braid
round and round his forefinger backwards and forwards.
"Perhaps, whilst in your office," said he, "I may, un-
luckily, have been recognized as Aaron M. Vowcher, of
Burleigh Street, Strand. I hardly think so, however. No,
not with all those accessories."
S
"No, no!"
"Gentleman of independent means, linguist, eccentric,
desirous of training in large mercantile house, to exclu-
sion of foreigners; acquaintance of Mr. Urwen's, and
not myself at all to look at. No; that part of the busi-
ness has been sound enough. Well, then, I think the
moment has arrived, sir, for me to volunteer a statement.
The fact is, sir, I have taken the liberty of exceeding my
instructions.' He paused for an instant, and then added
""
"Not to trouble you with matters which it would be
premature to deal with at the present moment, let me
ask your attention to an aspect of this case not in the
least involving the honor or integrity of Mr. Lester
Brand. Several of your clerks are excellent penmen; one
or two are remarkably adroit.
""
"Adroit enough for accomplices, I daresay." A scorn-
ful laugh completed this comment by the junior partner.
There are one or two who have been perhaps a little
careless in my presence."
<<
"A regular
"By Jove!" muttered the junior partner.
conspiracy!"
"But to limit myself to one of your subordinate em-
ployes, Mr. Urwen; there is a middle-aged man who
entered your house as messenger at the commencement
of last year and who has since been rewarded with a
slight advancement or two-Mardell."
""
Mardell-yes. A total abstainer, and very deserving.
Industrious stays willingly after office hours. '
""
i
}
78
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
:
"Just so. Now, my instructions from you, sir, have
been specifically to watch and to report upon Mr. Lester,
Brand. In connection with your belief that that gentle-
man was acting with an accomplice, I requested, as you
will remember, to be furnished with the particulars at
your disposal regarding the antecedents of your entire
staff of clerks. They had come to you backed by this,
that, or the other recommendation, testimonial, previous
experience, and so forth. One was a Sunday-school
teacher as well as an efficient buyer; another was deacon
of his chapel. Your instructions to me, however, were
to restrict my inquiries--"
"For the present."
"For the present-to the case of Mr. Brand himself."
Mr. Urwen interrupted hastily and with heightened
color-“It was a saving of time. Besides, there were
peculiar interests at stake. I believed, and still 'believe,
that Brand was engaged in an audacious endeavor to
entrap a young girl into a clandestine union.
The inquiry officer listened in silence, beating the tips
of his outstretched fingers gently together.
"A union which I firmly believed, and still believe, she
would have regretted to the end of her days."
""
There was no response.
"To be quite candid with you, the young lady is the
niece of my partner, Sir Sydney Chard. This has evidently
heightened the delicacy of my position." The speaker
continued in a colder strain, as if in resentment that he
should have been placed in momentary confusion. "It
became doubly.requisite to assure one's self beyond all
reasonable doubt of Mr. Lester Brand's guilt before
broaching the matter to Sir Sydney himself. To have
brought a groundless accusation would have been doubly
cruel, although the more delicate affair can, of course, be
no concern of ours-
"Excuse me, sir," objected Mr. Vowcher, profoundly
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
79
?
deferential.
motives."
"It might be, sir. I am looking for
"Motives?"
"Why should this young gentleman commit this species
of dishonesty, and on such a scale, at a moment when-
if ever there could be a moment in his life-he must have
every interest, hope, and aim to keep his name clear and
his character untarnished."
"Why?"
"I put on one side the question of sentiment. I don't
insist upon the view that fraud of this kind would be
scarcely different from a series of frauds on the young
lady herself. But from the point of view of worldly inter-
rest, how do you find it probable that Brand should be
plotting to defraud the man from whom he has most to
expect?"
The junior partner eyed his guest with a sort of frigid
wonder. "You do not suppose," said he curtly, "that
Sir Sydney Chard would acquiesce in the impudent
project? No. I had wished to leave this feature of the
situation entirely out of sight, but it appears that we
cannot do so. We cannot do so. Brand's calculation
has been to inveigle the girl into a secret or a sudden
marriage. Sir Sydney intends to make a very handsome.
settlement upon his niece, when she comes of age, and
she will be of age at the commencement of next month.
In the meantime Mr. Brand feathers his own nest, at
our expense, and to a pretty tune. When the thing
becomes known, Sir Sydney breaks with his niece, and
they are both packed about their business.
And a very
comfortable final for friend Brand. If he has robbed us,
it is because we were the easiest to rob, no doubt. All I
am afraid of is that he may have been too clever for us.
I am afraid we can't bring it home. With regard to the
young lady, of course she would have been but an un-
conscious agent. Her innocence especially exposes her
•
80
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT,
to the designs of a plausible rogue.
If she were not so
fearless and so high-minded a girl, I should be tempted to
suspect" Mr. Urwen stopped short, and then added in
unmistakable perturbation-"by I should be strongly
tempted to suspect that they were married already!"
"Are you pretty well posted as to their movements?"
inquired Mr. Vowcher, sympathetically.
·
"Posted? Oh, well-my son-there is my son, you
know," said the junior partner.
Mr. Vowcher, seated in a heap on an ottoman, began
again to beat the tips of his fingers gently together. "We
were speaking of Mardell,” he resumed. "I find that the
particulars supplied by him, at the time of his original
employment in your house, were fictitious. He gave you
provincial references; they were false. The reference
with which one of your clerks communicated was the
latest in point of date. Naturally, you received an answer;
that is only in the order of things. The address he gave
was one secured for the occasion. The whole account
which he furnished of himself was untrue.
""
With a rapid apology, Mr. Urwen interrupted his visitor
to ring for a servant. His guest profited by the opportu-
nity to desire that a visitor whom he personally expected
should be ushered in without delay.
"I have caused Mardell to be watched," presently con-
tinued Mr. Vowcher. "Yesterday, the 3d, I had hoped
to glean some definite information with respect to his
antecedents, but my men have come to a deadlock.
They traced him to a lodging-house in Seven Dials, a lodg-
ing-house where he has residence. It is the establishment,
by the way, of which we have heard so much this after-
noon-a house well-known to the police, but one of the
most orderly of its kind-in the course of last night the
scene of the murder-
""
Mr. Urwen briefly intimated that he had seen the men-
tions of the case. His countenance exhibited an expression
:
I
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
81
of horror, which was principally attributable, perhaps to
the reflection that any employé of Chard & Urwen, Gresham
Street, should be dwelling at Seven Dials in a common
lodging-house.
That Mardell was living there under no disguise of
name, proceeded the private inquiry officer, was a good
sign, so far as it went. But nothing seemed to be known
of him at the place itself. On leaving the office each
evening he was in the habit of making a wide detour,
going southward first, as though to some residence in the
suburbs, and then abruptly turning back westwards. He
followed the same plan every evening, not vigilantly,
but mechanically. If at some time adopted as a pre-
caution against discovery, this practice had to all appear-
ances now grown into a fixed custom.
"I suppose
there are no circumstances," added the speaker, "under
which your subordinate clerks, regularly attending at the
office, would be written to by the firm at their private
address ? "
(6
None, certainly," replied Mr. Urwen.
It was easy to understand that Mardell should wish to
conceal from his fellow-clerks the fact of his residence in
a Seven Dials lodging-house; what might seem less easy
to understand was the fact of his presence in the place at
all, unless he lived there for the sake of economy. But
men who could afford better things would sometimes
resort to habitations of this kind out of a craving for
peculiar companionship, or from a mere dislike to be
alone. "With regard to the provincial reference fur-
nished by Mardell previous to his employment by your
firm, I have seen the letter which was written in reply to
your own. I should say that it was executed by Mardell
himself the handwriting rather too obviously the exact
opposite in character of Mardell's ordinary penmanship
as known in your office. However that may be, the per-
sonage purporting to sign the letter was entirely fictitious;
-
6
82
!
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
I learn this much as the result of investigations on the
spot."
Ten minutes later the servant reappeared to announce
the arrival of the caller for Mr. Vere, as the fashionable
Burleigh Street inquiry officer had preferred to be desig-
nated for the circumstance.
"We shall now hear what became of Mr. Lester Brand
after his agitated departure from your Gresham Street
offices to-day," explained Aaron Vowcher during the few
moments they were alone.
The individual who entered was a dull-eyed, pale-faced
little man, with sparse brown whisker and beard. He
sat down on the edge of a chair, put his hat upon his
knees, and folded, his hands upon his hat.
"Well?" demanded Mr. Vowcher.
"Followed the party from Gresham Street into Cheap-
side, sir. Party took a cab to Gracechurch Street, offices
of Australian Steamship Company. Stayed there a quar-
ter of an hour. Tried to ascertain party's business but
unsuccessful; no chance without letting him slip.
>>
"One word," interposed Mr. Vowcher. "The name
of the person in question?"
The man answered with an expression of concern
that, owing to the nature of his instructions, he had really
taken no steps to inform himself upon that matter.
Thought the identity established. Had only watched the
party's movements, as per instructions, that afternoon.
The junior partner nodded to Mr. Vowcher approvingly.
Mr. Vowcher offered an explanatory remark that he had
had his man posted in Gresham Street for use, if necessary,
during the past two or three days.
"(
'Party took the cab on from Gracechurch Street to Pic-
cadilly Circus," resumed the newcomer. "Discharged
cab at corner of Circus. Walked from corner towards Lei-
cester Square. Turned up St. Martin's Lane. Asked the
way.
Was directed into the Dials. Went down Paradise
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
83
Row. Stopped at lodging-house." The narrator glanced
from Mr. Urwen to his own employer, and added for the
latter's benefit, "The Parsonage, sir."
Even Mr. Vowcher could not conceal his astonishment
at this piece of news, evidently unexpected by both aud-
itors. He offered no response however, and, during the
series of excited ejaculations which burst from their host,
appeared to devote his whole mind to the process of flick-
ing imaginary particles of dust from the left sleeve of
his faultless coat.
"Collusion the vilest collusion ! "repeated Mr. Urwen,
plunging about the room. "What do you say to this?
But I've been prepared for it! The knaves."
Aaron Vowcher's man2resumed. Party hesitated in
front of the house," said he. "Just as he had made up his
mind to go in, met another party coming out. Both stop-
ped short and exchanged a few words. Don't know, of
course, what they said; wasn't near enough to hear ; no
one else was near them at the moment. Should imagine
they weren't strangers to each other. Parties went into
the house together. I remained to watch the house, but
immediately sent one of the loafers at the corner with a
note to Burleigh Street, for some one else to come up fast.
While I was waiting, a hansom turned into Paradise Row
and pulled up. I was quite close to the hansom. There
was only one occupant. It was Detective-Sergeant Erne."
Mr. Vowcher transferred his attention abruptly to the
right coat-cuff, and flicked with renewed assiduity at im-
perceptible specks.
"Erne?" demanded their host. "Detective Erne?"
'The man who has last night's crime in hand," ex-
plained Aaron Vowcher, meditatively; "the Parsonage
Mystery case, you know, sir."
"Ah, yes," admitted Mr. Urwen, recollecting. "The
name of the detective appears in the evening papers.
It
seemed familiar to me. Yes?"
((
84
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"Detective-Sergeant Erne discharged the hansom," con-
tinued the narrator, "and walked as far as the Parsonage.
Spoke to someone on the pathway. Went in.
""
"Entered the Parsonage?" enquired his chief, without
looking up.
"Entered the Parsonage, sir. Yes, sir."
There was again a pause.
"Now let us have a description of this individual who
was met coming out of Parson's lodging-house by the per-
son you were instructed to follow," said Mr. Vowcher.
"Thin man, medium height, forty-five or so. Pale face,
wrinkled; sandy whiskers."
The description applied fairly enough to the personal
appearance of Mardell.
"Waited about about half an hour with no result," went
on Mr. Vowcher's man. "At expiration of that time,
Freeling arrived from Burleigh Street. To keep appoint-
ment here, as per instructions, left Freeling to take up
the observations. Carefully described party to Freeling,
and came on here."
I
"Is it safe?" anxiously inquired his chief.
"Oh, Freeling's sure enough, sir. Besides, couldn't
mistake our party. Description simple. Easily recog-
nized. Dress, and so forth, clear. No one else like him,
probably, just then, in the whole street-no, nor the next.
street either."
(C
Very good," approved the junior partner, " very good.
And how long was this ago?"
"As long as it takes to come here in a hansom from St.
Martin's Lane, sir, and to report-that's all."
"Very good-very good, indeed. Take a cigar. Take
two or three." He pushed the box across the table
towards Mr. Vowcher's man. "Take four or five."
+
Mr. Vowcher's man bowed solemnly, and took four.
"I am partial to a choice cigar," he said, stowing three
¡
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
85
of them away in his breast-pocket, and toying amorously
with the fourth. "Choice-prime and choice."
rose.
The junior partner consulted his watch. The other
Suppose we run on there now?" he suggested,
"We might surprise them together.”
eagerly.
"That would be unfortunate at the present stage
objected Mr. Vowcher. "The measure would be prema-
ture. Besides, there would be nothing to be learned.'
He turned to his myrmidon. "What direction had the
latter passed on to his colleague, Freeling?"
"As per instructions; to observe all movements of party
indicated until his arrival at address given. On his arri-
val to-night at that address, observations may cease.
Should he not go to that address at all, observations to
continue until morning, down to 11 o'clock. In case of
need, relief to be telegraphed for."
Mr. Urwen took Aaron Vowcher by the arm, and drew
him aside. "The address in question?" he asked.
،
'Merely that at Regent's Park," was the reply. "Mr.
Lester Brand's rooms. Eleven o'clock to-morrow morn-
ing will bring him to Gresham Street again, with a good
margin.
""
"I see. You will acquaint me to-morrow with the
results of this-this-vigilance on the part of your men?
Say to-morrow at noon. We will lunch together privately
in the city.
The other directed a swift glance of keen scrutiny at
his host. "If you will allow me," said he, with some de-
liberation, "let us make no fixed appointment. I shall
have business to-morrow at Mr. Brand's address— after
he has quitted it. There is also a personage whom I
must exchange a few words with, if not to-night, early
to-morrow."
C
، ،
""
Where?'
"I mean Detective-Sergeant Erne."
"The detective engaged upon the affair of this villain-
""
86
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ous lodging-house! Oh, but-" exclaimed Mr. Urwen,
with a startled expression, "pray remember!
pray remember! We must
have no publicity now, at any rate."
"Rest assured that there will be none," was the re-
sponse, "so far as my own share in this affair is con-
cerned. But Erne, whom I know, may indirectly prove
of service."
4
-
They lingered by the window, conversing in low tones.
The junior partner seemed loth to terminate the inter-
view. He once more congratulated himself upon the
"instinct" which had prompted him to assign their pres-
ent meeting. It was instinct with him, repeated Mr.
Urwen; he trusted to his instinct always, and he had
never known his instinct to lead him astray. He really
did think he might say that for the detection of duplicity.
falsehood, and so forth, he was endowed with an instinct
that was quite extraordinary. The position occupied by
the clerk Mardell was not such as to bring him into per-
sonal contact with the partners; otherwise he should
have at once divined his character. Mr. Vowcher doubt-
less abandoned himself largely to the simple guidance of
what we termed instinct in the successful conduct of his
professional inquiries? In that resolve, now, to watch
Brand so closely this afternoon? Why to-day, and not
yesterday? Why not yesterday, or the day before? He,
Mr. Urwen, had continually urged. that Brand should be
watched with the most unremitting vigilance. In that,
his instinct had incessantly spoken. Mr. Urwen was
probably at this moment not very far from the convic-
tion that on the whole he might be found somewhat the
superior of the celebrated Mr. Vowcher in the celebrated
Mr. Vowcher's own business.
The murmur of their voices barely reached the ears of
Mr. Vowcher's man, leaning contentedly against the
angle of a bookcase at the opposite extremity of the room,
his face towards them, his back towards the door. In
#!
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
87
the wide embrasure of the window they were almost lost
to view. The shaded lamps illuminated the apartment
mainly at its centre. Past the vaguely defined forms of
Mr. Vowcher and his host could be seen glistening in high
windows opposite the same silvered radiance that looked
down at the same hour from the moonlit casements of
Oakdene.
"We have done all that," repeated Aaron Vowcher,
placidly, "of course we were bound to do it. He has
But
been watched as unremittingly as you could wish.
I was present to-day when a clerk of yours, returning
into the office, announced the crime of which we have all
since perused the details in the evening papers. I was
present when Mr. Lester Brand read the accounts for
himself. His agitation was unmistakable, and it was
upon that, as I understood, he begged to be freed from
further attendance until some time in the course of
to-morrow."
"He was to have joined a party of Sir Sydney's guests
this evening. I excused myself," said Mr. Urwen, "but
how could he?"
"C
'The initiative may have been taken by Sir Sydney
Chard, and that may have been the communication I
noticed."
Mr. Vowcher's man, to all appearance lulled into a
rapturous doze by the fragrance of his choice cigar, sud-
denly opened wide his eyes and fixed them upon a shin-
ing point at his left hand. The point was moving slightly
towards him; it was the handle of a side door, cautiously
opened from without. A face peered into the room. The
gaze met the gaze of Mr. Vowcher's man. The face was
instantaneously withdrawn.
The door closed audibly. Panelled to resemble and
to continue the pattern of the wainscoting, it might easily
have escaped notice in the half-light.
"Who is there?" called Mr. Urwen, advancing.
:
88
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Mr. Vowcher's man was quite unable to explain. He
deliberately indicated the wrong entrance. A domestic,
had perhaps opened the door behind him, and looked in,
imagining that they had left.
The junior partner reverted to earlier points in his con-
versation with his principal guest. "At any rate," he
went on, "you won't say that you still fancy Brand can
clear himself of complicity in these frauds upon us?"
"Give me a free hand, sir," answered Aaron Vowcher,
with a curious smile, "and I will bring the frauds home
clearly, to individuals other than Mr. Brand."
"I
'
"A free hand? But, my good friend, you have it!"
The speaker's amazement was evidently unfeigned.
know how this is to turn out of course, but-
a free
hand? Why of course, I give you a free hand! Now,
with regard to my partner, I propose to acquaint him
with the whole affair to-morrow."
The other at once acquiesced; begging at the same
time that the partners should thenceforward broach the
matter to no person whatsoever, neither to Mr. Lester
Brand, nor to their legal advisers, nor to Mr. Raymond
Urwen.
<C
Very well. It will be difficult to retain Sir Sydney,
but I think I can promise that. Everything, then, is to
go on as usual!"
، ،
"Precisely as usual, please." Mr. Vowcher beamed
with satisfaction. 'My evidence may take a little time,"
said he, "but when I get it together, you shall admit that
it is conclusive, sir. And don't be surprised if, before we
clinch the demonstration, you are victimized once more.
They descended the staircase. 'Another word," mur-
mured the junior partner. "Is it absolutely necessary
that you should consult this detective-this Detective
Erne?"
tam
*
"C
"Not necessary; convenient; the case as it concerns
Mardell."
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
89
"I see.
We wish for no publicity, you will remem-
ber-especially with Sir Sydney's private reasons. The
inquiries have led us up unpleasantly to that disreputable
lodging-house resort.”
Mr. Vowcher's man eyed the domestic dreamily. It
was not the domestic who had peered into the room.
'We must not figure in cut-throat common lodging-
houses," added Mr. Urwen, in a low tone, half-jocosely.
"We are not to be brought into mysterious crimes,' you
know!"
"Saw
Mr. Vowcher and his man hailed a passing cab.
the features quite distinctly,,sir," declared Mr. Vowcher's
man, concluding his description of the intruder upstairs.
"Identify him anywhere if I saw him again."
The chief directed his subordinate to attend on the
following day at Gresham Street, as before, and they
parted. On the following day, the 5th, however, Mr.
Lester Brand had disappeared.
;
90
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
CHAPTER VII.
1
'
It was unquestionable; Lester Brand had disappeared.
The vigilance employed to mark his movements during
the few weeks preceding June 4th had, after all, proved
abortive. Mr. Vowcher confessed that he was powerless
to indicate either the manner, the moment, or the motive
of a disappearance which, to him, he persisted in tran-
quilly reiterating, appeared doubly and trebly unaccount-
able. He made these admissions with no apologetic air
of failure. Indeed, said he to Mr. Urwen, previously to
their interview with the senior partner on the afternoon
of the fifth, as arranged, he now saw that Mr. Brand's
presence or his absence would be absolutely immaterial
to the investigations with which he had been entrusted
In the matter of the frauds perpetrated upon the firm, Mr.
Brand would be found to have been, not the principal
agent, but one of the injured parties.
That being so, how came it that he should be suddenly
undiscoverable? Had he not taken to flight?
Mr. Vowcher was quite willing to discuss the question
"academically," as he put it, but not as in any way con-
nected with the private inquiry placed in his hands by the
firm. Of course it was possible that the missing gentle-
man might have sought safety in flight from some peril
or another with which they were unacquainted. It was
also possible that he might have fallen a victim to assas-
sination.
B
Up to the hour at which he was followed to his own
address by Freeling, on the evening of the 4th, Lester
Brand's movements could be established with an almost
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
91
perfect exactitude.
Freeling had brought his report to
Burleigh Street at half-past nine on the morning of the 5th,
and with that report in his possession, Mr. Vowcher had
himself arrived at the offices of Messrs. Chard & Urwen,
Gresham-street, an hour later.
From the detailed statement thus furnished by Freel-
ing, it appeared that some fifteen minutes after the de-
parture of his colleague to attend the rendezvous with
their chief at Mr. Urwen's private house, Lester Brand
had quitted the Parsonage in company with Detective-
Sergeant Erne, their destination being the police office in
Bow-street. Arrived here, Lester Brand had made some
sort of declaration which had been taken down in writing
by an inspector on duty. One of the constables stationed
at the entrance informed Freeling, who was known to
him, that the declaration concerned the crime which had
been committed in Paradise Row, on the previous night,
the 3d. As to the purport of the communication volun-
teered at Bow Street by the "party" whose movements
he had been instructed to observe, Freeling could, of course,
say nothing. When Mr. Brand and Detective Erne had
terminated their errand at Bow Street, they had shaken
hands cordially, and parted; the former wending his way
slowly along the Strand, and, from his manner, uncertain
of the course he should definitively follow. Freeling
soon perceived that Lester Brand was being watched like-
wise by Detective Erne, who had turned back after tak-
ing leave of him. He soon perceived, also, that his own
similar occupation had not yet attracted the notice of Erne
himself.
M
The party had at length hailed a cab, giving his direc-
tions to the driver in a leisurely fashion which rendered
the task of those who were bound upon the same tack a
matter of the greatest ease. Freeling saw that Detective
Erne had at once stopped another hansom, and was wait-
ing the departure of the first to follow in its wake. He
92
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
himself had preferred to hasten forward on foot, trusting
to the probability of his encountering one of the Strand
cabmen who were accustomed to the peculiar mission of
Vowcher's men, from Burleigh Street. He had succeeded
in this object, and it was therefore with no difficulty that
he had been able to avoid the observation of Detective
Erne whilst keeping the "party well in sight." They had
driven to Queen Anne's Gate. Here the party had de-
scended at a private mansion.
Lester Brand had descended, in fact, at the abode of the
junior partner, and had remained several minutes within
the house. Resuming his journey from that point, he
had gone to the Regent's Park address transferred to Freel-
ing by the colleague he had replaced. Erne had presum-
ably instructed his driver in advance, for, when they arriv-
ed at the address in question, the vehicle containing the
detective had continued upon its route, passing the other,
and had been seen by Freeling no more. Discharging
his own vehicle, Lester Brand had with his latchkey let
himself into the house figuring upon the address placed
in Freeling's hands by his colleague. In conformity with
the latter's delegated order, Freeling had thereupon retraced
his steps, considering his evening's work at an end.
"I must say I regret those orders of yours, Vowcher,
said Mr. Urwen with some asperity, as he reached the
conclusion of the report at their preliminary conference.
"They seem to me to constitute a serious oversight:
they were a quite unnecessary limitation. The watch
kept upon Brand should never have been relaxed for a
single moment.
""
99
The private inquiry officer confined himself to a repeti-
tion of his former reply. He himself was merely con-
cerned, for the firm of Chard and Urwen, with the supposed
participation by Mr. Brand in the frauds of which their
house had been the subject. Those frauds would be
traceable elsewhere. When the complete results of the
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
93
¦
inquiry could be delivered over to the firm it would be
understood that in abstaining from a premature report
upon the entire question, Mr. Aaron Vowcher had but
obeyed motives of the most delicate order.
"I should like to know why I was not apprised of his
visit,” continued the junior partner. Indeed, from a com-
parison of the times, you and your assistant must have
been with me in my room at the very moment of the call."
'Would there be any other member of your household
whom he would be likely to ask for?" inquired Mr.
Vowcher.
None; of that Mr. Urwen was quite sure.
The point,
however, could be cleared up, immediately upon his return
home. What the reason might have been of Lester Brand's
call upon himself, added the speaker, was more than he
could divine. Brand had perhaps intended to notify him
of some period of absence, for he had not yet reached
the office. He was ordinarily in attendance at a much
earlier hour. Mardell had arrived as usual.
1
17
At one o'clock in the day, in consequence of Mr. Brand's
continued absence, Aaron Vowcher despatched his “man”
from Gresham Street to the Regent's Park address, the
message bearing on behalf of the junior partner an urgent
summons to the office. But Mr. Brand seemed to have
quitted his chambers at least 13 or 14 hours previously to
the arrival of the messenger. He had been seen by the
servants of the house to descend from a cab and to let him-
self in with his latchkey, on the evening of the 4th, after
dusk, and it had been greatly to their surprise that those
who habitually waited upon him found on the following
morning that he had evidently not passed the night there.
He must have gone out again, after remaining perhaps an
hour or two at home. No one had heard him go out,
although, explained the housekeeper to the bearer of the
note, it could easily happen that "one of her gentlemen"
might either leave the house or enter it without being
94
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
observed. The movements of the gentlemen, occupying
chambers there concerned themselves alone; she never
let to any but the very best;" and it was for nobody
there to occupy themselves with the proceedings of any of
the gentlemen-neither of Mr. Brand nor of anybody
else. If the discovery of Mr. Brand's absence that morn-
ing had excited some surprise, the fact was solely due to
the regularity of his ordinary habits. It was certain that
he had quitted the house again before one o'clock, be-
cause the "latest of the gentlemen the previous evening
were two or three who had been to the theatre," and who
on their return home at that hour had secured the door,
believing themselves to be "last out."
"Here is a letter for him, I see," remarked Mr. Vow-
cher's man, indicating the hall-rack.
Yes, that letter had arrived about an hour ago.
Mr.
Vowcher's man took it out of the rack, glanced at the.
postmark and the handwriting of the superscription, and
restored it to its place. The address was in a feminine
handwriting, and the envelope bore the postmark of Wim-
bledon.
Only a single additional particular could be gleaned
by the messenger from Gresham Street.
From the ap-
pearance of his writing-table, and from the fact that
minute scraps of note-paper were found scattered about
the floor, it was clear that on his return home Brand had
sat down to write letters. He had doubtless carried these
letters out with him to post. Mr. Vowcher's man, who,
in virtue of his Gresham Street credential, procured admit-
tance to the private apartments of the missing gentleman,
profited by a favorable opportunity to pick up the scat-
tered fragments from the floor, and to stow them safely
away in his pocket for future examination. Before report-
ing himself again at Gresham Street he had passed each
morsel of note paper carefully in review, and to some
extent had pieced the whole together. He reconstructed
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
95
in this way two separate sheets of note-paper, blank
with the exception of a stamped monogram, and of
the following few words, respectively :-"My dearest
Ida, -I am in the deepest distress, and I implore you"--
"I hardly know how to describe to you, my dearest Ida,
the terrible events which". the sentences in each case
being unfinished.
Sir Sydney arrived at Gresham Street late in the after-
noon, and for those who knew him, the merest glance at
his lined features and his lowering brow sufficed to detect
the repressed storm. The interview between the two
partners and the private inquiry officer took place without
delay. Mr. Urwen rapidly detailed the occurrences which
had aroused his suspicions, as well as his reasons-or
certain of them-for withholding these matters hitherto
from Sir Sydney's cognizance. To the astonishment of
his partner Sir Sydney listened unmoved. The explana-
tion of his apparent composure came out at the close.
He had already, he said, been made acquainted with the
main features of his incredible instance of ingratitude and
rascality. By whom? Well-he had pledged himself to
regard the communication as absolutely under the seal of
confidence. He had refused at first to in any way credit
the statements which had thus been placed before him
not two days ago; but the facts were vouched for upon
responsible authority, and evidence of treachery in a
different direction had since compelled him to completely
discard the estimate he had hitherto formed of this partic-
ular individual. It was hard: Sir Sydney broke off with
a short sarcastic laugh; some people might repine, he
went on, against a situation such as that which had been
created for him by a person whom, if ever one man had
stopped to benefit another, he had befriended at the sacrifice
of his resentment and his self-respect. As for himself, he
found it, not hard, but odd, odd that, having lived so long
in the world, and having learnt of the world all that a
Vanatemenný zp
į
96
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
poor man conquering fortune learns, he, he, should still
be gulled.
Both Mr. Urwen and the private inquiry officer remarked
the allusion to a sacrifice of resentment and of self-respect.
The speaker referred evidently to some earlier and un-
divulged passages in the history of the relations between
himself and Lester Brand.
G
As Sir Sydney relapsed into a glacial silence, Mr. Aaron
Vowcher brought his ingenuity to bear upon the task of
eliciting openly the name of the premature informant.
He did not upon this occasion explain that he was "look-
ing for motive."
any
"Let us say
His efforts proved of no avail, however.
no more about it," repeated Sir Sydney; "let us have no
more of these investigations. A young man falsifies the
promise of his own career, and shows himself to be un-
worthy of aid, encouragement, and favors bountifully
showered upon him. I am not aware that the spectacle
is altogether uncommon. To what temptations this young
gentleman may have succumbed, I will not inquire.
Perhaps I am myself mostly to blame. Perhaps I ought
to have foreseen!"
His auditors waited, expectantly; but the strain of
reminiscences which had seemed to pervade his thoughts,
Sir Sydney abruptly abandoned. "Be good enough to
oblige us with your account for the various measures and
agencies by which you have tested Mr. Brand's grave
culpability," said he to Mr. Vowcher; "we will then
give you our check. Perhaps it would be well to restrict
this matter to the limits of a private inquiry, Mr. Vowcher;
you quite follow me?"
"Oh, quite," returned that gentleman; "allow me,
however,"
"We shall not prosecute, and we do not want to be
talked about," interrupted the other. "Mr. Brand relieves.
me personally of a most unpleasant obligation by disap-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
:
97
pearing from the scene-an obligation that would have
been peculiarly odious to me. He has gone; let him
drop out. We will replace him one of these days, but
about that there need be no hurry."
Mr. Vowcher then informed the senior partner, with
the utmost deliberation, of the absolute divergence of view.
existing between himself and Mr. Urwen upon the subject
of the frauds. The guilty persons must manifestly be
familiar with the internal working of the house, but the
result would show, he had every reason to believe, that
neither on account of the larger depredations outside,
nor on account of the thefts committed actually within
their own offices, was the smallest complicity attaching
to Mr. Lester Brand. The sudden turn which the
speaker's quiet contribution gave to the debate produced
a marked change in the demeanor of Sir Sydney Chard.
Whatever his special motives for disappointment, morti-
fication, or anger, the hypothesis of innocence thus put
forward obviously soothed and gratified him. At the
same time he did not conceal his astonishment.
"I must have followed you imperfectly," said he to
the junior partner. "I thought you were going upon
facts brought out by Mr. Vowcher's inquiry?"
"For some reason or other," replied Mr. Urwen,
hastily, "our friend here is reserving everything until
he can put the last touch to the case. He wants to drive
the last nail home. Otherwise, the whole thing's clear
enough."
66
Otherwise, then," echoed Sir Sydney, after a pause,
"the whole thing, as against Mr. Brand, comes to a
mere presumptive charge. But if the culpability does
not rest with Brand, with whom does it rest?"
"Quite so," acquiesced the junior partner trium-
phantly, "with whom?"
Aaron Vowcher again began to
of dust from his left coat cuff.
:
D
(C
flick imaginary atoms
Pray do not suspect
7
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THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
me of intentionally exaggerating difficulties," he said.
after a moment's hesitation, "or of any desire, you
know to pose for effect. How can I furnish a definite
report until my view of the case is clinched-until the
whole of the evidence is in my hands? The matter is
one of considerable delicacy, gentlemen, and you will
understand my reluctance to anticipate conclusions. I
ask for a little more time-perhaps not more than a week
-perhaps a month; this must depend upon the person
by whom you are being defrauded. The signature of
your house will probably be forged once morẻ; probably
to a check payable to a fictitious order. On the day
following your discovery of that next fraud, I will hand
over my report. You will see that it in no way inculpates
Mr. Lester Brand."
·
}
C
Without proffering a response, Sir Sydney sat, with
knitted brows, keenly studying the speaker's downcast
face, and closely weighing his words.
"It's rather difficult to prove negatives, my good
friend!" exclaimed the junior partner. "And why is he
not here?"
The conference terminated with the recapitulation of
the slender facts obtained that afternoon by Mr. Vow-
cher's man. Sent for, and minutely questioned, that
worthy could add nothing of material import to the
account he had already furnished. Coming, however,
to the subject of the letter delivered at the Regent's Park
address at mid-day, and apparently coupling in his own
mind the fact of the feminine handwriting with the pur-
port of the few words traced upon the recovered fragments
of note-paper, Mr. Vowcher's man thought fit to remind
his listeners that the Wimbledon missive must have
been deposited in the post at some hour during the pre-
vious evening of the 4th, and not until then,—not earlier
in the day. If the gentleman whom the speaker now
knew as Mr. Lester Brand, as a matter of fact, completed
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THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
99
:
the epistle he had twice abortively begun, it was only
reasonable to suppose that he had gone out late on the
night of the 4th for the purpose of dispatching it by post;
and if the person named in the unfinished sentences now
before their eyes were the sender of the missive bearing
the postmark of Wimbledon, the two communications had
crossed. Consequently-
"The contents of the Wimbledon letter, even if we
knew them," interjected Mr. Urwen,-" might give us
no information as to the disappearance.
""
"These phrases themselves are in the nature of an
announcement, a warning," added his partner, slowly,
"An announcement, an indication-a farewell, perhaps.
Unhappy young man!"
Sir Sydney's accent betrayed a momentary sorrow
which startled the junior partner out of his conventional air
of genteel repose. "It is greatly to be deplored, of
course," stammered the junior partner.
While Mr. Urwen and the inquiry officer concluded
their colloquy for the day, Sir Sydney Chard sank into a
brief reverie,´as if oblivious of their presence, and as
though again retracing paths that wound afar off to the
past. He was seated in a low chair wheeled round to the
deep window-sill backed with scheduled correspondence.
Mr. Vowcher's man had returned into the general office;
the other two personages were conversing near the door.
Sir Sydney sat with his right hand clasping his forehead,
his elbow supported by the right arm of the chair. -Un-
happy, unhappy !-The movement of his lips framed the
word once more; the word had almost issued from his
lips in a compassionate and agitated murmur.
A sigh
broke from him. He pushed his chair back suddenly,
recoiling as it seemed from the prospect before his eyes.
It was a prospect, however, which he looked upon with-
out distinguishing; angles of dun walls, and windows.
of which the lower halves were whitewashed-the whole
100
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
a mere glimpse of a city corner viewed from the rear.
Above the solid chimney-stalks, and above the motionless
weather vanes beamed some half-dozen square yards of
clear blue sky. In that unmoved azure he may have
sought the heavens that smiled for him long since, long
since; he may have seen in that celestial mirage that
first freshness of the heart which bright eyes tarnished
years ago, and coarse hands brushed regardlessly away.
He had lowered his gaze mechanically to the opaque
panes of glass surrounding the drab window-sill. The
wooden shutters, too, that folded back, on each side, and
closed in a drab-colored shallow recess, were painted
drab. From one to another of these objects undiscern-
ingly his glance had wandered. Far from the present
scene, he had perhaps revived the day when she to
whom he spoke of the poignant souvenirs that were
her gift to him-the day of their last meeting-replied
with glib raillery, and with cheap generalizations, and
with the laugh that could ever come to her easily at all
pain but her own. The souvenirs had lost their poignancy.
Helped by resentment and contempt, time was upon his
side. Ten years after the close of the story he had been
a rich man, about to espouse a rich woman, his senior.
Their union had been quoted as exemplary; there was no
passion upon either side; upon neither side was their
superority of worldly advantage; and when eventually hist
wife succumbed to a distressing chronic disorder-unsus-
pected by Sir Sidney prior to the marriage-he had re-
corded her virtues, his own resignation, and the Christian
circumstances of her decease in the apposite language of
orthodox piety, as collated for these occasions, with
excellent method, in the text-book of the undertaker.
It was not for the esteemed lady who had thus left him
all too soon that he now sighed. No; he had gone back
to the dead souvenirs, and he loved again, the obliterated
form and features of the bygone idol reappearing under
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THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
101
the guise of Adrienne St. Maur. It could assuredly cost
him no effort now to sever the one link with the past
which he had determined to preserve. Lester had parted
from him; he must go. The bond between them had
been broken. Lester's presence could not have proved
otherwise than unwelcome, henceforth. And yet, resolv-
ing very decided that, even if the young man had not by
his own act forfeited all claim upon him in the future, the
moment had come when they must separate, Sir Sydney
shrank from a definite renunciation of that allegiance
which so many years ago-more than the young man
counted in his age-he had perceived to be ill-bestowed.
In these instants men are not unfrequently mistaken as
to the true nature of their hoarded bereavements. They
mourn less than the fair face, their bygone selves, their
sterilised capacities for the accomplishment of something.
other than that they have actually achieved. The fair face
of some calculating or venal, perverse or shallow-pated
woman, has been but the reproduction of a stock figure-
head that leads honestly-freighted vessels to their wreck.
"Pursue your course, Mr. Vowcher," exclaimed Sir
Sydney.
"I am anxious that you should not think we are build-
ing up the account unnecessarily," hazarded the inquiry
officer.
"Not at all. You will clear this up for us, and all will
have been said and done. Evidently we must protect
ourselves, whoever may be the culprit. You will agree
that Mr. Brand's sudden departure, at this moment, looks
very like flight?”
"It might look so-yes," replied Aaron Vowcher,
gravely. "It might look like an escape."
}
102
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
!
ર
CHAPTER VIII
>
In spite of his resolves, Sir Sydney found that the name
of Lester Brand was to be by no means banished from
his ears. Within an hour of his departure from Gresham
Street, subsequently to the interview just narrated, he was
calling at the temporary abode of Adrienne St. Maur in
Sloane Street, and here he encountered the daughters of
his partner, Gwendoline and Guinevere Urwen. These
young ladies demanded news of Mr. Brand with the most
artless perseverance in the world, and begged that Mr.
Brand might soon run over to Oakdene, and longed for
Mr. Brand's participation in their evening's tennis. "Yes,
yes, my dear," said Sir Sydney to each in turn-"yes,
yes." Adrienne listened silently. Attired in a gorgeous
profusion of silk, bleu ciel, and of lace Valenciennes, the
long sleeves revealing but the white firm wrist, her figure.
seemed ill-placed amidst the sober furniture of her modest
She belonged to an alien atmosphere-neither to
the permanent surroundings here, nor to the exact social
connection of her guests.
rooms.
*
The charming Gwendoline and Guinevere had insisted
upon serving as escort upon Miss St. Maur on the latter's
return from Oakdene after luncheon on the 5th. The pres-
ence of the archly smiling sisters apparently annoyed Sir
Sydney Chard, when, somewhat nearer the dinner hour
than was his practice, he made the brief call at
Sloane Street which had now become almost a regular
engagement. He had come laden with a bouquet of or-
chids, "and the´ attempt to impart a merely formal air and
tone to his visit proved embarrassing. The young ladies
3
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
103
took great notice of the orchids. They declared that Sir
Sydney should not, could not, thwart their wishes; Miss
St. Maur must positively accompany themselves and dear
Sir Sydney back to Oakdene; darling Ida would be de-
lighted. With her fixed smile, Adrienne St. Maur listened
silently.
There was a debate that night, however, explained Sir
Sydney, which would necessitate his attendance at the
House of Commons. He would be due in his place in
the House immediately after dinner. And Miss St. Maur
herself had daily studies and duties which it would be
difficult to induce her to break up-most difficult—even
impossible, he was afraid.
Impossible, I am afraid," echoed their blonde and
magnificent hostess, mournfully shaking her head, as if in
conscientious predilection for the treadmill. Worthy
people from Cincinnati-she pronounced "Cincinnarter"
-were expecting her to dine with them, and yet some
hours would need to be stolen from the night in prepara-
tion for to-morrow's visit by the Professor.
Who would have imagined that this slave to rectitude
and devotee to duty had ever aimed at the capture of this
rich man, twice her age, that she had schemed for it, and
plotted, and that she now held pledges of her success?
Sir Sydney looked on, the happiest of men indeed. It
was her vast and admirable earnestness that had seduced
his intellect, he persuaded himself.
Gwendoline and Guinevere set off upon a little tour
through the rooms. They pried into corners, and they
asked whither doors conducted, and why there were cur-
tains here and there; and they cried out at short intervals,
catching their breath, that the whole thing was quite too
jolly. They would have loved to possess rooms of their
own like these-just like these they should be; they would
come again to-morrow, that they vowed; they could
hardly tear themselves away-indeed, they shouldn't go.
:
66
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THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
C
Summoning to his aid the paternal sportiveness which
formed his customary safeguard against their innocent.
freedoms, Sir Sydney told the young ladies that they were
little scapegraces, predicted that, save and they hasted,
the shades of night would fall ere they regained the fold
at Oakdene, described a course of dismal errantry for
them through London town, pictured contingencies un-
toward, such as their maid's untimely end, and declined
altogether to be answerable for their fate to their papa.
It was a foolish vein, not incompatible with personal
sprightliness that were quinquagenarian.
Adrienne, listening with the fixed smile, might well
have symbolized Patience smiling at Futility.
The three visitors drove away together, Sir Sydney ac-
companying his partner's prattling daughters as far as
Waterloo, and then returning to the House of Commons.
He had waited with them whilst their maid purchased
newspapers at the platform bookstall, and he had beën
recognized undemonstratively by several of the minor
city gentlemen who, on their way "down the line" to
rejoin possibly their wives and families, cast privateering
glances at the young ladies under his charge. These fair
creatures gushed a great deal as their maid brought the
evening journals to them in a pink, white, and gray
bundle. The placards which had attracted their notice
treated diversely of "H. R. H.," and the night of the 3d;
and, upon the subject of the two tragedies connected with
that date, Miss Gwendoline and Miss Guinevere held con-
flicting views it seemed. They followed the piecemeal
accounts with absorbed interest. It was like reading an
exciting tale by instalments, they exclaimed; with the
exception that you didn't have to wait either a week or a
whole month for the next number, and that it was true.
And their brother's description of the "Parsonage” had
quite fascinated them. Why could they not see such
places as the "Parsonage?" Raymond had snubbed
•
·
I
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
105
them when they had said they wanted to go there. The
people who went there were frequently in society and
were not always new-the papers had reported the fact
that very morning already. Why could not they them-
selves go where people in society went, and people who
were not always new? Raymond could take them, and
yet he wouldn't. He was known there, with Lord This
and That, of the Mithras Club; and yet, when they had
entreated him again that day, before he left Oakdene, to
let them see the dreadful place and the strange, horrid
folk that lived there, as well as the people who were
visitors, he had snubbed them severely, which was just.
like a brother, and had said that the "people "were not
proper. If they went, it need not be known who they
were, and someone could have borne them company-
Miss St. Maur, for instance, or even their maid. Why
should the verdict "not proper" thus interfere to debar
them from the keen pleasures of discovery and from real
knowledge of the world? They almost wished that, once
for all, that they were not proper-there! "My dears,"
expostulated Sir Sydney. The eldest son of a fellow M.P.,
notoriously hardup-the member for Mitcham-passed
by Sir Sydney with a ceremonious bow, and took his seat
in the compartment. Sir Sydney colored slightly, and
excused himself for not remaining. He had to get back
to St. Stephens. The young ladies read to him the an-
nouncement of the two inquests, and vowed with the
prettiest animation that they must peruse the evidence
through and through. Miss Guinevere pronounced
"t'rough and t'rough," or troo and troo; and Miss Gwen-
line lisped. Before Sir Sydney could make off, they had
once more contrived to speak in equivocal terms of
Adrienne St. Maur.
•
With the disappearance of Sir Sydney Chard, the im-
pulsive gayety of these fair creatures underwent a singular
eclipse. The eagle scrutiny directed upon them by the
106
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
young gentleman, son to the member for Mitcham, en-
countered marble. The young gentleman had no existence
for them; their transformation into another type of con-
ventionality, that of the alabaster, the superfine, and the
impeccable was oddly sudden and complete. They had
been lisping imperfect thoughts just now, little more than
mere babes and sucklings; their blue eyes and their
sweeping eyelashes, the pearls they exhibited for teeth,
and the rosebuds where the rest of us have mouths, had
been all busily at work just now to wheedle a millionaire
elderly gentleman; at present, they throned maturely and
serenely in the sky. From his hon. sire, the member for
Mitcham's ineffectual first-born inherited no sense of
humor; lacking which, however opulent in other senses,
surely we lose a very great deal that renders the world
worth living in. The Misses Urwen's maid, however,
possessed her own share of the sardonic perception de-
veloped by menials. Reckoning up with one-half of the
brain the profits accruing to her private purse that day by
cab fares overcharged and by second-class tickets taken.
for first-class places, the Misses Urwen's maid was with
the other half-untutored, nathless, as to "cerebral
hemispheres "-framing the day's incidents in a sarcastic
epitome for the delectation of Sir Sydney's kitchen. She
knew the young ladies. She knew them in moods not
revealed before company; she knew them in tantrums,
and in scenes disrespectful of papa and mamma; if put
upon her oath, she might have spoken to the use of
naughty words, as well as to instructive ways and foibles
which the Gwendolines and Guineveres, the Airy Fairy
Lilians, the Parthenissas, and the Sacharissas have ordina-
rily concealed from their biographers. Valentine-makers,
folk who labor annually in a pernicious land of rose-
colored illusion, put these pretty faces upon satin clouds
and scented lace, decorated with straddling Cupids, bas-,
kets of flowers, and "a little unbaked poetry." Mistress
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ÚLT
107
Anne, however, or Abigail, handmaiden to the Airy Fairy
Lilian, or to Parthenissa, may well smile darkly in the
staircase on St. Valentine's morn, as she bears upward to
the bower the postman's flattering load. Not for Anne
and Abigail, most often, are these belauded Lilians,
Gwendolines, and Guineveres, at all the fairy, airy, glad-
some, and sunny creatures that dance through the stanzas
of a poet's abstraction. The lives of Anne and Abigail,
when they are out of the kitchen, pass amidst the artifice,
in the dressing-room, behind the curtain. A poet, with
small instinct for the absurd, can weave much nonsense
and error out of a little sunshine and inexperience; but
deeper than the poet's is the love of Anne and Abigail.
And poets are usually jilted.
The Misses Urwen read their papers with the most
bewitching air of virginal austerity. Opposite sat their
maid, impenetrable.
One or two of the evening journals contained rough
sketches relating to the mystery at the "Parsonage.” An
outlined plan of Paradise Row and the surrounding by-
streets accompanied a vigorously jotted notion of Mr.
Parson's habitual tenants, as they might appear at home.
Each evening paper contained a sketch of the deceased-
"H. R. H.," and the presentiments of the head proved
tolerably uniform. The young ladies placed the heads
idly side by side, commented upon them, and exchanged
their impressions. They spoke in fragmentary phrases,
barely audible.
<<
•C
""
Strange.
Very like.
<<
""
Certainly, resemblance.
Strong resemblance.
The maid closed her eyes for a few seconds, detecting
half a dozen words. She had been very busily construct-
ing her account of the day, for the diversion of Anne,
Pamela, Joseph, and Company, and now she relished in
""
""
"
108
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
advance an observation upon the victim of the 3d June,
a speculative observation upon his identity. The maid
wondered if either of the fair sisters would be one day
Lady Chard.
Sir Sydney himself had driven back to Westminster.
He reached St. Stephen's in time to see the House cleared
for a division, an hon. member having resente! an un-
satisfactory reply as to the organization of the detective.
force, by moving the adjournment in the midst of the
questions. The hon. gentleman at once enlisted Sir
Sydney as a champion of private members' rights, ad-
ministrative reform, police efficiency, diminished expend-
iture and various other causes always pertinent to similar
occasions. They went into the lobby together, the hon.
gentleman persisting with his division, and together they
were duly beaten-Ayes, 56; noes, 203. Sir Sydney had
come to the House primed with a speech upon the first
order of the day. But before the House could proceed
to the orders, the questions remaining upon the paper
would need to be disposed of, and as the dinner hour
approached the attendance of members would begin to
thin. As a rule, Sir Sydney was as willing to speak in the
dinner hour as at any other moment of the night, for he
felt sure of being reported. What, however, he had to
say in the present instance, he wanted to say in a full
house. He therefore determined, having been defeated
in his intention of speaking early in the evening upon the
adjourned debate which stood as the first order (Women's)
Titles and Dignities Bill-second reading), to rise about
ten o'clock, in the hope of catching the Speaker's eye
before eleven. In company with the hon. gentleman for
whom he had voted, he went off to dine at the club.
Whilst at dinner, the hon. gentleman entertained Sir
Sydney with a great many interesting facts upon the sub-
ject of police organization, and the constitution of the
detective force in England. He repeated, indeed, the
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
109
whole of the repartees despatched by him at the Treasury
bench during question-time, as well as the entire oration
in which he had moved the adjournment, and which had
brought up the Home Secretary. Sir Sydney would have
been glad to intercalate a few brief references to the
Women's Titles and Dignities Bill, but the other was too
heavily charged with grievances, statistics, and conclu-
sions. The evening papers, also, lay before them, with
the latest details of "one more failure," as the hon. gen-
tleman prematurely described the police investigation into
"There we
the tragedies marking the night of the 3d.
have a case in point," declared the hon. gentleman,
indicating with a gesture the news vendors' placards visible.
from the Club window. "A murder takes place in a
common lodging-house, within a stone's-throw, one may
say, of Charing Cross-perhaps twelve minutes' walk from
where we are now sitting-and the Metropolitan police can
tell us nothing about it. They are absolutely powerless.
A common lodging-house !-frequented, no doubt, among
other people, by a certain number of returned convicts and
habitual criminals! And Scotland Yard could foresee
nothing."
"What would you have them do?" inquired Sir
Sydney.
"I would have a change in the existing order of things,"
cried the hon. gentleman, lapsing into platform warmth.
and vagueness.
"I am for efficiency, economy, and
reform-and so I told them this evening. Ah, my dear
Sir Sydney, I wish you had been there! Nothing could
have been more apt, as an illustration of my case, than
the affair of this man known as "H. R. H."! It's per-
fectly scandalous, by Jove! They can't even tell us the
name of the deceased."
Have they no clue whatever to these cases of
the 3d ?"
"Absolutely and positively none. The cases must be
•
Pa
1
IIO
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
added to their failures. These are fresh failures by our
police-the police of the richest metropolis in the world.
It's not the men who are to blame; it's the system. It's
Why, what are you to think
the system that's to blame.
of a state of things in which-
""
Sir Sydney listened somewhat absently as his hon. col-
league launched into a catalogue of complaints. He was
not less desirous than his hon. colleague of securing
reform, efficiency; and economy, and he held the opinion.
in general that most Government departments might be
conducted with increased efficiency, and with "greater
regard for the pocket of the taxpayer." But he seldom
figured personally in the character of downright and vehe-
ment reformer of Government departments, unless the
Government themselves refused the reforms. Opposition
from the Treasury Bench would always stimulate the
"member for Muletown," as an official punster had
described the seat contested against Sir Sydney Chard in
vain. At the present moment his mind wandered to the
speech he was to deliver upon the Women's Titles and
Dignities Bill. He had hoped to surprise the House with
arguments drawn from usage and tendency in America,
and he had built confidently upon the data to be furnished,
as he imagined, by Adrienne St. Maur. The expected
assistance had not been forthcoming. Miss St. Maur
could tell him nothing as to the usage, whilst, upon the
subject of the tendency, her observations, though fluent,
had lacked in the quality of the perspicuous. The gen-
erous periods in which Sir Sydney proposed that evening
to cite free America, would have been equally apt, he
could not help recognizing, in the mouth of any American
orator disposed to cite free England. Miss St. Maur had
acquainted him with little more than the fact that "in
America the women were free." He had not been able
to ascertain from her, as he had hoped, that any strong
movement existed in the United States for the admission
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
III
•
of women to a share in the highest public offices and in
the concurrent titles hitherto enjoyed by males. Why
could he not point triumphantly to the example of a fem-
inine phalanx in Congress-to female Appeal Court Judges
in the land of the free and equal-to female American
diplomatists? There was not one. Nor did he clearly
comprehend that American ladies were yet educated up
to the height of agitating for those ends, or that the gen-
tlemen of the United States were on the brink of relin-
quishing their monopolies, unasked. It scarcely now
seemed worth while to refer, as he had intended, to the
'free, institutions of that land of the free." Sir Sydney
gathered with extreme surprise that there was "no distinct
concensus of opinion among the people of the United
States in favor of electing women to the post of President;'
whereas in England we had long ago had Queens in our
history as single occupants of the throne.
،،
How is a Detective Force, I ask, to adequately answer
the very purpose for which it has been created," exclaimed
Sir Sydney's hon. colleague-"when the men who enter
the force must first have belonged to the Constabulary !
That is to say, the detectives are chosen from among the
constables-it doesn't affect my argument to tell me that
the constable may have been promoted sergeant or in-
spector. What percentage of superior material do you
get in that way, or are you ever likely to get? They
reply to you that, as a rule, promotion comes quickly, and
that it is a man's own fault if he does not rise. But what
procures him his promotion? He is to be steady, capable,
and fit to be trusted. Steady, capable, and fit to be trusted!
And out of that material we manufacture our detective
officers. A man stamped head to foot a constable goes
out, in what they call plain-clothes, for the detection,
pursuit, and capture of daring and astute criminals. This
affair of the 3d will prove another fiasco."
"I hope not," said Sir Sydney.
112
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"My dear friend, I know you do."
"I sincerely hope not, I am sure," said. Sir Sydney.
He had not been over closely following his hon. friend.
"Forgive me, my dear Sir Sydney-but we must do
more than hope."
“Quite so, quite so.”
"We must radically alter the existing state of things."
"I am glad you gave them a lesson to-night," con-
tinued Sir Sydney, pulling himself together. "Those
refusals to admit the possibility of error or of maladminis-
tration are most exasperating. They did not think that
you would get anybody from the front Opposition bench
into the lobby with you. Not that, personally, I attach
any significance to the fact. With the opposite side in,
matters would have been just as unsatisfactory for you."
"Oh, I don't agree with you there," protested the other,
who was emphatically a party-man.
..
'Well, I hear they are not going to vote in the division
on the Women's Titles and Dignities Bill to-night. Tha
is the best private measure of the session, and I can tell
you of a dozen votes expected in favor of the bill from
the Government side of the House, in spite of the Govern-
ment whip. And the front Opposition bench are not
going into the lobby!"
رد
"Is public opinion-quite-quite ripe for the bill?”
suggested the hon. member dubiously.
"If not, we must ripen it!" declared Sir Sydney,
roused.
(6
""
'Yes, yes; yes, yes-in the country-
"In the country, my dear fellow? But what we have
to do is to educate the country! Our place is in the van
of progress, not in the rear. If we look to the great
Republic of America"
"We shan't find much, I am afraid," interrupted the
hon. member, with a laugh.
Sir Sydney paused. He had not found much himself.
.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
113
1
"If you will pardon me for venturing a suggestion," added
the hon. member, acknowledging in the same breath his
companion's full experience of the House-"if you will
pardon me, my dear Sir Sydney, give them as little
America as possible this evening. Otherwise, you'll ruin
your argument. They won't stand the United States
except upon statistics of trade. Believe me-the young,
free, and rising nation-the unfettered Republic, and all
that-well, it's exploded as an example: it won't do any
more."
[
"Shall you vote for the bill to-night?"
"Oh, certainly. I am with you on the principle."
"What were you saying just now, with respect to
these affairs of the 3d?"
*
"A fiasco," repeated the hon. gentleman, "a fresh
fiasco by the police. In his speech on the motion for
adjournment he had enumerated the unexplained cases of
murder in the metropolis during the past twelve months.
The House had stood aghast. And what was the defence
for now—reorganization? Why, that the present system
worked admirably, on the whole, for the repression of
crime, and that it was the repression of crime which
formed the primary object of a police, detention being
secondary. But he had yet to learn that detective forces
existed without operative effect in repression. And when
he had quoted certain features from the French system,
obnoxious and cumbrous though other of the features
might be, what was the response? Why, that he had
allowed himself to be impressed by methods that were
purely melodramatic. So long as they were efficient, he
for one did not care whether they were melodramatic or
not; they might be impurely melodramatic, for all he
cared. There was the indicateur, for instance; a man
attached to the Sûreté, but never in overt communication
with the authorities, and never in uniform. For an indi-
cateur to have belonged to the constabulary would form
}
8
114
THE NIGHT OF THE 32 ULT.
a disqualification. His business was to frequent criminal
haunts, and outwardly to resemble the men with whom
he mixed. To the information and the suggestions fur-
nished by their indicateur, the regular members of the
Sûreté owed their most successful captures amongst the
worst criminal classes of Paris. Criminals acting in con-
cert could be detected and arrested with extraordinary
promptitude; and neither they nor their associates need
ever learn the source from which their discovery had
originated."
"How do you know that pretty much the same thing
does not go on here?" demanded Sir Sydney.
The fact, at any rate, had not been communicated to
him during the discussion that evening, replied the hon.
gentleman, somewhat disconcerted. And judging by the
prospects of the "Parsonage" case, he should assume the
contrary. Here was a situation in which the perpetrators
of the murder should most probably be sought for in the
very house tenanted by the deceased—a refuge of decayed
gentility, tarnished names, and what not, the papers told
them, but also a resort of the most desperate characters.
A man arrived amongst people of this description, lived
on in their midst without following any sort of occupa-
tion, and without appearing to need money, and one day
he was found murdered. What seemed to be the most
likely hypothesis? Simply that some other tenant of the
lodging-house had used his opportunities to some purpose.
The deceased was apparently in periodical receipt of funds,
or had funds amassed. With characters of this descrip-
tion, the pecuniary inducement to take life could be incon-
siderable. The motive which should impel a man such
as the deceased is described to have been, to make this
curious meeting-ground of high and low life his home,
does not concern my argument. I say that here was an
instance in which an indicateur or two might do the work
of a whole brigade.
·
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
115
It
Is it not too soon, yet, to condemn the police?" urged
Sir Sydney.
"They may find a clue in the course of the
next few days."
"My dear Sir Sydney, of course they will. They find
their clues, if it's only to say in the course of the next few
days afterwards, that it's no clue at all.”
No later than the following day, the thread appeared to
have been found. The public read on the following day
that information had come into the hands of the police
"possibly capable of furnishing a direct clue to the
extraordinary affair of Paradise Row."
"I complain," resumed the hon. gentleman, "that with
our existing system there can be no normal encourage-
ments to exceptional ability. First and foremost we
don't attract exceptional men into the force. Secondly,
when they do happen to enroll themselves, they pass
long unrecognized, or-I am afraid I must say it-
ignored. In the case of a startling series of murders by
a single individual, who never again exposed himself to
the chances of detection afforded by the earliest of the
crimes, the failure on the part of the police was due pre-
eminently to the system. You won't get responsible
heads of departments to acknowledge the fact; but any
working detective could tell you in confidence the how
and the why. And then the response to anyone who
brings the matter forward publicly as I have done from
my place in the House is that he has listened to the com-
mon disparagement of superiors by their inferiors-that
he is the dupe of jealousy and of interested discontent.
The hon. member paused, to discuss his wine.
"My
short way with the Mysteries of the 3d, as they are
called," he then added, "would be to pass over the men
who are always to the front; I would give the inquiry to
some obscure member of the force who least resembles
the rest, with their constabulary pattern."
Other of their colleagues, joining them, rallied Sir Syd-
*
""
4
116
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ney and his companion upon their respective shares in
the night's proceedings at the house. "6" The affair at
this queer lodging-house, the 'Parsonage,'" said one to
the hon. gentleman, "is no case for pointing your side.
of the argument. Detective-Sergeant Erne, if that's the
name, appears to be a man quite after your own heart,
and how has he profited by the luck that brought him to
the very spot before the presumed murderers had escaped?
He fails to provide even the faintest suggestion of a clue.
Can't say myself that I think that there is much in your
grievance, old fellow."
"I shall watch the dealings of the department with.
Detective-Sergeant Erne," replied the hon. gentleman.
Sir Sydney defended his own thesis with a tenacity en-
hanced by the criticism he had already encountered. He
enlarged upon the emancipation and independence of
women in the United States. “Oh, that'll never do,
Chard," exclaimed a noble Lord, who sat below the
gangway, and whose father was a ducal widower, in
Opposition, in the House of Peers; "if they really were
independent and emancipated out there, they'd play
cricket, and they'd let us alone-us poor devils with
titles.
""
The next morning, after an angry perusal of the debate
upon the Women's Titles and Dignities Bill, Sir Sydney
turned to the portion of his newspaper which registered an
item of news rumored late on the previous night. He
had read that, owing to the visit of a relative to the house
tenanted by the deceased, the latter's identity had at
length been established beyond all doubt.
CA
1
:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
117
CHAPTER IX.
THE Inspector in whose hands the further conduct of
the "Parsonage" Mystery had been placed, read Sir
Sydney Chard, was strongly of opinion that Detective-
Sergeant Erne had from the outset acted upon an erroneous
impression of the case. The Inspector had not received
his instructions at the time of the visit which had ended
in the formal identification of the deceased; and he had
at first been surprised to find that the relative who had
visited the premises in Paradise row had disappeared
since then from his own address. Upon Sir Sydney's
mind the paragraphs which he then cursorily perused left
*a definite effect. The Inspector by whom Erne had been
superseded suspected the unnamed relative himself.
His hon. colleague had declared that he should watch
the dealings of the department with Detective-Sergeant
Erne, remembered Sir Sydney. That task would be ren-
dered easy, but the matter, after all, was one of merely
slight account. Far dissimilar the crusades of great
social reform; far more arduous and ungrateful his own
part for the public weal! He turned again to the report
of the previous night's debate. There stood his speech,
almost in full; there stood the speeches of the honorable
and right honorable gentlemen who had come after him;
and, midway down the last column of the report, there
stood the numbers of the division. The Women's Titles and
Dignities Bill had been thrown out on the second reading;
but, than that, which was not unexpected, something a
great deal worse had occurred. The House had laughed
at Sir Sydney Chard. Until he had risen, at three minutes
T18
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
past ten o'clock, the House had treated the measure with
a certain seriousness. It had sufficed for Sir Sydney to
unfold the extension of the principle urged by him upon
the honorable member who had introduced the Bill for
the proceedings to degenerate into farce. The licensed
jesters of the House had revelled in their opportunity,
and had rioted at his expense. Even the right honorable.
gentleman who had risen from the Treasury Bench at
twenty minutes to twelve, had ventured upon punning
references to Women's Rites. The author of the Bill, a
private member, whose better half, whose very much
better half,' had figured as Sir Sydney's colleague at the
School Board, had reproached him with ruining the
division, whilst the very newspaper he held in his hand
this morning enlightened him in a strain jocose as to the
'occasional inappositeness of logical analogy.' Inap-
positeness! That was how people always talked when
they shirked a plain issue. The author of the Bill had
done no more than broach the question, so to speak. He
had put virtually nothing into the measure, commented
Sir Sydney. What was there inapposite about a proposal
to create 'ladyships' for public service rendered? Why
should not X. Y. Z., any spinster, married woman, widow,
or wife divorced, become eligible for independent titles
and dignities equally with members of the opposite sex?
For services equivalent to those which secured to men
the honor and dignity of knighthood, for instance, why
should not X. Y. Z., any spinster, married woman, wife
divorced, or widow, be made Lady X. Y. Z., in her own
personal right? He had put it that the services might be
equivalent, but with the march of social reform it might
be, nay, it would be, that the services rendered should be
identical.
Sir Sydney Chard had, in advance, pictured to himself
the divinely-fair Adrienne engrossed this morning with.
the accounts of the debate, and enraptured at his own
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
119
(
victorious interposition. He had wished to prove to her
that he could throw the gage of battle down where others
trifled in the lists; that, for her sake, he had stood forth
as a champion of the entire sex, braving ridicule, and
brandishing the sword of reason; that he could wrest
from others, likewise, that homage for her great country
which he had fostered in his own breast, day by day,
from the moment their acquaintance ripened. And the
House would have none of it! Honorable members had
not merely met him with derision; they had argued with
him. They had pooh-poohed all his references to her
native land, 'bound to the mother-country by ties of
blood and affection '-the impoverished currant importer
who sat for Mitcham had said that the 'proof of the
pudding was in the eating'; they had used the word
'bunkum' unpleasantly; and they had told him, they
had positively told him, Sir Sydney Chard, who had never
before been lectured by any newspaper, or even smiled
at in any discussion, that he must have succumbed to the
arts of the grossest imposture. What had been the ridic-
ulous anecdote launched at him by young Fitzjayme?
Something about a coroner-what had it been-where
was young Fitzjayme's speech ?-oh, here it ran,—let us
see: The Honorable E. T. Fitzjayme remarked that . .
(Laughter.) The honorable member
seemed to think that.
(Hear, hear.)
With regard to the solemn and reiterated asseverations
by the honorable member, to the effect that if the institu-
tions of Great Britain were the institutions of the United
States-Sir S. Chard: I did not say that. -The Honor-
able E. T. Fitzjayme: I am within the recollection of the
House (Hear, hear, and laughter)—that if, in short, a
monarchy were the same thing as a republic, and a
republic the same thing as a monarchy, this Bill would
long since have been law on the other side of the Atlantic,
all I can say is that the contention reminds me of a sum-
•
120
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
?
ming-up in which the coroner, directing his jury upon a
death from gangrene, supervening in a case of broken.
leg, the result of accident, observed that if the deceased
had been fed upon Dr. Fletcher's Food for Infants, in all
probability that sad and painful occurrence would not
have happened. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) The num-
bers in the division had been frightful.
It was in vain that Sir Sydney strove to banish from
his countenance all traces of the resentment and the
chagrin which had been caused by the occurrences of the
past twenty-four hours. The Misses Urwen retreated
from the breakfast table with sick-headaches; Ida re-
mained, endeavoring patiently to dispel the gloom which
she knew not why, had descended npon her uncle's
thoughts. From time to time, she, too, seemed plunged
in melancholy. Once, as her mind wandered and words
failed her, and Sir Sydney, lost in the task he was pre-
paring, took no heed of her silence, a sudden blush over-
spread her face and brow, and her eyes filled with tears.
Have you received any letters this morning?" pres-
ently demanded her uncle, without looking up.
("
"Yes," said Miss Ida, startled out of her reverie.
"From persons whom I know?”
"I think that you know them all." She enumerated
some half-dozen names.
"You have not included Mr. Lester Brand."
"There is no letter from him.'
"Since-?"
Their eyes met for an instant. "Since ?" echoed Miss
Ida, faintly, and with a return of the blush. I have only
had one letter from him. I had a letter from him yester-
day. He never wrote to me until yesterday. He would
not have written to me then, but he did not know what
else to do. He wanted to write to me. I do not see how
he could have done otherwise than write to me.
glad he wrote."
I am
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
121
"Of course I have no claim," began Sir Sydney. "Of
course I have no right to control or direct-——————”
The young girl interposed with an impetuous appeal.
He was not to be ungenerous.
"I am sorry, then, that you should have acted with so
little candor you must allow me to say so," was the
somewhat acid response. "The relationship between
us should have entitled me, in my own house, to know
something of this correspondence. For any clandestine
advantage to which Mr. Brand might have turned the
opportunities provided by the exceptional position created
for him by myself, I ought perhaps to have been prepared.
But from you, Ida' He stopped, endeavoring to
support with dignity an impulsive caress from his usually
reserved niece.
""
"Have I done wrong?
stooping over him from behind his chair.
what was I to do what was I to say?"
"Are you pledged is why; you are not surely pledged
in any way to this-to Mr. Brand?" He turned abruptly
to face her, with a movement that was almost recoil.
""
""
murmured the young girl,
"Dear uncle,
Ida drew back involuntarily, and her eyes fell.
"There can be no pledge between you that is binding,"
resumed her uncle, averting his own gaze. “I ask for
no confidences, but if he has extorted from you any
promise-
"You are unjust," said the young girl, firmly. You
are ungenerous in the words you use.
"He has used his opportunities well, I see. At the
same time, the notion of a clandestine correspondence
between you is more than I could have believed that you,
at least, Ida, could be capable of."
"There has been no clandestine correspondence,
answered the young girl in the same tone.
"I have been unsuspicious," continued Sir Sydney; "I
have admitted this dependent of mine to a footing of
""
122
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
NA
comparative intimacy at my home, and I have never in any
way sought to limit your own freedom of thought or action.
That you should practice concealment, Ida, wounds me
more than I can say; but perhaps" he paused and
sighed, with a little affectation of martyrdom that was
very harmless-" perhaps I am growing old rapidly, and
perhaps as I grow old these things touch me more
nearly."
Concealment !
""
"I understand quite that the contents of a letter re-
ceived by you from him may be of a purport binding you
to observe them as sacredly confidential
(C Yes."
""
"That a proposition of elopement, for instance, al-
though it might never have obtained your assent
"There was no proposition of elopement."
""
Sir Sydney scrutinized her for a moment impatiently.
"His motive, then, in writing to you?"
"His motive!" she repeated the phrase indignantly,
lowering her voice again. "Poor fellow!"
"I have reasons for these questions. I would not have
you believe that I am questioning you idly. Can I know
whether the contents deal with the future movements of
the writer? What was he contemplating? What has
become of him?"
Bang
"I am very sorry-very, very, very sorry," said the
young girl, with an inexpressible sadness "but there
is no portion of the letter that I can show you. Do not
force me to reiterate this, dear uncle. It is painful
for me to refuse-most painful to dwell upon the events
which drove him to send me that distracted confession.
Ah! I have already gone further than I had intended,"
she went on, moving away,- but you must not mis-
understand me: it was a confession merely-of-facts-
which had come to his knowledge unexpectedly; there
has been no wrong-doing by himself. Oh! it is terrible!
((
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
123
How can I explain to you that there is a secret which has
driven him from us?" Her accents betrayed her deep
agitation. She stood at the window of the breakfast room
looking out upon the Oakdene lawn and flower beds,
fringed by the heavy belt of trees.
"So that," pronounced Sir Sydney, slowly, "you are
aware of his disappearance? You were aware of his
probable departure, and you did not think well to apprise
me of the fact?"
"He has kept his word, then?" She changed her posi-
tion at the window brusquely. Surprised at the grief
betrayed in the manner of her response, Sir Sydney rose
from his chair and advanced towards her. An imploring
gesture arrested him. She still stood at the window,
apparently looking out over the gardens.
"Why, what is this, my child?" urged Sir Sydney, with
a gentleness he had not hitherto exhibited.
The young girl placed her arm across the closed window,
and against it leant her head. "I shall never see him
again," said she, simply.
An embarrassing silence ensued. "The fault is mine;
the fault is mine," at length muttered Sir Sydney. "The
discipline is bitter," he resumed, more distinctly, "and I
lament, Ida, my dear child. I do lament, very sincerely
indeed, that this should have occurred--I mean, that you
should have formed the attachment which you appear to
have done. He is unworthy of you."
"Oh, pray-"
"Yes," insisted her uncle, "I know Lester's history.
He is unworthy of you."
She allowed her arm to fall, and for some moments
listened to his emphatic reiterations without proffering a
word of protest. Then, relinquishing the place she had
taken up, she passed near Sir Sydney to take her seat by
a small guéridon, upon which some unfinished articles of
fancy work had been carelessly deposited.
"" 'He was too
124
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
noble and unpretending," she replied.
too honest, too thoughtful of others.
he should ever be valued at his worth? If it has been to
you, uncle, that he has owed his position in the world, how
could you have misjudged him so completely as to imagine
that he was in the least fitted for the maintenance of that
position later? He worked for you because he loved you,
and because it was his duty. If he had obeyed his own
tastes and instincts he would have gone away from us
long ago; he would have gone before even I came to live
here. He shrank from and abhorred all these great opera-
tions of commerce which I have heard you boast of here,
and which, indeed, you have praised him for, often
enough; he detested the incessant work of buying, bar-
gaining, calculating, and selling, in which he passed his
days. He wanted to escape all that huckstering talk; he
would have gladly given up every benefit that he had
received from you if he could have done so without
ingratitude, or without wounding you or offending you.
And think how, knowing this, I myself have suffered for
him when some of the vulgar and scheming people who
flatter you, Uncle Sydney, have treated him, here, with
their offensive airs of patronage, as-as your pauper
protégé a very lucky young man !"
"Who has done that?"
"
"He was too good,
How was it likely
S
"He was far above them.”
"But who has ever done that?" exclaimed Sir Sydney,
his cheeks scarlet.
"Oh, it's all past and gone, now," said the young girl,
quietly. "And he could bear all those things with indif-
ference. He rose superior to them; the malice of the
people who would insultingly ignore him altogether, or
who would affect to regard-oh, how cowardly they have
been; how contemptible! And from others he had to
bear not merely innuendos, but affronts, as though he
were an adventurer who had forced himself upon you, and
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
3d
125
had plotted his way into your house, and as though he
cringed to you for his daily bread.”
""
A man should ordinarily be able to deal with affronts ;
affronts are to be resented, are they not?
"When they proceed from women?
"
"From women? From whom?".
There was no response. Each appeared to feel that this
persistent questioning could hardly be pursued without
leading them into puerilities, and yet it was Sir Sydney
who, after a pause, continued with the same queries,
resolving to fathom a situation which he had not until then
even suspected. He named the charming Gwendoline
and Guinevere. Miss Ida pleaded that the matter should
be dismissed. She had certainly not intended to say so
much. She reproached herself for her indiscretion-
reproached herself, likewise, for adding to her uncle's cares
and annoyances.
Cares and annoyances! He had none, declared Sir
Sydney testily, with a gathering frown. Unless his niece
had erred on the side of extraordinary exaggeration, he
must press her for a reply. Who had ventured to impugn
his management of his own affairs? Who had ventured
to reflect upon the position of Lester Brand, or, indeed, of
anyone else, in his (Sir Sydney's) own house?
Ida rose to her feet with a gesture of entreaty, but her
endeavor to cut short the colloquy was at once thwarted.
A movement and an exclamation sufficed to wring from
her that which unaffectedly she would have wished unsaid.
The open insolence she cited, and the ingenuity of covert
antagonism were those of Adrienne St. Maur.
4.
"
The effect of her words she had but imperfectly antici-
pated. The extreme bitterness of rejoinder which those
few words elicited from Sir Sydney at once revealed to
her the true extent of his dissembled susceptibilities.
Whatever his aim or purpose in shaping his own future,
whether he had or had not, up to the present, taken the
126
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
step to which his relations with the untrammelled Adrienne
apparently pointed, it was clear that from the outset her
had been keenly sensitive of the world's opinion, of com-
ment, estimate, or mockery, that is to say, by the world
in which, as a considerable influence, he himself moved.
She strove vainly to appease him, and it was in vain that
she besought him to consider the words unuttered. To
justify herself would have been but to increase his anger.
She resigned herself to the injustice of the dilemma; and
Sir Sydney ended when he chose the unmeasured diatribes
heaped upon all those, Ida amongst them, who had
despicably conspired together to hound down a friendless.
woman, their exemplar in all that was most serious in
life." Not able to wrest from his niece an interruption
or a protest, he presently reproved her for her silence.
"What am I to do?" she murmured, dropping the
work which she had taken up. "Dear uncle, I have
vexed you unwittingly. How can I atone for it?"
“Oh, I ask for no atonements !”
"How am I to act?"
"This connivance in the persecution of a noble girl,
exposed by her beauty and her worldly circumstances to
every species of temptation, I can only describe, Ida, as
unwomanly in the extreme, and-"
"But, my dear uncle"-she raised her eyes to his, and
regarded him steadily as she spoke "a noble girl!
Granted. I won't deny Miss St. Maur's excellent qualities,
but-to talk of it sensibly, after all--are you not making
a good deal of fuss about what we would otherwise have
assumed to exist without question? How can people be
exposed to temptation? At least"-she checked herself
momentarily "I should think not. Of course, men may
looked at it differently, although I don't understand how
they should; but with a woman-forgive me if I seem to
argue with you-with a good girl there is no such word
as temptation. How can there be?"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
127
"Nor is there," affirmed Sir Sydney, with promptitude.
"And what has struck me as peculiarly unworthy, in the
reception of Miss St. Maur, to which I have not been.
blind, has been the wilful misconstruction of her char-
acter, and the malignant innuendos and affronts, to adopt
your own phrase, to which she has been subjected whilst
here."
"On my part, Uncle Sydney?"
"Well, no;
was thinking at the moment of the
You do not reply?"
Urwens.
"They speak, perhaps, thoughtlessly, at times."
"Perhaps; perhaps not thoughtlessly." He went on
with renewed vehemence. "But what is this absurd tale
with regard to Lester-antagonism, and what not?"
"I ought to have distinguished in what I said. I was
thinking at first of those who simply tried to remind him
that in meeting him here they were meeting an inferior,
and that it was only for your sake, Uncle Sydney, that
he was recognized and tolerated. You think this over-
strained, I know; but most of the people who come here
what are they, and who are they? They have nothing
but money; and they hope for nothing, most of them,
but to have more money, and to pass always for having
more money than they actually have. They employ
other people, and they take care to mark the distance
well between themselves and the people they employ;
and it was easy to perceive that they ranked Mr. Brand
with the people they themselves employ. What else can
they see, either here or elsewhere, in the persons whom
they meet, such people as those? I don't say it is their
fault. Ah, you will think me ungrateful," she added,
crossing to Sir Sydney, and laying her hand timidly upon
his arm; "you have been indulgent, and too kind, dear
uncle—but I was spoilt before I came to you. Poor papa
and I were so happy."
Sir Sydney picked up the newspaper, opened it, and
审
​128
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
threw it down again.
asked.
"Are you not happy here?" he
"Yes-oh, yes. I should be ungrateful, indeed, if it
were not so. And in the tones of your voice you remind
me so often of my dear papa. I was a very fortunate
girl, too, was I not," she broke off with a half smile,
"to have a rich uncle who was willing to take care of
me !"
"Nonsense, my dear, nonsense.
"Shall we say no more about all this?
With a gesture of acquiescence her uncle turned from
her and moved about the room. "We will say no more
about it," he repeated, and in the same breath he reverted
"to the main object of his irritation. Miss Ida strove to
avoid the topic; but he rebuked her then for a certain
obstinacy and perverseness which he pronounced to be
obviously inherited from his own dead brother, her father.
The brusque allusion brought the color into the young.
girl's fair cheeks again, and the resolute expression into
her eyes.
"It is an abominable aspersion," continued
Sir Sydney," to accuse the lady who is as much-as
much esteemed by me as if she were a member of my
own family, of any antagonism towards either Lester or
anyone else.
The insane dislike and jealousy that could
conceive such a charge entirely pass my comprehension.
What, in heaven's name, could be her possible motive!
Tell me that.
"
..
"
Do you wish me to answer, really?" said his niece,
in a low tone.
Q
"Yes."
"Her motive was to banish Mr. Brand from the house,
to get rid of him, to separate you; of that I feel sure."
،،
Why?"
"I feel sure I am not mistaken."
"Why?" demanded Sir Sydney, in a pitiless accent of
mingled scorn and ridicule. "Why-in heaven's name?"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
129
"Does she know of his departure?"
me.
"She may or may not. She does not know of it from
He had never been the subject of any conversation
which I had had with Miss St. Maur until perhaps a
day or two previous to his departure. She had never
manifested the smallest concern in either his presence or
his absence."
"9
99
$
"That convinces me.
"Explain, please."
"I cannot pretend to explain her reason," said the
young girl, reluctantly. "I do not know why she should
entertain aversion for either Mr. Brand or myself. It has
been clear to me, however, that she has endeavored to
procure his permanent absence by his own voluntary act;
she has sought to part or to estrange you, and she has
taken the most effectual course.
"How?"
"Why, because it was nof likely, I suppose, that you
yourself would be easily biassed against him. I don't
know why
در
Sir Sydney interrupted with an impatient reference to
hysterical and morbid fancies.
"She has aimed at driving him away," persisted his
niece firmly.
"It is not impossible that Lester's presence may have
been unwelcome to Miss St. Maur," returned Sir Sydney,
with deliberateness. "On the single occasion upon which
his name was broached by her she appealed to me to pro-
tect her from certain assiduities on his part. I was very
much astonished at his conduct, and most indignant."
'Of course! I mean," added Ida, hastily, "I mean
that of course she appealed to you for protection against
assiduities-of course! I ought to have foreseen it.
That was the adroit use to which she put the very at-
tentions which I myself begged Mr. Brand to show to
her."
นี
130
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"I pass over your extraordinary injustices; but why
should you have done anything of the kind?"
The young girl replied with some embarrassment: "I
wanted him to vanquish the hostility with which he
seemed to have inspired her. I wanted him to succeed
in that for his own sake."
*
"For his own sake I regret exceedingly that he should
have failed,” returned her uncle, dryly. "I spoke to him
upon the matter the very last time we met. He did
not attempt to defend himself, and I told him that his
visits to Oakdene had better cease, at any rate for some
time."
A long silence ensued upon this announcement. The
first to resume was Sir Sydney, who proposed curtly a
tour in the garden. He preceded his niece by some
instants, the young girl directing a servant to bring her
an old garden hat. They stood together in the shade
thrown by an angle of the building. To their left ran
the path which led up to the walled enclosure where,
through an open door, could be perceived the nearest of
Sir Sydney's hothouses. When the straw hat duly
arrived, broad-brimmed and almost without ornament,
somewhat battered in the crown, perhaps, and certainly
a little limp-Miss Ida tied the blue and white ribbons
under her chin in a large bow, and bent down to pick
three flowers for her uncle's coat. Upon the leaf she
bound up with them the dew still lingered; everything
around her seemed cool and fresh. In front of them,
beyond the sharp line of the shadow, the denser banks of
color, planned with a gardener's notion of the symmet-
rical, blazed and sparkled gaudily under the hot sun.
Sir Sydney exchanged a few words with a deaf old man
who wore an apron with pockets, and was carrying a
hammer and a pair of shears; and then rejoined his
niece, accepting the floral decoration at her hands with a
perfunctory, "Thank you, my dear.' She walked on
""
MA
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
131
thoughtfully by his side. Before they reached the door-
way through which the glass panes had glistened against
a background of dark red wall in the nailed embrace of
fruit trees, the recollection re-visited Sir Sydney's mind
that his own niece, too, was an extremely pretty girl.
The day would come when she would learn to value
Raymond Urwen's excellent qualities; why that match
should some day not take place, he could see no practical
reason whatever.
Resuming their conversation at the precise point at
which it had dropped, Miss Ida demanded abruptly
whether the unpleasant intimation to which her uncle
had referred had not been conveyed to Lester Brand
on the afternoon of the 4th, the date of the last dinner-
party.
That was so, replied Sir Sydney-and before they
dismissed the topic altogether, he felt bound to express
his surprise that, under all the circumstances, the fact of
Lester's writing to her should not have been at once
communicated to him: merely the bare fact.
His name was no more to be pronounced, you
know," said Miss Ida, simply.
CC
'Well, well! Be it so. But I have no wish to con-
cern myself with your private affairs, as I said before:
you shall be entirely your own mistress-it appears that
you, also, wrote on the evening of the 4th ?”
"Yes."
"How do you reconcile that," continued her uncle,
hurriedly, after a moment's hesitation, "with the state-
ment that you were not in correspondence? I have no
desire to embarrass you. I have an object in asking."
They were following a path which skirted the walled
enclosure. Their way led directly to the nearest point.
of the broad copse beyond the gardens, and they quick-
ened their steps to attain its shade. At one of the side
windows that commanded a view of their path, a cur-
132
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
C
tain was drawn aside, and one of the charming sisters,
either Gwendoline or Guineverè, watched the two figures
pass out of the bright sunshine into the cool recesses of
the wood.
"There is nothing to reconcile, dear uncle," answered
the young lady, her eyes downcast. "I wrote. Why
not? It was the frankest way. Your own sudden change
with regard to him left me no option. I could not have
remained in suspense, nor would that have been just to
Mr. Brand; who was absent, and could have had no
opportunity of explaining your estrangement or of de-
fending himself. People cannot be cancelled all at once
like that. We are human. How otherwise could I have
learnt what had happened? You were not at all kind in
your own words and manner.
19
“And did you learn what had happened?"
"The letters crossed. Whether he ever received my
note I cannot tell." Her voice became almost inaudible
as she proceeded : Probably not, from the contents
of the despairing letter, which at the same time he was
writing to myself. Probably when my note to him
arrived he was gone."
'Gone? Do you mean that he apprised you, in so
many words.
""
"Yes." #
Sir Sydney faced about, and stood gazing through the
trees at the white gleaming house with its striped awn-
ings, gay in the sun. "Was it a farewell?" said he.
"I think it was a farewell," murmured Miss Ida, unstead-
ily.
("
A
TRA
"Ungrateful, heartless"
"No!" Miss Ida plunged her hand into a pocket of
her dress. She did not withdraw the hand, however,
and she set her lips, and looked up with a pathetic little
movement that should have resembled defiance.
"I see
what is passing in your mind," she added, but I wrote
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
133
because I wanted to learn the truth, and because it was
uselėss to question you. Why should you frown, and
disapprove? I know what you are thinking of; but you
have always said that they were prejudices. You have al-
ways praised the women who rose above the trammels of
their sex. I have heard you hundreds of times; those were
your very words. There was nothing to disapprove of
in my taking a step upon my individual responsibility.
should have told you about it later, but not then, when
you were newly incensed against Mr. Brand. I thought
you were unjust to him; I felt sure you were. I liked
him. He could never have written to me without per-
mission. How could he write to me without my permis-
sion? It was necessary that he should know that he
had permission."
I
"He did write, though, you see," observed Sir Sydney.
"Yes-but under what circumstances! In what a hor-
rible position! Oh, this is too humiliating!" The young
girl set off precipitately, as if to escape through the trees,
but in a few instants she had retrated her steps, and was
again by her uncle's side. "It is your fault, Uncle Syd-
ney."
"I am afraid so, I am afraid so," was the response, with
a certain gravity of tone.
"And I believe you are sorry, now!"
Sir Sydney did not immediately reply. His outstretched
left arm supported him against a rugged trunk, from
which here and there sprouted tiny shoots, he gazed
absently across the gardens to the white walls of Oak-
dene.
Has Lester given you no guidance as to his move-
ments?" he asked.
((
""
None.
"He has taken matters too absolutely, much too abso-
lutely."
"It is you who are to blame," repeated the young girl,
134
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
:
with a factitious warmth that only partially concealed her
emotion.
Sir Sydney drew a long breath, as if to nerve himself
for a resolve. "My dear child," said he "my dear
Ida !-we have each of us been shirking the plain issue.
Yes, yes; now let us both be rational. Lester has gone.
Try to forget him. A marriage between you was impossi-
ble," he pursued. "Lester could not have given you his
name."
+
The surroundings were not in harmony with dis-
tress. Around this young girl, sobbing with the first pro-
found sorrow, the first grievous severance in her life
which had not been wrought by the hand of Death, mer-
ciless June exulted in optimism and exuberance. The
glancing sunshine, broken by the fresh, full foliage, lighted
upon the ribbons and the straw hat, and turned the faded
crown and brim into bright gold. June rang in the dense
branches overhead; this was no time for human sorrow;
sympathy with human sorrow had no place in the entire
scheme; none of us were of account. The very same
sunshine presently sought the pure tears upon an upturned
face, and gloried in changing them to the semblance of
dross-diamonds.
}
"The name he bears," concluded Sir Sydney,
of his mother's family."
In another moment he was grasping a letter. Her
head still averted, Miss Ida had drawn brusquely from
the pocket of her dress an envelope upon which her uncle
recognized the writing of Lester Brand; with a gesture
that surrendered all reserve, she proffered the missive
sadly for his acceptance.
"What is all this!" muttered Sir Sydney, perusing the
first few lines again and again. Before terminating his
perusal of the letter he lifted the disengaged, hand and
drew his niece gently toward him. "My poor child," said
he—“I am sorry. You knew, then?"
was that
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
135
the house.
A sound of voices reached them from the direction of
Gwendoline and Guinevere, escorting a vis-
itor, were advancing along a circuitous path, in all their
artless merriment of six summers.
The visitor was
Adrienne St. Maur.
A
136
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
13
CHAPTER X.
NEARLY a month had elapsed since the morning upon
which Sir Sydney Chard read through the report of the
debate upon the Women's Titles and Dignities Bill. In
another portion of the journal he had perceived that the
further conduct of the "Parsonage" Mystery had been.
transferred from the hands of Detective-Sergeant Erne to
those of a superior officer, familiar by name to the major-
ity of newspaper-readers. The identity of the murdered
man, known as H. R. H., had been conclusively established
by a relative, who had visited the "Parsonage" on the
evening of the 4th June, but when the inspector supersed-
ing Detective Erne had called on the following day at the
address furnished by that relative, he found that the latter
had gone away suddenly, without leaving the smallest
indication by which he might be traced. There was no
clue whatever to his whereabouts.
;
On July 2d, Detective Erne presented himself at the
office of Mr. Aaron Vowcher, Burleigh Street, Strand.
Other persons were awaiting interviews with "Aaron," as
one of them, a rubicund bejewelled individual, with the
aspect and the accent of a Cockney money-lending tailor,
referred in a whisper to the esteemed head of the house.
But for Erne there were special attentions forthcoming at
once. It was not that he had any urgent mandate to pro-
duce. On the contrary, his manner betrayed a general
lassitude and indifference which offered the strongest
possible contrast to the repressed energy and impatience
he had exhibited during the scenes marking the night of
the 3d ult. Even in uttering his' demand for the chief
of the Vowcher Inquiry Office, there was a curious vacil-
?
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
137.
lation about his manner. He scarcely knew whether to
go in to Mr. Vowcher or not; perhaps he had better come
again; it was hardly worth while disturbing Mr. Vow-
cher. Mr. Vowcher was probably engaged a hundred
clients deep?
"Not quite a hundred," answered the managing clerk
who had emerged from the rear of the glazed partition,
and was leaning across the mahogany counter, confiden-
tially; "not quite a hundred," he repeated, with a smile,
"but enough to make us poor hard-worked fellows wish
that there were more virtuous people in the world."
'Business good?"
"
"Too good-for us.
"Ah!" The detective looked about him, listlessly. A
couple of etchings hung from the wall, over one of the
chairs ranged' near the entrance, and he moved up to
examine them, returning from one to the other. "Yes,-
they are capital," said he.
"You ought to know them by this time," observed the
clerk, with another smile.
"They are very good indeed."
"Won't you see the governor, Mr. Erne?"
"He's busy, you say?"
"Not for you, sir. There's a very particular client
with him just now, or you could go in at once. Step in-
side here for a few minutes. You don't want to be seen."
The speaker pushed open the low wicket at the extremity
of the counter and led the way into the interior of the
office. One or two of the busy gentlemen seated upon
high stools at desks looked up from their occupations and
exchanged a nod with the new-comer. At a square table
drawn close to the wall, sat a man making up a rough
account from a pocket memorandum book; his glossy hat
he had deposited upon the table at his left hand, and his
faultless umbrella, in green silk, reposed at his right.
Piled up against the wall stood a Directory, a Peerage, a
:
لي
1
138
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
A
Parliamentary Companion, the Law List, ands everal
railway guides; and these were surmounted by an enor-
mous map of London, suspended from the cornice itself.
"How do you do, Freeling?" said the detective, accept-
ing a comfortable arm-chair which was pushed up to the
table for his benefit. "How do you do, Mr. Erne?"
said the man, looking up for an instant from his memo-
randum-book. The glazed partition screened the greater
portion of the interior from visitors presenting themselves
at the office-counter.
The clerk replaced the mouthpiece of the tube through
which he had communicated with his chief.
"The
governor wants to see you," he announced, approaching
Detective Erne, "you're not to go. Can you wait a
little ? "
"O, I can wait," was the reply, breathing perhaps a
little bitterness; "my time is not particularly precious."
"Well, we've got more here to do than we can get
through," returned the clerk; "we're short-handed here.
I can't imagine what people are coming to; they're get-
ting awful. The longer we go on, the worse it is. I've
been with the governor ever since he started, and I've
seen the business grow up, and my brother-in-law's at
Roper's; and I never did see such villainy and vice,
either in positive fact or in suspicion, as we've got passing
through our hands at this present moment. Ask Freeling.
"I'm off duty to-day and to-morrow," answered the
personage thus cited; "it don't concern me until the day
after."
".
'Hark at him-the old rascal! He's going to take
his wife and family to Hampton Court this afternoon,
and he'll be at work the whole time. He'll be capable
of leaving them as soon as he arrives at the Palace, just
to follow somebody he may happen to recognize. The
family don't enjoy themselves with him when they're
out ! "
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
139
"What's the time?" demanded Freeling, with a flour-
ish of his pen around the sum total of his account.
"He's a chapel-goer, Freeling is," continued the other
evidently indulging in the strain for his own enjoyment,
"or rather, he isn't, but he was; and he hadn't been
married six weeks before he took his wife to an anniversary
tea-meeting and set her to watch the deacon.”
"Yes, and it turned out useful, too," rejoined Freeling.
"Here, pay up my arrears of expenses, and let me depart.
The wife's waiting." He pushed his bill across the table.
and added a jest upon the resemblance which he discovered
between the deacon in question and the clerk himself.
"Ah, I'm not surprised at it," commented the clerk,
going back to his own desk, and producing a bunch of keys.
Like him? Same cast of the wicked old eye, hey?
Can't help it! See too much wickedness up here." He
unlocked the desk, and counted out some notes and gold.
My wife used to tell me that I learnt too much wicked-
ness here, every day; she was sure she shouldn't be
happy. I used to say, my dear, it's perfectly true that we're
inundated with sin at Vowcher's, and its perfectly possible
that as I'm always touching pitch, I may be slightly
defiled, but—you ought to know, Freeling !"
"All right, all right!" responded that gentleman. He
rang the sovereigns handed to him, and held the notes up
to the light with a simulation of distrust.
'And then I used to say, 'But if we do see a little
wickedness, my dear, at Vowcher's, it's nearly always in
most respectable society'-and a few good names, you
know, would be enough to silence her. A few good
names; ah, nice names! And nice people they are that
walk about with them." The clerk took a pinch of snuff
and broke off his observations to receive a handful of
missives just then brought in by the postman. As the
office-door swung to again, he passed on to a junior
three or four of the letters, apparently judged to be for the
،
CC
140
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
private perusal of Mr. Aaron Vowcher.
The junior
dropped from his high stool and disappeared through a
side-door covered with green baize. "Nice people!"
resumed the clerk, opening the envelopes he had retained,
and sorting their contents. "We had Tommy Rowther
up here yesterday, cheeky and violent, as usual. Walks
straight in through that door to this side of the counter,
and sits down on the table. 'Aaron in ?' he says. Ha!
ha! We soon settled his hash, with his 'Aaron in !'"
An echo of the speaker's chuckle proceeded from the busy
gentlemen perched upon the high stools. Aaron'
wasn't in, but Simmons was."
66 6
Mr. Freeling put on his hat, and fidgetted. "Think
I had better see the governor before I go?" he asked.
The clerk responded with facetious scorn. "See the
governor? No! The governor doesn't want to see you!
Well, Tommy Rowther, .he sits on that table, and he
slaps at that chair with his cane, and he says, 'Tell
Aaron I'm here.' 'You mustn't stay there, Sir Thomas,' I
told him. 'Mustn't? Who
Who says I mustn't?
I mustn't?' 'I say you
mustn't.' 'You ?—you- -' and then came a bit of the
nice language, winding up with, 'Do you know who I
am?'
'Yes, Sir Thomas, I know you,' I told him; ‘but
you'll please go round to the other side of that counter.'
'And if I don't choose?' But you'll have to choose, Sir
Thomas,' I told him; 'now, then, please. We can't
have our office arrangements disturbed, and we don't
want any bother.' Oh, some very nice, choice, and aris-
tocratic language ensued. Well, just then the office-door
opened, and who should step inside but the very party
who was having him watched. I won't state who she
was, but perhaps you can guess. Very fortunately, the
partition concealed her. I popped round, and put her
into the ladies' waiting-room. When I came back he
What was he doing, Simmons?"
was
"Threatening us all," answered a rawboned youth,
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
141
A
"He
occupied with a bulky volume at one of the desks.
said he knew he was being shadowed by somebody from
Burleigh Street, and-if we didn't stop it—in fact, he was
He
very violent.”
Simmons blushed as he spoke.
seemed a rather diffident young fellow, of about twenty
years of age.
"Shadowed! Yes and he is being shadowed, and
some nice places he leads our man into," commented the
clerk. "Well, to cut a long story short, I sent Simmons.
for a policeman, but as Simmons was coming round this
way, this fellow hits at him. 'That's one of Tom Row-
ther's,' he says; and you know he's always passed for
being a bit of a bruiser.”
"Was champion amateur heavy-weight at his univer-
sity!" interjected Simmons, his blush intensified.
"Bless your soul, Simmons was all over him. Ham-
mer and tongs, they went at it for about two minutes;
and then open flew that door, and out of it flew Tom
Rowther, and down the stairs he went." The clerk took
another pinch of snuff, and chuckled again, heartily..
"I'm glad you did it, Simmons," he added. "I've seen
that fellow a perfect pest in quiet company. Is he
clever?"
"Only up to a certain point," replied Simmons, more
cheerfully, as if he were plucking up courage.
Detective Erne glanced at the beardless youth, with a
flicker of interest. "You're an athlete, then?" said he.
((..
Oh, he don't use any of those words to describe the
business," observed the clerk; "he's a sparrer; that's
what Simmons is. Where did you learn it, Simmons?”
"Paradise Row.""
"Ah!" murmured the detective.
"Paradise Row?"
One of the Parsonage men ?" demanded Freeling.
"The Bijew."
"We're as wise as before,” remarked the clerk.
"Simmons looked incredulously from one to the other,
"
ور
142
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"Haven't you heard of the Bijew, -the 'Bijou?'" said
he. "Young Burr, the Bijou?
"Oh, yes," answered the detective; "but is he a
Parsonage man?
""
The pupil of young Burr launched into an account of
his instructor, which was characterized by all the warmth
of adolescent enthusiasm in such matters. The Bijou
sometimes had attended the Parsonage on big nights, if
requested, he wound up, but in Paradise Row he rented a
large room, well fitted-up for his own personal use; and
it was there that, as a favored pupil and a fellow of small
means, Simmons had enjoyed the great advantage of his
tuition.
"He does not reside in the neighborhood, then?"
inquired the detective, apparently disappointed.
"Oh, dear, no!" He probably resided in a very differ-
ent locality, but where Simmons was unable to state. His
family lived in Lambeth. They were working-people.
The Bijou's elder brothers had trained him as a laď
to their business as gymnasts; they had been the well-
known Burinis, forming the celebrated Athos troupe.
The Bijou himself was built upon a slighter scale than
his elder brothers. But, oh
But, oh and here adequate lan-
guage failing Mr. Simmons, he came to a full stop.
"Well, it's all very disgraceful," summed up the clerk,
"it's all ruffianism and blackguardism, and degraded
and debased, but you can give this professor of yours my
compliments and my thanks. Ah, my young friend Sim-
mons, I do know it when I see it, and that's more than
many of them can say. Used to perform a little myself,
in my young days, but nothing like sò well as you. They
used to tell me it was brutalizing and degrading, and
that's what I tell you now, but you did me a lot of good
yesterday, Simmons, and I'll support your application to
the governor for a rise." He checked himself to rally
Freeling upon his restlessness.
↓
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
143
<
"You are a judge of cameos, Mr. Erne, I believe ? "
asked that gentleman. "I'd like your opinion with
regard to some that I think of buying."
"Cameos!" ejaculated the clerk, satirically. "You're
earning too much money, Freeling; I'm sorry I've paid
that bill. Cameos! And we're going to take the wife
and the children to Hampton Court Palace this afternoon,
are we? It's my belief that Mrs. Freeling no more
thinks about leaving Rupert Street, Ball's Pond, this after-
noon, than Tommy Rowther expected to be polished off
yesterday by that smooth-faced Simmons over there.
Simmons, my lad, you did it well. You got out of dan-
ger, and you came again, like a good 'un in the good old
times." He mounted his high-backed office-chair.
The entrance of a client produced a momentary diver-
sion. Freeling still lingered, however: upon observing
which the latest arrival having been duly ushered into
one of the waiting-rooms, --the managing clerk resumed,
in the same strain of privileged pleasantry :
"We've seen enough of you for to-day Freeling: Come,
clear out, the governor don't want you, no more do I,
no more does Mr. Erne, there, I daresay?
Beyond a smile, which might have meant anything,
Detective Erne offered no response.
"You've never been in a case together, have you?
added the clerk.
""
They both hesitated. "No," then pronounced Freeling.`
"Yes," said the detective, retaining his smile.
"When? What?" demanded Freeling, unctuous and
bland.
'
"The night of the 3d, as to the what'," answered
the other; "the evening of the 4th, as to the 'when';
and they are the 3d and the 4th in the month last past,
in this present year of grace. You relieved a colleague
of yours who had followed a certain gentleman to the
Parsonage, in Paradise Row. That gentleman went with
144
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT,
us.
me to Bow Street to make a declaration, and you followed
That gentleman took a cab in the Strand, and drove
to his private address,-never mind where; I accom-
panied him; you followed us.
""
"How did you know?" inquired Freeling.
"Never mind."
"You did not know it at the time?"
Never mind."
"The governor told you afterwards!"
"No."
'Well, I don't care," returned Freeling,-"it only
proves "
•
Į
"
、
"
"That you are better known than you imagine.
"It only proves-that there's more up your sleeve, Mr.
Erne, than we imagine; and I've always said so."
The other flushed a little. " I don't seem to accom-
plish much with it, at any rate," he replied, in a tone of
dejection.
"Under the circumstances, I don't see how you are to
accomplish anything that lies out of the beaten track.
You are not a free agent; you have not a free hand. You
are tied down by routine, precedence, interest, envies,"
Freeling ran on with unexpected volubility. "Why," he
concluded," your chiefs become jealous of a man if he
gets too successful. If Inspector This or Inspector That,
of the Criminal Investigation Department, scores too
many clever things, your people at the head of affairs
say, 'This man's making a reputation with the public;
we can't stand that; he'll be independent of us, if we are
not careful; he'll be as strong as we are, or he'll think he
is, and, if there's ever a difficulty between us, he'll have
the sympathies of the public with him; we must put a
stop to this while there's time. We must put a spoke in
his wheel, bring him down a peg or two, clip his wings a
bit. He's going too fast; or, he knows too much; or,
he'll be wanting to improve the method we have of
""
4
t
THE NIGHT OF THE 145
2.
3₫ ULT.
..
Or
doing business. Discipline must be maintained.'
else, the rights of seniority must be scrupulously ob-
served, especially if the senior be unimpeachably exact,
honest, and stupid, -or, exact, not stupid, and a syco-
phant. And that's the case-your case, Mr. Erne."
Which?" demanded the clerk.
<<
"The latter of the two."
"Oh, nonsense!" protested Detective-Sergeant Erne.
Freeling's right," pronounced the clerk. We know
Inspector M'Kagherty, I think." They were speaking
in tones undistinguishable by the busy gentlemen upon
the high stools.
'What has he done with the case he took out of your
hands!" exclaimed Freeling.
"He did not take it out of my hands. If you mean
the affairs of the 3d ult., they were passed up in the
ordinary course. It was not to be supposed that inquiries
of a sensational interest, such as that, would be left to an
officer of only my position."
""
"C
Well, what has M'Kagherty done with those cases?
He has had the direction of them for nearly a month.
Are you in any way associated with him?”
..
No," said Detective Erne.
"Of course not," observed the clerk. "There is just
the difference between the average M'Kagherty and a
man like Byde."
"Oh,-Byde!" commented Mr. Freeling," that's a
man of a very different calibre. Byde's the man to report
that it's his subordinate who has done everything.
Interchanges of impression then took place as to the
duration of the holiday trip at that time being made
by Inspector Byde in the United States.
"As for
M'Kagherty," resumed Mr. Freeling,-"he's neither stupid
nor," he lowered his voice to a stage whisper,
honest; but he owes more of his good things to strokes
""
GRANG
10
146
THE NIGHT OF THE 3ð ULT.
of luck than any man I ever came across in the same
business."
1
A brief silence ensued. "He has had a piece of as-
tonishing luck in the present instance, too," suddenly
remarked detective Erne, with a sort of nervous irri-
tability," but he'll do nothing with it."
Was Mr. Erne "in possession of anything material,"
inquired Freeling, full of professional zest, but again
anxious to depart.
Not to make mysteries of the matter," murmured the
detective,—“ yes. I suppose I ought to tell him what I
know, but he will certainly do nothing with it: he'll
spoil it."
Tell him?" echoed the clerk, indignantly. He took
a vigorous pinch of snuff. "Tell him! No; let him go
blundering on in his own clumsy and conceited way! If
there's one thing I can't stand in this world, it's the con-
ceit of the people who are only lucky."
Freeling inquired for the hour again, and the clerk
again indulged in jocose references to the recreations.
provided for holiday parties, at the Tower, St. Paul's
Cathedral, Hampton Court, and the British Museum.
They heard a door open and shut, the rustle of a dress,
and the sound of a light step quickly descending the
staircase. Then Mr. Vowcher fiercely "whistled" for the
next client. Mr. Freeling took his leave.
((
Now, my boy," said the clerk to a youth of thirteen
or fourteen, who had donned a round hat and was start-
ing with a bundle of letters for the post; "just you run
down after Mr. Freeling, and let us know which direction
he goes in. Don't let him see you, and don't follow him
too far. It won't be much out of your road."
•
The lad's eyes sparkled, and his earnest "All right,
sir," brought a smile to the countenances of his seniors.
He plunged through the office-doorway and could be
heard leaping down the stairs.
ا
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
147
"I'll lay ten to one that Freeling don't take Mrs.
Freeling to Hampton Court this afternoon," announced
the clerk. "Ten to one offered: offered, ten to one,
and no takers!" He looked round. "Come, Simmons?"
"I'll take you, sir," replied Simmons, with his blush,-
(( on the off chance."
•
"Mr. Simmons evidently reposes a certain amount of
faith and trust in Mr. Freeling," remarked Detective Erne,
stretching himself as he rose.
"To the extent of the off chance,—yes," answered the
clerk. And what's to be the currency denomination,
Simmons ?”
"Fours.""
"Whiskies, sir, if you like," said Simmons.
Fours, it should be, and upon the return of the boy
with his report Erne was to arbitrate. Fours it should be.
A junior re-entering from Mr. Vowcher's private room
brought a message to the effect that the "governor"
wished particularly to see Mr. Erne, and that he trusted
the latter could wait during the time necessary for dis-
patching one more client.
"I'll look in again," said the detective.
"I think the governor would rather you waited,"
urged the other; "I am sure he has something to tell
you."
Presently the boy came back, somewhat out of breath
but desperately resolved to maintain a cool and business-
like demeanor, 'Followed Mr. Freeling down the street,
and a little way along the Strand," he began, "before 1
discovered that he was following someone else."
"Someone else?" echoed the clerk, screwing himself
round in his high chair, and surveying the lad with inter-
est. "Are you certain ?"
"Oh, certain, sir. I watched him, when she stopped,
and when she crossed the Strand.”
"She?' The old rapscallion! Not Mrs. Freeling, I'll
be bound?"
t
148
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
"No, sir."
"No, sir; I should think not, sir. And yet there was
a time when-but-no-matter-er!" The speaker
uttered these closing syllables in accents of sepulchral
woe; and he worked his eyebrows up and down, and
plunged his right hand into the snuffy bosom of his
double-breasted buff waistcoat. "Tis well," he went
on, as the boy waited respectfully," Proceed, proceed.
"It was a client, sir."
'And there" commented the clerk,-"there is the
fashion in which the man Freeling spends his off-days.
and his vacations! He'll carry the shop with him to his
grave. He is no sooner out of his place than he tumbles
against a client, and he has no sooner come across the
footprints of a client than away he goes like a red Indian
on a trail. He says that some day or another it all fits in.
Who was the client?'
"
The boy took down from one of the mahogany desks
a long narrow volume bound in cardboard and dingy
vellum. In the midst of the blots and smears which lib-
erally adorned its cover appeared the inscription in fine
German text, "Call-book." The volume opened of itself
at a place marked by a strip of blotting-paper, and the
boy there indicated, among the names last entered, that of
Miss St. Maur.
"Who is she?" muttered the clerk. "Who is she?
Been here before?"
"Oncé, sir. Came on Saturday, late."
"And just now?"
#
"Came while you were out for ten minutes."
'Did she arrive before Freeling, or how was it?"
"Mr. Freeling arrived first, sir. He had just looked
through the engagement-book when the lady came in.
She did not want to stay long, she said. I asked her
what matter' it was, and she said she had called on
behalf of a client who was not well enough to attend.".
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
149
"What client?”
}
Detective Erne interrupted with a protest. He did not
desire to overhear their office-secrets, he urged, half seri-
ously; confidential items were not even to be so much
as hinted at before an officer from Scotland yard. The
boy snapped a slip of paper from a bunch strung together
at the angle of a desk, and wrote the name, hastily,-
"Sir Sydney Chard."
..
'Oh, indeed,' murmured the clerk. "Oh, indeed!
The festive Freeling was mixed up in that case tempo-
rarily, I think. We must see whether fresh instructions
have gone out this morning. "Well," he resumed, "and
what else have you got to tell us?"
"Lady turned down Villiers Street to Underground.
Railway; Mr. Freeling went same way. When they
reached booking office, sir, I closed up, as Mr. Freeling
was not paying attention. Lady booked for Sloane
Square; Mr. Freeling booked for Sloane Square too; so
I came back."
*
I
The arbitrator would have declined the responsibility
of declaring a decision, upon the ground of insufficient
evidence; and the problem set before him would have.
been solemnly postponed until the arrival of Mrs. Free-
ling for her spouse's pay-or, as the clerk observed, for
what her spouse informed her was his pay-should have
afforded an opportunity for artful interrogation, but that
the rubescent Simmons gallantly gave up the point.
Watching the ceaseless industry of his subordinates
with the greatest satisfaction, the clerk then sapiently ha-
rangued the boy upon the moral aspects of the vocation.
, which Mr. Freeling served with talent allied to so much
zeal. "Now, here is a bright boy," said he, "who thinks
it is a fine thing to play the spy, already. He'd like to
develop into a full-blown inquiry-man without loss of
time, wouldn't he? He'd like to track people about; get
hold of weighty secrets, and all sorts of things they don't
150
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
want you to know, mooch round mysterious haunts, and
wriggle into-well, into palaces perhaps.
He'd carry
a revolver, and he'd be putting his back against a wall
and defying whole gangs, saying "I am so-and-so, and
I never miss my aim !" or, he'd rescue lovely heroines,
who would afterwards reward him with their lovely
hands." The boy laughed in an embarrassed manner,
and crimsoned more vividly than Simmons himself.
"That's all rot, my lad."
"Not all," interposed Detective Erne, good-humoredly;
"don't discourage him."
"I want to make him practical," answered the clerk,
"but he's been reading penny numbers. Now, if I had
a boy of my own," he went on, "and I thank heaven I
have been spared that trial, and if he had a fancy for this
business, and showed some aptitude for it, we'll say, in
this office, what I should call his attention to, would be
the singular oversight just committed by friend Freeling.
Yes. How comes it that friend Freeling, with his ability
and his experience, positively shows no sort of compre-
hension that, as he watches the movements of a client
quitting this office, somebody else may be watching his
own movements, too?"
"His conscience is clear," said the detective, "that's
why."
"No doubt, no doubt," returned the other, dryly. "But
-here is an essential matter to which I should at the
very outset request the attention of a son of mine
"Request is good!"
""
"With the greatest submission request his dis
criminating attention, viz., to the difference between the
two callings, Sergeant,-yours and ours,-a difference
all in favor of yours."
(4 How is that ? "
•
"Ah, you know it, well enough, but the boy here
doesn't, I'm not speaking of the prizes, or the money to
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
151
be made; I'm speaking of the morality, the morality,
ay, there's the rub!" The boy looked puzzled.'
"Why,
don't you see that Mr. Erne here works for law and order,
for the protection of all honest people, and—and so-forth,
and against all the people that are not law-abiding, and
are not good and virtuous, -in short; whereas we,-what
is it we do? Half the time we are liable to be employed
by the very worst people themselves: yes, and against
the very best, against the good and the innocent and the
virtuous.'
"
"Does it matter, sir?" asked the boy.
"Eh?"
How can it matter, sir," hazarded the boy, "so long
as they are good and virtuous they've nothing to fear."
"Oh, but, there are circumstances, and there are
degrees, and there are compromising situations, and-
ahem!-there are also numerous varieties of virtue and of
goodness. There is the virtue of the statesman, for in-
stance, my lad, and the virtue of Susan with the black
eye; there is the virtue of gentlemen and ladies who
form themselves into virtuous associations, and who're
mixed up with offices like Vowcher's, every now and
then; there is the virtue that is composite, but that plays
the mentor or the guardian to all mere unadulterated
virtue, thus keeping up appearances for its own benefit;
there is the virtue that passeth all understanding, only
it doesn't matter; and then you have got the varie-
ties represented by Samuel Freeling, Esq., a different
sort, to Sam's credit be it spoken, from that of the deacon
at Sam's chapel-and by the lady client who booked on
the Underground, just now, for the locality of Sloane
Square."
↓
"C
'Yes, sir."
The clerk stepped down from his chair. "Very well.
Now go and get through your work. Erne, your presence
demoralizes the entire office; thank goodness, we shall
""
•
152
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
see the back of you in a few minutes. The momentary
sound of voices outside was again followed by the closing
of a door. (C
'There goes the client. I have a few words
to say to the governor, and then you shall see him."
Left to themselves, the busy gentlemen upon high
stools laid down the implements of their labor, and with
one accord yawned, gaped, and stared at the clock.
The day seemed fearfully long, observed one; that clock
was at least three minutes slow, declared, another; a
third cursed the heat and the head clerk; whilst the obli-
gation of slaving for one's bread, the whole order of
things which restricted to certain classes, relatively a
few, and not necessarily meritorious, the enjoyment of
the best weather in the places for which the best weather
had been made, was described by a fourth in language of
the indescribable nature that is termed socialistic.
""
We are short-handed here," grumbled one of these
gentlemen, addressing himself to Detective Erne. The
latter, having scarcely ever put his foot inside a business
office which was not, in the opinion of the subordinates,
short-handed, expressed his congratulations in a friendly
way, and hoped that there was much "over-time" for
them all. A young man at the left hand of Simmons
apparently completed his occupation of posting up an
enormous volume that seemed crowded with small news-
paper cuttings. He ran his finger down the indented and
lettered index as far as "N," and here he found
"Norval"; "Nestor"; "N. Y. 351624"; "Nevermore";
"Nearer to Thee"; "Nubian "
((
; Nearer to Me"; and
finally "N. W.* L. S."* The slip of paper which he had
pasted upon the folio he was now indexing to the last-
named item, had evidently been one of several extracted
from an agony column in a morning journal of that day.
It ran to the effect that "Semper Idem's" warning had re-
ceived due attention, and that an appointment was to be
looked for, shortly, "in this column." The custodian of
เ
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
153
the volume rested for a few moments, and then turned
lazily again to the index, letter "E." The references last
entered were "Early-closing' "E. Y.":"Erstwhile";
"Ever Thine":"Evxhrezofgd"; "Exodus, ch. 5, v. 18";
"Emma to Jack"; "Esme to Serpentine"; "Erne, D.
S." "Do you know this one?" he asked, indicating to
their visitor the series "Emma to Jack."
"No," was the reply.
“The Tudor Street gang.
""
""
•
"
"Ah, the Tudor Street people," echoed the detective
nonchalantly: "they're waking up again.
j
At any rate here's something for some namesake of
your own: "Erne, D. S." The speaker threw open the
leaves at folio indexed, and pointed to one slender slip of
newspaper which was all that the page contained.
"Should this meet your eye," he read aloud, “under-
stand that you are warned off. We are serious.
"
""
"9
The detective listened with an.amused smile as his in-
terlocutor, repeating the portentous notification, added a
string of jocular comments. But, after all, the advertise-
ment might be intended for Mr. Erne. Why should it not
be intended for Mr. Erne by someone whom he was
cornering, or running too close ? "D. S.,". Detective-
Sergeant, of course. Mr. Erne laughed. Who would be
likely, he demanded, to address him on the off-chance in
a roundabout fashion like that?
'Why, I am surprised at you, sir," exclaimed the
other. “Wouldn't this way be ever so much safer than
sending disguised handwritings, or printed words cut out
and pasted together; especially when they wanted other
people, too, to see that Erne, D. S., was busy after certain
parties that warned him off.”
"What paper is that from?”
Everything in this book is from the same," answered
the other, naming the journal; "the rest are over there."
154
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
He indicated half-a-dozen companion tomes ranged side
by side in a stoutly-constructed recess.
"And what was the date?"
"The day before yesterday. To-day's the 2d July,
isn't it? Blest if I don't think it really is meant for you,
Mr. Erne!"
"Well, I'll wait for the next before I decide."
"The next! Whoever they are, they're not very likely
to go back with a fresh one. Whoever they are, they'll
know pretty well your style of dealing with your business.
at the yard."
6
"Long-firmers, or cracksmen, that's who they are;
someone inside to someone out. Or Whisperers,"
warned away." Detective-Sergeant Erne laughed again.
It was perhaps curious that he should refrain from
acknowledging that the veiled intimation had, indeed,
already “met his eye."
Forwarded through the post, and addressed by means
of characters cut separately from printed matter, and
pasted together, upon the plan just now suggested haphaz
ard, the newspaper in question had come into his hands on
the evening of the 30th ult. In acting thus, his unknown.
correspondent had possibly obeyed second thoughts. The
notification to "Erne, D. S." had been scored in red pen-
cil. Detective-Sergeant Erne believed that he perfectly
comprehended.
The clerk re-entered briskly at this moment, and Mr.
Erne, sir, was begged to step in:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
155
CHAPTER XI.
It was occasionally remarked of Mr. Aaron Vowcher
that his manner of receiving the "best people" among
his clients might have impressed royalty itself with a dis-
agreeable sense of inferiority. Mr. Vowcher's age was
problematical; most estimates would have erred in the
direction of youth. His good looks have already been
remarked upon; and he really had the most strikingly
handsome features. Of the medium height, ever scrupu-
lously attired, and built like the model figures which, if
not meant by nature to shinë in practical athletics, adorn
tailors' pattern-books and ladies' novels as the ideal mas-
culine form. "Aaron" resembled a good many of the
"very best people" who applied to him upon disreputable
affairs. He had first seen the light in the humblest of re-
tail establishments, in a turning off Cleveland Street, Mary-
lebone, and, as the only child of industrious parents, had
been accustomed from his earliest years to the prospect
of what passed among the neighbors for a valuable in-
heritance, the succession of the goodwill. Birds of a
feather are understood to flock together; certain it is that
little Aaron, son to old Sol. Vowcher, of the rag-shop and
general store just round the corner of Little Portland Street,
soon exhibited that preference for the society of other
heirs to considerable properties which led him afterwards
to select contemporary Stephen Kastriles, hopeful young
gentlemen with grand titles or great money-bags, or both,
as his habitual associates "about the town here." Op-
portunity and a strong natural inclination had turned him
into a successful free-lance in the arena of pursuits cognate
to his present calling. He founded the Burleigh Street
>
156
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
Private Inquiry Establishment. Entering upon the ven-
ture with substantial means, and under the patronage of
plutocrats, pariahs and patricians, Mr. Vowcher both de-
served celebrity and commanded it. The competency of
the Vowcher office was acknowledged by even the new-
est and the most blatant of its competitors; whilst the
extent of its professional "connection" had become pro-
verbial.
The furniture of Mr. Vowcher's room included a partic-
ular cabinet stored with mementoes and significant gifts.
No common folk were the donors of these articles, al-
though common enough might have been deemed, in not
a few instances, the nature of their grateful offerings to
the accomplished recipient,-"A. V." upon their invariable
monogram. One privilege of the great, however, lies in
this-that they can afford to be trivial in the testimonies
of their gratitude. The plainest snuff-box, filled with the
very worst snuff, or possibly bestowed without any con-
tents whatsoever, the poorest scarf-pin, ring, cigar-holder,
or pencil-case, has been well known to acquire the most
extraordinary value, and inordinate unearned increment,
when tendered or transmitted by illustrious hands. There
were many objects besides pins and rings, pencil-cases
and memorial snuff-boxes within this curious cabinet, a
precious repository owned by Mr. Vowcher. I. O. U's.,
apologies, promises, lockets, and locks of hair, and
ladies' portraits, with interesting autographs attached
thereto, were discoverable deep in its dark recesses,
behind its inviolate doors. Mr. Vowcher never talked
of all these treasures; he rated them, possibly, at but
their intrinsic value. It was by the clerk who had been
with him since the commencement of the business, and
whose brother-in-law was at Roper's, that references to
the museum, as he styled it, might be sometimes thrown
out in the course of intimate conversations. An air of
luxury pervaded Mr. Vowcher's private room; and as
THE NIGHT 157
OF
OF THE 3d ULT.
Detective Erne made his way through the inner entrance
protected by double doors, covered with green baize, he
was met by a lingering faint odor of confused scents
which would have apprised him, if he had not already
known it, that among the clients of that morning had
been, not merely gentlemen addicted to self-perfumery,
but ladies as well as men.
Mr. Vowcher greeted his present visitor with no trace
of the solemn suavity, tinged with condescension, which
he reserved for the very best people. His reception of
Detective Erne was that of an unceremonious comrade.
"If it can give you any consolation," he began,-"I
have a piece of news for you, from the best source. Your
Scotland Yard friends are looking upon the cases of the
3d ult., as hopeless.
((
""
They have lost three weeks."
"Yes, they have; and they have placed their credit in
the hands of M'Kagherty & Co.”
'I can't allow you to be hard upon him," protested the
subordinate of Inspector M'Kagherty, with a slight smile.
"He does his best, of course. Unfortunately, like so
many whom your good people keep in front, he has no
ideas.
، ،
M'Kagherty? oh, M'Kagherty is just now brewing a
very considerable idea; and, before long, the criminal
Investigation Department will hear of it."
"In regard to the affairs of the 3d June?"
"To one of them,-the affair at the Parsonage.
"What!" exclaimed Mr. Vowcher, throwing himself
back in his easy-chair, and crossing his legs,--"Ha! ha!
Has poor old M'Kagherty arrived at the conviction at
length that the identity of H. R. H. has been conclusively
established! Ha! ha!"
"Well, as a matter of fact," answered the detective,
moodily," he has hardly advanced in evidence an inch
beyond that point, although the identification was made
"
158
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
:
at least three weeks ago.
He has had two astonishing
pieces of luck: the first was the identification of the
deceased by Mr. Lester Brand; the second consisted of
Brand's disappearance."
"You are not in relation with M'Kagherty?
"None at all. I have been cut off absolutely from the
""
case.
"You don't happen to know, then, what his view is
with respect to Brand's disappearance?"
"Yes, I do. I happen to know."
"Ah!"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Oh, I happen to know, and that is his grand idea, the
idea I spoke of. I have watched it forming.'
"
Mr. Vowcher scrutinized his visitor with a sort of indo-
lent inquisitiveness. "And so you have watched the
process of incubation. Has he learnt anything with
respect to Lester Brand in the past?"
From the private address furnished by Mr. Lester Brand,
when identifying the victim of the Parsonage murder
on the 3d ult., replied Detective Erne, M'Kagherty had
obtained particulars which led him to make application
at the offices of a city firm, Chard & Urwen. The
inspector had ascertained from Messrs. Chard & Urwen
that Mr. Lester Brand had for some few years past occu-
The
pied responsible positions in their employment.
inspector's visit to the firm had been confidential; their
own communication to the inspector had been confiden-
tial, too: it was needless to say that, whatever attitude
had subsequently been preserved in the matter by Messrs.
Chard & Urwen, the barren results of M'Kagherty's inter-
view with them had been passed on to a colleague or two,
confidentially, by the inspector.
"Nothing material came of it, then?"
"Nothing."
L
1
Sunda
A
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
159
"Their explanation of his disappearance?"
"They offered none."
"They did not suggest that he could have had any
reason for absconding?"
"On the contrary, when a suggestion to that effect was
made by M'Kagherty, they repudiated the notion alto-
gether. He came away convinced that, for some unknown
reason, the partners were endeavoring to shield this Mr.
Brand." The speaker paused, and then added, "What
is your own interest in the inquiry, if I may ask?"
Mr. Vowcher came forward in his easy-chair, and began
to swing his eyeglass by the black ribbon, round and
round the forefinger of his right hand. "I expected that
question, and I don't mind informing you that I have two
sets of clients deeply interested in the affair. Confidence
for confidence. Of course I had a motive in dropping
you a line to come and see me.”
"No doubt."
"Well, we know, and you know; but, beyond those
immediately and officially concerned, has the actual
identity of the deceased leaked out at all, do you think?”
"I believé not.”
"He is still 'H. R. H.' even for the rank and file of
your own men ?”
"We were supposed at one time to have ascertained
the identity, but as nothing more was said or done, and
nothing came of it, everybody outside one or two arrived
at the conclusion that we had made a mistake, and had
been too sanguine. I say 'we,' but of course I mean
'they,' for I myself went out of it at the very time the
man H. R. H. was recognized by Mr. Lester Brand.
'H. R. H.'! The likeness was remarkable, too. And they
were remarkably alike, too, although there was evidently
the difference between them of several years.'
??
The chief of the Vowcher Inquiry Office brought down
his shirt-cuffs with a movement of great deliberation, and
160
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
apparently devoted his entire mind to a comparison of
the gold sleeve-links. "I am going to put myself in
your hands, Erne," said he.
The other nodded. "You will want something in
exchange?"
"Yes; but, confidence for confidence, and I will bid
the first. Now, what I ask you can very well let me know,
inasmuch as you are in no way concerned personally in
the cases of the 3d ult."
"Oh, excuse me! I shall continue to be concerned
with them."
Mr. Vowcher raised his eyebrows, in emphatic interro-
gation.
"It will form my last inquiry for the Department,"
resumed his visitor,-"at any rate, my last inquiry of
importance. When I have explained these cases of the
3d to them, as I expect to be able to do as soon as they
acknowledge their own failure, I shall send in my resigna-
tion. He rose to his feet and took a turn slowly about
the room.
""
"Your resignation!"
"Yes."
"My dear fellow," urged Mr. Vowcher," decide upon
no such step. I can understand your discouragement;
but, decide nothing,—think the matter well over again.
"I have made my mind up," pronounced the other,
decisively. "At the earliest moment permitted by the
regulations, I part company with the Department. I am
fond of the calling,-indeed, I am fervently attached to it,
and perhaps take too elevated a view of its duties; I have
worked steadfastly enough, and waited patiently enough,
heaven knows, to secure the place I now hold, and you
see what it is. It was not poverty, and it was not ambi-
tion, that forced me into this way of life, Vowcher, and
from the point of view of worldly advantage, I shall gain
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
161
enormously by going out. But the conditions of one's
work are neither fair nor free.
"I don't speak of the recompense, although such rewards.
as are assigned to us are ludicrous, and I for one have
never pretended to support myself upon the pay. I am
speaking of the conditions known to many a detective-
sergeant besides myself. The credit for the best work
we do is adroitly transferred to a superior officer; we are
burked; or we get no work of any consequence to do,—
whilst the country rings with successive failures by our
superiors. Here you have a state of things in which the
detective-sergeants well in touch with the criminal classes
find themselves at once superseded whenever the case
which presents itself can be classed as sensational,—likely
to bring names and achievements most conspicuously
before the public. I said just now that I was not ambitious;
to the extent, however, of wishing to do well, and of being
known for what I have done well, I must admit that
ambitious I certainly am, or, rather was." He stopped in
his walk. "All that is now over.'
Mr. Vowcher's manner betrayed some sympathy.
'Wait,” said he. "We might one of these days find
you something here, -something well worth your waiting
for."
""
""
The other expressed his thanks, but it was manifest
that the offer was declined. "I see," replied Mr. Vowcher
putting up his black-edged eyeglass-"not the same thing.
Perhaps you are right. But, with regard to your resigna-
tion, -wait. We can talk about that point again. What
is this you say, however, as to the affairs of the 3d, if it
is a fair question? You will be able to explain them?"
"Yes.
"You have been following them up?”
"I have."
""
"Out of-any-special sources of information!"
"Not on any lines that were exclusive. Those who
}
162
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
displaced me should have ascertained as much by this
time: more, with their opportunities."
"More! then, there still remains something which
you have not learnt?”
mag d.
""
"A detail or two.
"Otherwise, you can complete the case?"
"I hold the threads."
The two men sat for some instants gazing at each other,
their countenances impenetrable. "I wonder whether
you know as much as I know," at length murmured Mr.
Vowcher, rising in a leisurely fashion, and moving.
towards his cabinet of curiosities. "You and I can trust
one another, I think, Erne?" The cabinet was locked and
double-locked; the key produced might have served for
a safe.
'We are in private here?" asked the detective, with a
glance round.
"Absolutely."
Watching his host as he drew open the iron-bound door,
Detective Erne answered in tones, more subdued, but
still distinct-"I know the murderer in the Parsonage.
Mystery."
Aaron Vowcher was apparently searching for a piece
of documentary evidence. He looked at notes and mem-
oranda, restored them to their places, and continued his
(( So you
quest among the contents of the same shelf.
believe that you have traced the murderer?" said he, in
lower tones, likewise.
"
The detective laughed, as if he judged that, to an obvious
ruse, a laugh formed the best of all possible responses.
'No," immediately rejoined his host,-"you are in
error; I am not seeking to draw you. But if you mean
that you can point out the assassin of the personage
known as 'H. R. H.'
""
"Of Albert Lionel Brand, known at the lodging-house
in Paradise Row by the sobriquet of 'H. R. H.'-yes-
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
163
"Connected with-whom? Come, now, whom is he
connected with?”
"You are as well aware of the fact as I am !"
"The parentage
"Very well. Elder brother, then, of Lester Sydney
Brand; the parentage being-what?"
"Parentage!" echoed the detective.
may have been anything you like.
rate, were not the guilty parties in the affairs of the 3d.
ult.
The parents, at any-
""
"The guilty parties you have traced, you say?"
"One of them, I say. There were two men concerned,
you know."
Mr. Aaron Vowcher faced round from the cabinet, an
oblong folded paper in his hand, "Good heavens, Erne!"
he exclaimed, pushing the door behind him until the latch
caught,-"Out with the story of the 'Parsonage' whilst
the public interest in it continues! Out with it while you
can make capital."
"Not I!" The answer conveyed the most scornful
repudiation of the motive implied. "Let my successors
reap their triumph if they can. They shall have time
enough. When we observe them to be retiring from the
inquiry then we step in-then I step in: yes, and then I
step out, too, not cured of my accursed propensity for
all this, I am afraid, but a very much wiser man."
"What if they give you your promotion?
Detective Erne's laughter was becoming somewhat
strident. "Say a reprimand, and you will be nearer
the mark. No; a promotion in a case like mine would
be an exorbitant reward, and, 'premature.' They would
be far more likely to put me back to ordinary constable's
work. Besides, there are plenty of detective-sergeants
who deserve recognition for their achievements, and they
can't all be promoted, you know. Only a single course
is open to a discontented spirit, and that is to get out,
to pack off, to go! The detective-sergeants make up
""
II
164
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
the most useful portion of the whole police-system, do
they not they are ignored and badly treated, are they
not: and, yet, for fear of still worse treatment, which of
them dare raise their voices? Most of them tremble at
the bare idea that anyone should urge their cause. My
promotion! I shall have earned it; but they can bestow
it upon another.”
Smoothing out the document which he had deposited
and unfolded upon his writing-table, Mr. Vowcher appeared
to be more than half absorbed by the perusal of its pre-
liminary passages.
"And such advancement as they eke out, when they
do confer it," proceeded Erne, in accents of cold derision,-
"what is it? Ha, ha!"
-
"Oh, my boy, but you're too big for the place!"
"So they would say."
"A-a-and "-Mr. Vowcher was clearly not inspired
by any particular warmth of interest-"does a-a-any
-general feeling of grievance exist among the plain-
clothes men ?"
"You know what their work is,-what depends upon
their efficiency; do you know their scale of pay and
reward?"
"Low, I believe."
Detective Erne flushed suddenly, and checked the reply
which mounted to his lips. As his gaze swept the entire
surroundings, with a somewhat haughty appreciation of
Mr. Vowcher's prosperous taste, the flush deepened, and
about his brow gathered a shade of perhaps unreasonable
resentment and humiliation. The difference was too vast,
he thought, perhaps. There were honest and useful
purposes, of course, that these officers served quite legiti-
mately; unexceptionable would be found to be a liberal
proportion of the clients; but it was the worst people.
who came here oftenest, and it was the dirtiest work that
was welcomed as the most profitable. Very dirty work
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
165
M
indeed for villainous or vicious people had placed Aaron
Vowcher in the midst of these art treasures, and had
loaded his fingers thus, and thus, with large diamonds.
Neither the bronzes of antiquity, nor canvases by French
masters, nor, as personal ornaments, lustrous and em-
bossed finger-rings, were coveted by the colleagues of
Detective-Sergeant Erne; but those colleagues were no
emissaries of the nefarious or of individual vice, and, to
the perturbed mind of Detective-Sergeant Erne, it seemed
at this instant that for the small indulgence and small
sympathy usually extended to his colleagues by society,
therein lay one principal reason.
"There are men of my rank in the force," said he, "to
whom the pecuniary returns are a matter of vital moment.
Well, two of them accomplished last month one of the
most difficult pieces of work, and one of the cleverest
captures of the past few years. The case involved journeys
to Brussels and elsewhere; and the men recovered a
fortune. You know the regulation as to recompenses
offered privately, and outside; but what was their bounty
from the Department?" He flushed again, and hesitated,
as if the admission cost him a mortifying effort. "They
received, each of them, just seventeen shillings. Ha!
ha ha!"
1
His laugh was gently echoed by his host-"Ha! ha!
A good story!" Then, said Mr. Aaron Vowcher, resum-
ing,-"I daresay you may find that the circumstances of
their parentage—I speak of the man known at the lodging-
house as 'H. R. H.,' and of the younger brother who,
within twelve hours from the identification, had disap-
peared-will be, after all, not without its indirect bearing
upon your inquiry."
"Perhaps."
"These are our instructions to trace one Albert Lionel
Brand, largely interested under will of personage whose
name you perceive-there-half-way down second par-
166
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
agraph." He passed to his interlocutor the unfolded
document in his hand. "The parties instructing us are
country solicitors.
Read what they say."
"But the communication is in confidence from them to
you," objected the other, after a glance at the first few
lines.
"Yes, and it's in confidence from me to you, as well.
Besides, I may put it, that I want you for this very busi-
ness. Observe,-I place myself in your hands."
"You mean, I suspect, that before I leave this room I
am, somehow or another, to have placed myself in your
hands. Well, I will go as far with you as I think I
may."
The other nodded, returned the smile, and let his
eyeglass drop. "As you see," he continued, "the
younger of the two brothers also, had a small life interest
under the same will,-very small, however. Both brothers
having been entirely lost sight of by the personage whose
name you perceive, the will contains due provisions for
the reversion of their respective life-interests in the event.
of their being deceased. As it happens, neither was
deceased at the time of execution of the will." He
waited, to allow of a comparison of the dates.
"That ap-
pears clearly enough does it not? Very well. Now, to
put the matter briefly, the assassination of Albert Lionel
Brand takes place during the night of the 3d ult., and
little more than twenty-four hours afterwards, Lester Syd-
ney Brand, the younger brother, disappears. The will
has provided that the very substantial life interest
bequeathed to the elder passes, upon his decease, to the
younger."
Detective-Sergeant Erne folded together the pages in-
dorsed "Brand, Albert Lionel Instructions," and handed
them back to his host. "The inference," said he, "would
cheer and comfort M'Kagherty."
"Well, it is not my business to assist your successors,
:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
167
remarked Mr. Vowcher, "but if they are of opinion
that Lester Sydney Brand-
11
"They are of opinion that Lester Sydney Brand was
the assassin of his brother. Up to the present, they can
find no adequate motive, however; and your estimable
country solicitors might certainly, could they but be
made acquainted with the fact, lift a great burden from
the mind of Michael Carmichael M'Kagherty."
Ah," mused the host,-"they had better be told then,
perhaps. I had hitherto kept silence as to the identifica
tion. We were upon the trace of Albert Lionel Brand, I
wrote to them, but the task before us would demand
some time."
(C
;
"Will they not advertise him?"
"No, for family and special reasons, as you would
have perceived if you had read the instructions through.
Mr. Vowcher walked to his chair and took up the speak-
ing-tube in compliance with a summons from without.
The message received and duly answered, he turned to
resume their colloquy.
"Can you not hold off longer," suggested the detec-
tive somewhat anxiously,-"I mean with the solicitors.
who have instructed you,-these people in the country?
Mr. Vowcher shook his head gently with a sympathetic
air of doubt.
""
"Very good,” replied the other, resigned to all the
thwartings of fate.
Mr. Vowcher had the air of rousing his dormant energies.
"I may now venture upon an assumption; I think," said
he, "you know the hiding-place of Lester Brand."
The other paid no heed to his host's accent of inquiry,
responding, however, in his own turn, with an interroga-
tion. In the event of the younger brother's decease—-”
"Decease?"
*
ad
ܕ
"In the event of Lester Brand's decease, who profits?"
Mr. Vowcher sank back languidly in his easy-chair, and
:
168
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
fixed his eyeglass at a faded cloud upon his painted ceiling.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that Lester Brand is dead?”
His visitor followed the direction of his regard, and
levelled a gaze equally intent at the dull blue background
of the faded cloud. "Are we to make progress at all?"
said he. "Who profits by Lester Brand's decease?"
((
"You should have read through the instructions, friend
Erne," replied Mr. Vowcher. 'You are over-scrupulous.
In the event of the elder brother's decease, the life inter-
est passes to the younger; in the event of the younger
brother's decease, too, the life-interest goes to unexcep-
tionable people."
"Ah!"
'Yes, there is a 'remainder to,' as they term it, certain
noble relations of the noble testator. Very grand folk!'
""
.. .
""
Ah, indeed!
Mr. Vowcher picked up the speaking-tube, signalled,
and sent through to his clerks a barely audible direction.
"And announce no one for the next fifteen minutes,"
he concluded, sharply; "I am not to be disturbed."
Restoring the tube to its place, he turned to resume the
colloquy. "Now," said he, with apparent' animation
and frankness,--"let us see if we can understand each
other, friend Erne."
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
169
< (
CHAPTER XII.
"I AM interested for two distinct sets of clients," said
Mr. Aaron Vowcher again,-"and they are parties abso-
lutelly unknown to one another. On the one side there
are these solicitors acting for the trustees; on the other
side, there are particular persons who are concerned
solely with the younger of the two brothers, Lester Brand.
I happened to have been applied to by both parties. You
see I place myself in your hands.
""
On
"By both parties just so. One of your coincidences.
'One of the coincidences of all offices like ours.
the one side, these; on the other side, those. I am plac-
ing myself in your hands, you see?"
"Oh, very much," answered the detective, with a
smile, very much, indeed !
"
، 'Well, then! Are you now satisfied of my good
faith?"
"Of your good faith, Vowcher, always. But"
"But?"
"
"Do allow me to say, as to your placing yourself in
my hands, that, firstly, I don't see how you have done so ;
secondly, I don't for a moment request that you should
do so; and, thirdly, I don't in the least perceive why
you should volunteer to do so."
"Here it is, then, in a nutshell," returned the head of
the inquiry office, promptly: "it is essential that I should
learn as early as possible, the fate or the whereabouts of
Lester Sydney Brand. I believe that what I seek to learn
you know.'
"
"Had you that belief, may I ask, when you wrote to
me?"
170
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Mr. Vowcher hesitated before replying. Near the centre
of the firmament upon his discolored ceiling, a tropical
long-billed bird was forever eager in pursuit of a tropical
butterfly. The figures were necessarily familiar to him,
but his eye sought them out anew and scrutinized them
almost with the interest inspired by absolute novelty.
He had often, in the reverie of a few instants, dreamily
erected parallels between that perennial zigzag flight, and
the phases of a cross-examination well conducted by him-
self within the four walls of his private room. "I knew
that you had not relinquished your case," said he; "I
guessed that you were still following up the Parsonage
affair of the 3d." Which of the two might be considered
just now the pursued, and which the pursuer? It seemed
to Mr. Vowcher that they had changed rôles more than
"I told you I would bid first," he continued,-
"and I have made you my bid. You are now aware,
through my confidential disclosure to you, that the
younger of the two brothers, viz., Mr. Lester Brand, had a
direct interest in the disappearance of the elder. Is not
that something to go upon?"
once.
"Yes, it is; and enough.to blunder upon, too. And
that is to be precisely the blunder of M'Kagherty & Co."
"Very well. But I have further shown you that there
are third parties with a direct interest in the disappearance
of Lester Brand himself."
"Quite unexceptionable people, you said; very grand
folk, I think you insinuated? Members of-the-best-
nobility, I believe you went so far as to-implicate?"
'Well, then!" ejaculated Mr. Aaron Vowcher.
،،
KRON
!
"Have
I not placed myself in your hands?
"It would appear to me, upon the contrary," rejoined
Detective-Sergeant Erne,-"that you have been placing
in my hands neither yourself nor your clients, but other
people. The bid was fair enough, however, and I don't
mind meeting you half-way. Yes; I do know the where-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
171
abouts of Lester Brand, suspected by my successors of
the 'Parsonage' murder."
"The 'hiding-place', I fancy I put it."
"We'll call it 'hiding-place,' then, if you like."
"Are you in communication with him?"
، ، No."
"Is he in England?"
"Yes."
""
"In London ?
"Yes."
A shade of anxiety betrayed itself in Mr. Vowcher's
expression. "Can we not place ourselves in correspond-
ence with him?" he demanded.
"Not for the present," answered his visitor.
"Not even through you?"
"How should he remember me? We met upon one
occasion only, and he was not at that time likely to take
much note of the countenances around him. I speak of
his attendance at the 'Parsonage,' Paradise Row, on the
evening of the 4th ult. It was on that evening that he
identified 'H. R. H.', the deceased, as his brother. How
should he remember me, now?"
"He is consequently ignorant of your present surveil-
lance?"
"Altogether."
Mr. Vowcher hesitated again. "There is a price," he
then said, “to be obtained for satisfactory news of Mr.
Lester Sydney Brand."
"Satisfactory?"
"Yes; the price would be paid by persons who are
interested in his welfare.
""
"Oh, dear me !" observed the detective, dryly.
"The persons I refer to are my clients,—those of whom
I have not yet spoken to you."
"What! More legacies?"
"Would you give those persons news of him, for a
i
1
172
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
price?" continued Mr. Vowcher, his eyes wandering once.
more to the tropical bird and butterfly, in their perpetual
chase and evasion, overhead.
For no price that they or anyone could pay," was
the decided response. "Put yourself in my position,
"I
Vowcher. This means more to me than any mere sum
of money. I feel certain of my successor's failure, and I
hold the entire case in my grasp. You will say that I
place more value upon the affair than it is worth. That
may be so, in the judgment of others besides yourself;
but every man must be the appraiser of values for his
own incitement. I covet this measure of retaliation; I
want it, and I need it. You laugh at me, no doubt, but
I daresay there are objects to your own ambition or desires
at which I should snap my fingers." The speaker did
snap his fingers, too, as he pronounced these words.
should be glad to oblige you. At the same time, the
smallest indiscretion upon my part will imperil all my
chances. From the moment I began to acquit myself
well in the service to which I belong, I have never had
fair play. This time, I have made the game myself, and
when I attain the end I shall throw up the entire business.
What, however, can you possibly care about such objects
and such motives, strictly personal to myself as they are?
It would not affect you, if I lost. Provided you score,
what am I? What would be my culminating chagrin and
irreparable misfortune to you, provided you scored?"
The proprietor of the Burleigh Street Inquiry Office
began to flick imaginary specks of dust from the wrist-
band of his coat-sleeve. "I am sorry you entertain such
little trust in my good-feeling towards you," said he.
"You have rendered me a service once or twice, in the
ordinary channels of our business, and I have never repaid
them. Do you think that I wish to remain under an
obligation to you? Rather than serve you an ill-turn,
!
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
173
now, I have every reason for desiring to forward your
interests."
"You are a business-man, Vowcher, before you are
anything else. Your clients first and foremost,-yes, and
by a long way. The repute of the Burleigh Street estab-
lishment before everything!
""
."
In reply, Mr. Aaron Vowcher briefly narrated the main
circumstances of the inquiry upon which he had been
engaged prior to the 3d ult. for Messrs. Chard & Urwen.
As his auditor caught at the name, recalling the informa-
tion furnished to M'Kagherty at Lester Brand's private
address, and M'Kagherty's consequent but fruitless visit to
the partners themselves, in Gresham Street, Mr. Vowcher
sagaciously indulged in a digression to the effect that the
other could assuredly no longer question his good faith,-
that it was confidence for confidence between them, that he
was again tendering the first bid, and that it must at length
be admitted, he should hope, that he was placing himself
unreservedly in the other's hands. The narrator ter-
minated with a recital of the fresh occurrences witnessed
by the past three weeks. After a renewal of his protests,
Detective-Sergeant Erne had acquiesced in his host's evi-
dent intention and had listened, not without interest, to the
story of the frauds committed upon the firm in Gresham
Street.
The guilt of the absconding protégé had received fresh
confirmation in the minds of the junior partner, Urwen,
and his eldest son, related Mr. Vowcher, from the fact that
with Lester Brand's departure the mysterious losses which
the house had been sustaining had apparently ceased.
"I felt as convinced that I had discovered the real culprit,"
said he,—“ as you may do in the more serious matters
you have followed up. Brand was not the perpetrator of
the frauds"
. . Was he aware of them?
"No. Apart from myself, the discovery of the frauds
174
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ras at that time kept strictly secret by the two partners
and that eldest son I spoke of, young Mr. Urwen."
"Three persons to keep a secret? And one of them, a
young man! What species of young man ???
"The son, Raymond? Oh, a very knowing gentleman,
but quiet,-studiously quiet. He looks in upon me,
periodically, for 'news.' Professes to be sent by the
partners. I will come to that, however, presently. It is
not my business to pry into their personal or domestic
affairs; it doesn't concern my case, and I consider my
case as virtually over; but around the inquiry which was
put into my care, there appears to be going on a grand
game of cross-purposes. A woman has been here twice
professing to represent Sir Sydney Chard. She came first
with Sir Sydney himself, and there was no doubt as to the
bona-fides. Since then, she has wanted news,' too. Sir
Sydney's health has failed; and the lady appeared to have
been taken into his confidence. She called this morning,
again. Is extremely anxious, on behalf of her dear friends,
to learn the whereabouts of Mr. Lester Brand."
C
"Her dear friends'?”
Yes, it seemed that they were all dear friends together.
This lady, a Miss Adrienne St. Maur-
"Adrienne St. Maur!" echoed the detective, with a
smile, "From the concert-hall? "
From anything you like, hé, Mr. Vowcher, should say;
but in the first place, according to her own statement,
from America,--a statement which he should venture to
doubt.
M
"Handsome woman?"
Not merely handsome. This was a type of blonde
peculiarly English; none of the climates in America could
possibly produce an article "up" to that high quality.
As Mr. Vowcher lolled in his easy-chair, devoting a few
moments to cynical amplification of his theme, the con-
trast between the visitor and host accentuated and forced
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
175
My
itself. They were pretty much of the same age; Erne was
perhaps slightly the younger: a tone of equality had per-
vaded their conversation from the outset ; and if the visitor
were of the two by far the more plainly attired, it was
clear he paid but trifling heed to distinctions between
"those beings, called "as a philosopher who long pre-
ceded Herr Teufelsdröckh has remarked-" improperly,
suits of clothes." The contrast lay in other than external
matters, in character, instinct, principle. Mr. Vowcher
debated the fair Adrienne in candid terms of Sybarite.
appreciation, which might well have disturbed the most
obstinate Transatlantic self-esteem. His auditor waited ;
with a new air half of embarrassment, half of haughty
reserve, Erne listened in silence to the comparisons and
the estimates, outspoken and unsparing. "Not a lady,"
concluded Mr. Vowcher, in the same caressing accents, -
"or rather, quite, 'quite the lady.' I'll venture upon a
fancy sketch, 'speculatively and tentatively,' as my man
Freeling would say. Origin,-let's see: a Devonshire vil-
lage; it's the type of Devonshire blonde. Local adventure
at an early age. Lost to the village. Does not return a
tearful penitent,-not at all! Oh, no. Oh, dear me, no!
Life in London. Quits the native land. Process of trans-
planting; lapse of years; mystery. At period of first visit
to the office of Aaron Vowcher, Burleigh Street, is aged
some thirty summers,-from twenty-eight summers to
thirty. American accent well done, but mixed. How did
she drop across her dear friends, the family of Sir Sydney
Chard? Can't imagine. I ask myself the question, but
I don't intend to solve it. Interest in the lady strictly pro-
fessional and merely passing." The speaker elaborated
his drawl. "Merely passing, and strictly professional.
Well, what is she-this 'dear friend' of all the Chards,
including the niece ;-what is she--this solicitous well-
wisher of Lester Brand?"
"How can it matter to you?"
""
:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
176
"It might matter. Firstly, she has told me a lie : a lie
calculated to mislead me in my business. She has repre-
sented herself again this morning as commissioned by her
host--her host, mind-to call upon me for any possible
intelligence as to their inquiries, and to return with the
same to Sir Sydney's residence forthwith. Sir Sydney is
confined to the house. Now, the day following the
previous occasion upon which the divine creature spun
me this yarn, Urwen, junior, fresh from Oakdene himself,
gave me an interesting call. Miss St. Maur had not been
visiting at Oakdene for days; and Sir Sydney had been
away from town. I put the question guardedly, of course.
But, why should she have lied ?”
"I don't see how it matters."
"It matters more to you, sir, than to me." Mr. Vowcher
paused, but no response was forthcoming.
"As to the tale
reiterated to day, Freeling will enlighten me.
We are
always doing things on spec,' here; we find it pays;
and Freeling will observe the movements of the fair crea-
ture for the rest of the day. She was returning to Oakdene
immediately, she said.. And hereupon, why should any
of this matter in the least to you, sir, eh?"
The detective nodded.
Because, continued Mr. Aaron Vowcher, an extremely
liberal donation had been offered him that morning by Miss
Adrienne St. Maur upon her own individual account-
she had broached her proposal, coquettishly, with little
laughs, as women were wont to do when they meant
falsehood, or mischief: it was to be a little transaction,
private, "all to their very own selves "—for prompt news
as to the fate or the whereabouts of this young gentle-
man. Why could he not place himself in communication
with the police authorities, she had asked. Why could
he not supplement his own means of information by those
at the command of the police ?
'I need not remind you of their attitude towards you,"
King
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
177
said Detective Erne, abruptly.
learn much from them."
"You are not likely to
Exactly so. His duty, therefore, rejoined Mr. Vowcher,
would plainly be to counsel the lady to apply to the
police, herself.
"Why?"
Those who had charge of the Parsonage case, the H. R. H.
Mystery, and so forth were perhaps not altogether unin-
formed as to the whereabouts of the missing gentleman.
Would Erne deny that this was possible?
The detective shook his head, as if in reluctant admis-
sion of a possibility quite remote. Before the keen scru-
tiny of his interlocutor, nevertheless, his gaze wandered to
the dimmed canopy of heaven within a few feet overhead.
There, as below, the sempiternal story of evasion and
pursuit confronted him anew. He and his host, it was
occurring to him, had more than once exchanged their
rôles.
"I believe," pronounced Mr. Vowcher, quietly," that
your successors know this gentleman's whereabouts, and
that you know they know."
"Very well," said the detective.
"In that case, (1) I can send the lady to them direct
(2)—
""
$
((
"What are they likely to tell her? what will she learn?"
No, pardon me, the question is what will the others
What may they not learn?"
learn from her.
"Well?"
"You are confident as to your own accuracy in the
solution of these affairs, the murders of the 3d?"
((
'Partial solution," corrected the detective.
3
"Quite so. Two men are wanting, you state, and you*
have found only one of them. What if this woman could
help you to the other?
,,
"I don't reject that as impossible," answered Detective
Erne slowly," but if her help is to be that she indicates
178
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"
Mr. Lester Sydney Brand,-thank you, I don't want it.
Her indications will be running upon quite the wrong
tack."
"But M'Kagherty & Co. might be delighted to make the
acquaintance of Miss St. Maur? Yes of course; just so.
She can tell them matters they would like to know, we'll
say. They could tell her just that which she is willing.
to pay for, we'll suppose. A word from myself, and they
are brought together.
"}
The detective contented himself with a simple sign of
acquiescence. The look of resignation reappeared.
In fact," continued Mr. Vowcher, rivetting the chain,,
My own interest clearly points in no other direction. I
go to your successors with what I know, and I place my-
self on the best of terins with the people at Scotland Yard
-and of that I have need. Simultaneously, I satisfy both
my sets of clients: the solicitors who are employing me
for the discovery of Albert Lionel Brand and his younger
brother, without suspecting the former's identity with the
man H.R. H.; and the Chard & Urwen parties, with the
St. Maur lady thrown in."
"And simultaneously you throw up all control.
lose your clients; you bring your cases to a close.
Vowcher; you won't do that."
،،
"My dear fellow, there is no alternative course open,
concluded the other. These solicitors in the country
will be thinking presently that they have given me time and
latitude enough. They may discard me any day for some-
body else. Suppose they transferred their confidential
instructions from Vowcher, of Burleigh Street, to Steed of
Adelphi Terrace,—that unscrupulous brute, Steed! They
could have no reason for imagining that the business could
concern the police; but suppose they were to address them-
selves, violating the obligation of privacy, to the folks at
Scotland Yard, for possible news of one Albert Lionel
CC
You
No,
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
179
Brand, believed to have resided in London, district W.,
or S. W., during the two years last past? In that case
I lose not merely the business, at once, but-the emolu-
ments, and a large slice of professional credit."
The consideration last urged evidently appealed to
Erne's sympathy.
"Then with respect to Sir Sydney Chard, as soon as
the fresh losses came to light some days ago-
"Fresh losses? Would not this fact at recent date, prima
facie exonerate the absconding Lester Brand?" inquired
the detective.
11.
66
"Sir Sydney had been wavering, and I think this has
decided him," returned Mr. Vowcher. He wrote me a
most emphatic note. I must expedite matters, he put it.
If I could not furnish them before long with the solution
which, under certain reserves, I had promised, the house
would hesitate no more as to applying to Scotland Yard.
The perpetrators of the frauds must be punished. In the
same note, but in a different tone, he urged me to do my
best in the search for Brand. I presume he would be far
from acknowledging the fact in so many words, but, if
appearances go for anything, he has come round to my
own declaration: Brand has been in no way implicated
in the frauds. Who is the prime mover, then? I can
make my case out, but, to clinch it, I must have a talk
with Brand himself."
"Argument Number Two," remarked Detective Erne.
"We come back to St. Maur," the other resumed,–
"and here is my argument Number Three: the premium.'
"Good offer?"
J
""
"Very good offer."
"Why should she make it?"
<<
"You'll be becoming as inquisitive as we are," drawled
Mr. Vowcher. Why?" Wish to make herself agree-
able to the Chards, perhaps, -to the uncle, niece, and all
180
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
:
6
of them, but more particularly to the uncle; little surprise
intended for them later on, perhaps; proof of interest and
devotion; sure to come out, later; takes care to have it
come out, later; comes out accidentally, of course; we
know those accidental ways of divulging one's own
sacrifices. Ha! Means capturing Sir Sydney, and
'mills on the retreat.' Clear as daylight. Saw that when
they were here. Leads him on with American freedoms,
-American freedoms in an Englishwoman's voice, and
with English freshness, color, and quality of physique.
No saffron tones in the complexion, no wrinkles, liver all
right, and no caterwauling whine. Speaks American on
and off, like somebody telling an anecdote in dialect.
Doesn't croak, and doesn't 'wow-wow-wow' through
the nose. But, wherever she came from, and my sketch.
just now was only an idea, thrown off, don't you know,
—wherever she came from, and her family, and so forth,
may have been unexceptionable-St. Maur's a 'bad
'un.' In the slang of his night-house acquaintances,
the concluding phrase issued from the speaker's lips like
the crack of a whip. He pulled himself forward in his
arm-chair, and sat with his elbows squared, a hand posed
on each side of him, as though he deemed their conver-
sation practically ended and awaited but one word.
> ""
If they were to learn that Adrienne St. Maur had
formerly been in unavowed relations with Lester Brand,
suggested the detective, they at once held an explanation.
of her anxiety. Mr. Vowcher stroked his black mous-
tache, and his even white teeth gleamed in a sardonic
smile. The subject was dismissed.
瞬
​"What do you determine?" asked Mr. Vowcher,
rising.
}
"You placed yourself in my hands," answered the
other, composedly; "but I find I am in yours. Can
you wait??
"Not long."
B
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
181
"
"A little, then, that means.
"On a distinct pledge."
Certainly," Erne too, rose to his feet. "As distinct
as you like. Of course you will do nothing to jeopardize
me in the meantime?" He bestowed a farewell, com-
prehensive glance upon his host's works of art.
"Give me a rough notion as to the delay which you
think probable," said Mr. Vowcher.
"I shall see him before the close of the week. You
""
shall hear from me at once.
"There will be no hitch ?"
"You have my pledge to bring you face to face,"
answered Erne. "Your course afterwards must be a
matter for your own decision.
""
Mr. Vowcher signalled through the tube, and re-
placed the whistle without awaiting a response. "You
would have noted, in those confidential instructions, by
the way," he then went on-"that the brokers, Albert
Lionel and Lester Sydney Brand bore their mother's
maiden name; she was never married."
<<
Really!" exclaimed the other, with unaffected indif-
ference. "I did not suspect that detail in the affair."
"You must therefore acknowledge, my dear Erne, that
I have "
"Placed other. people in my hands!-Yes!-Unfor-
tunately, none of it will have proved of use."
“That has been no fault of mine, at any rate."
They laughed, shook hands amicably, and moved
together towards the principal entrance. As they were
separating, Mr. Vowcher's managing clerk pushed open
the inner door, at the far corner, communicating with the
general office. Had there been no fresh callers, demanded
the chief. "Fresh callers!" The clerk responded with
an old seryant's freedom from restraint. Here were the
names; and he had kept the clients in attendance rather
than break up the governor's talk. He passed on to the
I
182
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
governor" the strip of paper clasped between his
fingers. Wasn't going to disturb the governor when the
fifteen minutes had expired; but the fresh callers were
noted on that list.
(C
"Good-bye," said Detective Erne.
"Stay!" His host arrested him with a gesture.
"Urwen is here; the eldest son I referred to, you know.
Do you care to hear what he has to say? You need not
be seen.".
The other declined, deprecatingly, once more, and was
briefly rallied for his punctilious methods in business..
"Lead this man out the other way," concluded Aaron
Vowcher, jocularly, addressing his clerk; "he needn't
run his obstinate head against either Urwen or any other
of the clients. He doesn't want anything to do with us,
William. He's too proud. Out with him!" The clerk
smiled in a perfunctory fashion at his employer's fun;
and Mr. Vowcher turned to lock the mysterious cabinet in
preparation for his next interview. As Detective Erne
strode in the rear of the clerk, across the yielding carpet,
too new, too rich, too dense, something of a bygone.
gentility seemed to have invaded his manner. The clerk
turned the handle of a door which to all appearances had
been in disuse for a quarter of a century. Through wide
interstices the light shone distinctly, above and below,
upon rusty bolts on the outer side, apparently drawn.
They could not have been drawn, however these bolts;
the door moved open noiselessly, almost at the first
touch of the handle. Beyond the threshold ran a wind-
ing passage, narrow and ill-lighted.
"Good-bye, Vow cher," said the detective, again.
Oh, not "good-bye," the other protested. Let it be
as people talked to one another in novels and plays,-
"not Adieu, but Au revoir." Au revoir, alors! They
parted on perfectly cordial terms, as Aaron Vowcher
remembered and repeated afterwards.
¿
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
183
It was a severe and frigid figure that received Mr.
Raymond Urwen in the luxurious private office still
haunted by stale odors of perfumery. On this average
day in the weather of July, the contact of the cold fingers
and finger-rings, the spectacle of the fixed and colorless
countenance, a hard eye steadily regarding through a black-
rimmed circle of shining glass, refreshed the senses like
the promise of a douche. Mr. Vowcher's handsome head
seemed immovably riveted-iron-bound-his neck en-
circled by a high dark-striped collar; his dark-stripped
cuffs, the delicately chased gold links partially in view,
descended like metal-plates as far, nearly, as the rows
of his valuable rings. The newcomer entered with a
certain demeanor of superciliousness, as if he had armed
himself in advance against an attitude that was irritating,
and as if he felt that all reminders or assumptions of any
social superiority collapsed before Mr. Vowcher, mean-
ingless. And yet Mr. Vowcher, who had formed so large
an acquaintance amongst personages of high degree,
hardly conveyed in general the impression that he could
be acquainted with those personages in their homes.
His visitor sank with apparently studied awkwardnes
into the seat which had just been vacated by Detective
Erne, and of the two perhaps adorned it the more.
Raymond Urwen's tightly-fitting frock-coat matched his
fawn-colored trousers; in his buttonhole reposed a yellow
rose; his gloves were of a lemon hue, and his cane was
dull auburn. He, too, wore a single eyeglass, without
a black ribbon, however, and without a black rim.
Listening stiffly to Mr. Vowcher's brief prefatory sen-
tences, and seated with an air of the utmost discomfort
upon the tasselled sofa opposite, he stared through his
eyeglass at the master of the establishment, as though he
wondered at the dd impudence of his remarkably
effective taste in dress.
By dint of ceaseless and strenuous exertions, proceeded
M
184
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Mr. Vowcher, it had at length become feasible to look for
decisive news of Lester Brand within the next few days.
"Aha?" The visitor unbent a little. He bestowed
upon his host a sign of gracious approval.
Yes; the resources of the agency had been liberally
employed; but, according to his latest instructions from
Sir Sydney, despatch and certitude formed their pára-
mount objects, and the consideration of expenditure
became subsidiary. At the commencement of the fol-
lowing week, the Vowcher staff would have ascertained
the whereabouts of Mr. Lester Brand.
“Aha!”
Yes. And the two inquiries would be terminating
simultaneously, oddly enough. As Mr. Vowcher had
maintained from the outset of his personal investigations,
no evidence whatever existed that would connect Mr.
Lester Brand with the forgeries and minor frauds com-
mitted upon the firm in Gresham Street. In consequence
of the suspected authorship of those frauds, he, Mr.
Vowcher, had found himself placed in a situation of con-
siderable embarrassment. Early next week the partners
would be fully enlightened.
"We shall have all your evidence actually before us, I
suppose?" asked the other, distantly. "We shall require
to form our own opinions, you know."
Mr. Raymond Urwen was doubtless there as the mouth-
piece of the partners, his father and Sir Sydney Chard ?
Yes? Very well. Would he be so kind as to convey to
the partners the intimation that Mr. Vowcher proposed to
wait upon them again, after the lapse of a few days, as
just indicated, with testimony that would be both con-
clusive and final? It had been the intention of the
speaker to send on to Gresham Street that afternoon; the
present visit was most opportune. Sir Sydney would learn
with pleasure that the matter was now virtually at an end.
The speaker's manner evidently implied that the present
·
THE 1
NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
185
visit, likewise, was to be considered as at an end; but
his visitor retained his seat until he himself had brought
the conversation to a close, in the dignified fashion he
deemed proper.
That the destination of Detective Erne lay westward
would not have been inferred by any person engaged in
the observation of his movements immediately upon his
departure from the establishment in Burleigh Street. He
turned his back upon the west. Along the hot and
crowded Strand, in the direction of Temple Bar, Erne
marched with a briskness, apparently indispensable for
an urgent rendezvous due east; notwithstanding which,
he would pull up every now and then abruptly, for the
simple purpose of gazing into shop-windows. Was it not
that commodities therein exhibited attracted his gaze less
than the strips of mirror reflecting bits of the thorough-
fare at different angles? The omnibus he mounted at the
Fleet Street extremity of Chancery Lane was bound for
Barnsbury. Detective Erne, however, alighted almost as
soon as the omnibus had traversed Holborn. He hurried
into a side street, effected an unimportant purchase, very
deliberately, in an unnoticeable shop, chatted with the
proprietress, and then set out to retrace his steps.
Abandoning Holborn by Little Queen Street, he made his
way rapidly towards Long Acre. It might have been
conjectured that the intention guiding him at one moment
was to pay a second visit to Aaron Vowcher, at the lat-
ter's offices; for into tolerably close proximity with
Burleigh Street he was certainly brought by the route he
now followed. But he turned out of Long Acre, through
Langley Court, into Hart Street; operated a detour by
Garrick Street, and St. Martin's Lane and Chandos Street;
and, sharply descending King William Street, Strand,
looked round, skirted the iron railings before the dun
edifice at the corner, and, once in Agar Street, disap-
peared. He had entered the Charing Cross Hospital.
186
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
P
CHAPTER XIII.
}
THE afternoon was one of the three specified in each
week, for the admission of visitors to the hospital wards.
Crossing the spacious vestibule at a quick step, Vincent
Erne paused for an instant at the foot of the stone stair-
case to glance in the direction of an official engrossed
momentarily with responses to dubious or alarmed in-
quirers. If he had intended to despatch a salutation to
the personage thus occupied, his purpose was baulked.
His entrance had passed unperceived; the official moved
on one side and consulted a large register,—the register
of in-patients. It was not without some satisfaction, ap-
parently, that the detective continued undeterred upon his
path. Groups of slow, fatigued, and humble folk, dis-
persed about the steps, were demanding from one another
the directions none could give; were interchanging in low
tones their experiences of hardship, their impressions,
their hopes and fears, or were repeating for their common
enlightenment the indications to be discovered around
them, painted in large letters upon the plain walls. Erne
pushed on energetically to the head of the broad stair-
case, presenting himself there, in front of a half-open
swing-door. Recognized with a smile by the nurse,
whose duty kept her posted at this point during the hours
for the visits of strangers, and receiving precedence over
a boisterous lady, introducing surreptitiously unnumbered
packages, he at once stepped into the ward.
Erne's destination, therefore, upon his departure from
the well-known offices of Mr. Aaron Vowcher, Burleigh
Street, had been the "Albert Edward" ward, of Charing
Cross Hospital.
į
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
187
He was amongst the earliest arrivals, as it proved.
Only three visitors had preceded him, and one of these,
as he began his cautious progress along the centre of the
ward, he left at the bedside of a wan and bearded, faintly-
breathing, semi-unconscious patient, rigid in surgical
bandages and frames. The beds themselves, at uniform
intervals upon either hand, formed parallel rows, exact,
unrelieved, monotonous. A nurse entered at the far end
of the ward, lingered, noiselessly approached a bed
whose occupant was feebly moaning, busied herself in
ministrations, lingered again, with glances at the new-
comers, and then returned, as noiselessly as she had
advanced, to seat herself in a vacant chair near the door-
way at the far end. In the rear of Detective Erne, as
brusquely the swing-door re-opened and, affording ingress
to no one, re-closed, came the momentary sound of
feminine altercation, the sudden but fleeting sound of a
harsh voice raised in vulgar remonstrance:
Everything around revealed the sway of order, system,
precision. The monotonous rows of white beds ranged
by the wall, beneath the windows, upon either side, might
well have been deemed to figure in their places here as
emblems of a dread monotony, the monotony of human
suffering, the monotony of an ante-chamber to an abode
of death.
1
The disturbance had proceeded from the boisterous
female who, though she had not gained access to the in-
terior of the ward, still muttered her expostulations. Her
son Fred was a patient in the "Albert Edward," she re-
minded a nurse, who deposited near the entrance various
objects of singular incongruity which appeared to have
been delivered over to her by the comrade stationed out-
side. One of these objects, the cloth thrown back,
proved to be a huge under-baked bread-pudding, as
bilious in its aspect as the loquacious dame herself; the
pudding would be nice and light for Fred, she observed.
188
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
Fred was just getting over his operation nicely; but he
wasn't yet allowed solids, and this would well have
suited him, being his favorite dish. Well, it was a shame
that he couldn't have what was beneficial. A young
man like that, such good company as he was, must be
worth half the physic in the hospital for keeping the other
patients in good spirits; it must be a real treat to have.
him in the ward. Wasn't he a general favorite? The nurse
responded with a business-like directness, completing her
task. The son Fred was frequently a general nuisance,
said she; other patients who needed quiet were con-
tinually disturbed by him; it was too bad that, as soon as
the nurses' backs were turned, this young man should
break out with his common and silly music-hall songs
and imitations, to the annoyance of every fellow-patient.
They would all be pleased to see the last of him. Oh,
they would, would they: ah, and would they indeed!
And so he was to be got rid of! he was to be turned out
of the hospital before he was cured! Not if she knew
it, no, not while she could say she had a tongue. Only
by the threat of prompt expulsion was this young man's
hardy parent to be checked, as the gross accents increased
in volume and shocked the ear. A movement in one of
the beds half-way along the ward, a facetious excla-
mation, and a feeble laugh, perhaps indicated the awaken-'
ing of the son Fred. It was a wicked shame, the bilious
matron wound up, in a wrathful murmur, that that pore
boy, going on nicely, should be kept from delicacies.
which the stomach craved for. The stomach craved for
them. She glanced vindictively at the expanse of bread-
pudding, as though the latter were to blame for her ·
detection. They were all too "miserable" in the ward,
that was a fac', for to appreciate Fred her son; he could
have cheered them all up with his songs and his sayings,
he could, or with a tune upon the concertina; if they
stopped his high spirits, the pore boy 'd sink; it was
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
189
jealousy, and jealousy alone, that kept him from light
things the stomach craved for. "Against the rules !"
repeated the nurse, peremptorily.
Amid the white faces wasting upon their pillows, under
pain and hope deferred, some there were for whom hope
lived no more but as delusion. Welcome or unwelcome,
the presence that is inexorable brooded at the bedside,
claiming them. An unfelt touch had stilled their suffer-
ings; an unknown hand, more gentle than all others
now, had smoothed their pillows and had swept away
their griefs; across their ashen visages the unseen finger
had traced the characters now dawning in eventual rest
and calm, Finis. Others there were for whom the figure
of Hope stood forth unmistakable and real.
The sun
shone without; the dull roar of apparently a distant
traffic recalled them to their busy existences. They could
not see the blue sky; no rays of the sunshine, sharp,
jagged and dazzling, could hither penetrate; but the
scene around them was bathed in a clear light which well
they knew, and the air they breathed brought with it a
July languor that invited to green fields, to paths by the
riverside, to vales and hills, the margin of the sea.
On more than one of these worn faces, turned towards
the door, the longing might be read for arrivals which
each minute might announce, but which each minute held
back ruthlessly. The visits were postponed, prevented.
The same fragments of dialogue continued at the
entrance to the ward. What were the contents of these
packages? The rules forbade their admittance; they
must be relinquished into the custody of the nurse. A
stalwart artizan, surrendering meekly to assault, confessed
that the parcels captured by the active ward-sentinel, not
yet far out of her teens, contained respectively fruit and
toys for his little son. "You must leave them both,
please." "Can't he 'ave the toys?" Yes, the toys could
be received, but they must be deposited here, in charge
190
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
of the nurse. They would be delivered to the child after
visiting-hours. The fruit must be taken back.
The figure of a police-constable in uniform, seated near
the wall at the far end of the ward, had become less no-
ticeable since the influx of "strangers." Stationed by bed
No. 14, the last in the row upon the left hand, the con-
stable bore evidently none of the appearances of recent
arrival. His helmet lay on the top of the locker, or
double cupboard, standing at the side of each bed. In his
left hand he grasped an oblong note-book, partly closed,
his forefinger inserted between the leaves, at which he
was to begin his task or to resume; with the long lead,
pencil held closely in the other hand he was idly tapping
the cover of the book whilst his gaze wandered vaguely
from the sparse knots of newcomers to the occupants of
the beds, from the latter back to their friends, the "stran-
gers," and from the entire scene, occasionally, to the fixed
and soulless lineaments of the sick man entrusted to his
vigilance.
Opposite bed No. 14 sat Detective Erne.
He had ex-
changed no greeting with the police-constable; he had
bestowed no glance upon the immobile form Deneath the
constable's eyes. The occupant of the bed opposite,
whither the detective had directed his steps, proved to be
the waning child whose father had come laden with cheap
toys and fruit. Erne had preceded the father in his ar-
rival here, and when the artizan approached timidly and
awkwardly, his heavy shoes resounding upon the polished
floor, he found the detective installed familiarly at the
head of the couch. They nodded, and Erne whispered
his condolences. "All right, sir," returned the man,
vacantly. The little patient wearily unclosed his eyes.
"You know me," said the man, in his tone and manner
a sort of softened roughness,-"You know me, don't
you?" He stooped over the bed, and, as he remained
still stooping, his features concealed, gently sank upon.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
191
his knees. Erne had placed himself with his back to the
wall, a position which enabled him to command a com-
prehensive view of the whole interior. He gazed along
the ward, to his left hand, retracing thoughtfully the path
which he himself had followed from the swing-doors of
the summit of the stairs; then, after an interval of several
minutes, turned again in the direction of the silent father
and child. He spoke, but it was hurriedly, with an air
almost of respite. Other "strangers" had attended there
to watch by bedsides, and to sympathize, to sorrow; for
Vincent Erne, attending likewise at this bedside as a
watcher, unobserved, the moment had presumably not
yet come. He proffered a few phrases of encouragement
and consolation.
,
"Thank you, sir," answered the man, mechanically,—
"Thank you.
It's kind of you, sir, to take an interest.
"Mind!" uttered the detective, warningly.
A nurse approached, paused to look at the patient, and
passed on.
""
"Excuse me," added the man, lowering his voice.
"I wish I could help you," murmured Detective Erne.
"You are rendering me great service."
"All right, sir,--but I don't see how. And I'm afraid”
-he bowed his head slightly, as he pronounced these
words,-"I'm afraid it'll not be for much longer." His
eyes were tearless. If his tears had flowed, that bed of
anguish, of many another anguish, the confidant and wit-
ness in the future as in the past, absorbed them, leaving
no trace.
"He'll rally, he'll rally," said Erne, leaning forward.
The other responded with a mute sign of dissent.
"But he knows you, Mr. Erne, sir," he went on, pres-
ently; "he never saw you until it was in here, but he
recognizes the gentleman who comes and sits by his
bed."
'And the mother?”
192
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
"Her!" exclaimed the man. "Her! Drunk, -always
drunk."
Erne drew back, as if in regret of his own question.
He repeated his former quick scrutiny of the visitors to
the ward.
"Her! Ah, he'd recognize her fast enough, sir. But it
isn't the sight of his mother that'd save the child. Can't
keep her from the drink. She's been a bad mother to him,
and an only child he is--Ah, that she has !"
Fred, and Fred's maternal parent, had together proved
such excellent "company" for the rest of the patients and
friends that their ebullitions had drawn down upon them
both a sharp reproof and a fresh menace. A scene of
shy sweethearting on the other side of the ward had stimu-
lated Mr. Fred into a fusillade of facetious Cockney by-
words, whose indirect application had visibly embarrassed
the harmless pair. Elsewhere, the spectacles offered were
those which may be ordinarily met with in the surgical
wards of great hospitals: a broken limb strapped into the
"cradle"; a case of fractured ribs, the patient reposing
with his left arm folded, securely fastened, across the
breast; a fireman swathed in wadding or lint, his face
painted white as a measure preventive of erysipelas. The
fireman, well on the road towards convalescence, was
cheerily relating to a visitor that the bed in which he lay
had once been occupied by a member of Parliament, who
in fact had died in it. The tale belonged to the anecdotic
history of the ward. Found insensible late at night, in
one of the adjacent thoroughfares, the member of Parlia-
ment had been brought into the hospital without being
immediately identified; and his death had occurred some
eight or ten days afterwards, from a malignant growth in
the neck. A bad omen? If they believed much in omens
there, retorted the fireman, they would have enough and
more than enough to keep their minds busy and their
spirits depressed. And where was the sense? Patients
g
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
193
must necessarily die somewhere, at some time or another,
but it wasn't necessarily your own turn because it had
been the turn of your predecessor. For his own part, he
*would soon be out, and he hoped, please God, to help in
saving a good many more lives and a good deal more
property; and yet the man who might the very next come
after him as the occupant of that bed might succumb, too,
like the member of Parliament. In the same strain of
practical philosophy, fragments of other conversations
occasionally reached the ear.
"A bad mother to her child, she's been," resumed the
father of the dying boy, as if he had at length summed
up definitively,—"yes, and a bad wife to me.”
Detective Erne, furtively observing the visitors as they
arrived and stayed their allotted time, still gave no sign
that could have adequately accounted for his own attend-
ance here. His companion at the bedside presently
rose with reluctance to his feet; his visit had exceeded
the prescribed duration, and in a few gruff words he ap-
peared to be intimating to the detective that they should
doubtless meet again, as usual, on the next stranger's
day. Erne remained at the bedside, alone.
Case No. 14, officially watched by the constable op-
posite, was that of a young man in a condition of com-
plete unconsciousness. Neither the name nor the age of
this patient had been filled in among the customary par-
ticulars recorded upon the printed form displayed at the
head of the couch. The patient's age might presumably
be fixed at some twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. He
was in a recumbent posture, upon his back, no pillow
supporting the head. Quiet and regular, the breathing
would easily have been taken to characterize or indi-
cate ordinary sleep; but the eyelids were partly unclosed,
and between them, distinctly visible, the eyeballs, fixed
and sightless, were those of coma.
The countenance was
deathly pale:
13
194
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
In the printed form attached to the wall at the right
side of the bed, both the diagnosis and the name of the
surgeon attending upon the case had been duly entered
at the spaces assigned. As to the name, however, of the •
patient himself, his age, his occupation, and his address,
not an atom of information was to be gleaned from the
same source: all these returns had been omitted. The
history" of the case was ascertainable from the covered
file, with brass clasp, which hung from the wall at the
left of the bed.
Li
"You here again?" pronounced a feminine voice, dis-
turbing Vincent Erne's reflections. It was the lady-pupil
of the ward. 'Don't you find it awfully slow?
"I mustn't say," responded the detective, with an evi-
dent effort to meet the observation in a strain of fitting
frivolity,-"but"
CC But?"
"It couldn't possibly be slow if-
"I know, and cætera, and cætera.”
"Et cætera,-et cætera,-exactly so. I would be fervid,
but words fail me." Detective Erne regarded idly in the
direction of the butterfly that seemed to have fluttered
hither from some common in the suburbs; he regarded
idly, but in an instant more involuntarily he changed.
Past the young lady-pupil he could see the ward doors
open and close, as visitors or officials moved in and out,
and this time the doors had opened to afford ingress to
the figure of a man he recognized.
"Words fail everybody here," was the rejoinder,
"when they've had a little of this place, in its unadorned
simplicity. I thought it was very different. You lose
your conversational powers, you do, for want of someone
to converse with,-someone toney, don't you know,-
a congenial spirit; and it's very hard to anyone accus-
tomed to a joyous home and jollity. Whenever I go
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
195
home they always notice that I'm dull; because I've
grown quite dull,-I have, indeed!"
"And our little patient," murmured the detective, turn-
ing again to his right hand, and bending over the couch
"what should you say as to his prospects?"
The newcomer advanced slowly along the centre of
the ward.
"The affair of a few days, I'm told," whispered the
lady-pupil, approaching from the foot of the bed. "You
are extremely assiduous!"
Erne answered with a smile and a nod, and in truth by
his attitude at this minute the comment was well justified.
"A relative are you not?" she continued. "Well,
this case has very few visitors-hardly anybody, I think,
beside his father and yourself. The mother has not been
once, they say."
The man had halted opposite, at No. 15, one bed short
of the case engaging the official attention of the police.
He moved to the side of the couch and stood there gazing
down upon the helpless occupant. With his hands
clasped and his lips tremulous, the newcomer offered a
pathetic spectacle of overwhelming grief.
"She may come this afternoon," muttered Erne.
"As I am here, I'll wait, and we can go away together.”
The lady-pupil toyed for a moment with the chatelaine
suspended from the leather belt at the waist of her plain
robe, and then wheeled round as if in despair at the
eclipse of conversational powers which she had consid-
ered not unworthy of her own.
She crossed the ward,
inspected the case No. 15, and bestowed an observation
upon the new arrival, the sorrowing visitor.
"As I told you the other day," said she,- "there is not
much chance of recovery. Seventy years of age, general
paralysis, and a street accident: it would be wonderful if
he got round."
"I was much concerned to find him here," returned the
i
196
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
visitor; "and even now I am afraid he scarcely knows
me."
"Oh, in that condition often you can't tell.
you not one of the relatives or friends?"
But are
"It was quite a hazard that I found him here. A
neighbor of ours was missing. We felt certain that he
had met with an accident and had been conveyed to either
this hospital or the Westminster. I could not discover
any entry of his name, downstairs, and so, believing that
he might have given some different indications, not wish-
ing perhaps to have it known that he was at the hospital,
I obtained permission to look for him in the surgical
wards." He separated his words with unusual distinct-
ness, his voice rising and falling in a sort of monoto-
nous cadence. "It was while so occupied, by the kind
courtesy of the officials here, that I recognized this poor
suffering gentleman before us, an acquaintance of auld
lang syne." The visitor repeated. "Ah, poor old friend,
-ah, poor old friend!" adding to this ejaculation the aged
patient's name, which indeed figured conspicuously upon
the framed statement attached to the wall.
The lady-pupil thought she noticed a peculiarity in his
pronunciation: the accent in such words as "permis-
sion," "conveyed," "concerned," seemed to be thrown
faintly upon the first syllable, as-"per'-mission," "con'-
cerned," "con'-veyed," etc. But the stranger himself, the
"auld lang syne" to which he had alluded, and the wholly
paralyzed invalid beneath their eyes, were alike subjects
of profound indifference to her, and with the parting as-
surance that the general condition of No. 15 precluded
him from suffering greatly, she drifted again towards
Vincent Erne.
"A foreigner, by the look of him," said she, glancing
over her shoulder in the direction of the newcomer,
(C
and yet he does not speak with any foreign accent one
would recognize."
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
197
"
"Russian, perhaps?'
Why?"
"Russians and Poles are supposed to speak all foreign
languages with no accent."
"?
"Is it so?
F
<<
""
"Not so far as I have personally observed."
Well, then, why do you suggest 'Russian'?”
"The suggestion shall be at once withdrawn;" answered
the detective, in the same undertone.
"You are trifling!"
"Yes."
"Thank you!" The girl dropped her eyelids and
plucked at her skirts with the first two fingers of each
"Your con-
hand, as if in the movement of a curtsey.
versational powers are decidedly deserting you, too. I
thought I could have a chat with you, while the Sister is
downstairs, at tea. I'll go and talk to somebody else."
The stranger whose aspect she had adjudged to be
un-English still held himself motionless at the bedside of
No. 15, his arms folded loosely, his head slightly bowed.
Redoubling in attentions to the ailing child, Detective
Erne apparently paid no heed to this latest visitor, nor
were the latter's features at all visible from the position
which the detective occupied. The visitor stood facing
the wall, in the space intervening between beds No. 15
and 16 respectively. Case No. 14, watched by the police-
constable, lay easily within the range of his vision.
He was a man of somewhat remarkable proportions,
his stature being below the medium and his breadth of
shoulder and depth of chest enormous. His neck was
short and bull-like, his arms were long, and his step, as
he had advanced, had seemed no heavier than that of the
gliding nurse who hovered noiseless and vigilant from
time to time in the vicinity. He wore his hair parted at
the right side, and brushed out into a sort of thicket all
round his head, and indeed on the top of it, as well.
198
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
Except for a coarse, dense moustache, clipped short at
the corners of the mouth, and of the same dark hue as his
bushy locks, his face was clean-shaven. The complexion
was muddy, the cheeks were thin rather than full, and the
brows, cheek-bones, and jaw, strikingly prominent. It
was no very difficult matter to comprehend that his bulk
of frame signified, not corpulency, but exceptional mus-
cular development and vigor.
"You are still taking those precious notes of yours,
policeman?" observed the young lady-pupil, having
sauntered across the ward again to the foot of bed No. 14.
"Yes, miss," responded the constable in uniform; •
"still on duty."
"Haven't you managed to fill your book yet?"
"Not yet, miss. I'm waiting to begin."
"I wonder how he'd like it, if he knew that you were
looking after him?”.
The constable scraped his chin with the edge of his
note-book. "Ah!" said he.
'Well, who is he, at any rate?" demanded the young
lady.
"That's what we want him to tell us," was the reply.
That's just what we shan't know until he can speak.”
The doctor is going to try and find the bullet again
to-morrow morning. The lady-pupil then established a
jesting comparison between the sick man and his attendant
in blue. She repeated her small piece of facetiousness to
the nurse, and giggled at the latter's unmoved expression.
"I think that you ought not to profit by the Sister's
absence to amuse yourself in the ward," reproved the
nurse. The other giggled again, giggled more than ever,
and then, with a whisk of her skirts, flirted elsewhere.
"If it's ever my luck to come into this ward as a patient,
nurse," began the constable,-"I hope it won't be to be
looked after by that young lady." The girl returned a
slight sign of acknowledgment, but moved away, watch-
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 30 ULT.
3d
199
ful for the whole of her charges alike. "They just come
into the hospitals to play at doctoring, those lady-pupils
do," continued the constable, speaking for the benefit of
the visitor to No. 15, the man who was still looking on
and listening, his long arms folded, and his head bowed.
"Either it's just to amuse themselves, or it's inquisitive-
ness,-that's what brings more than half of these lady-
pupils into the hospitals. The nurses don't pay, and the
lady-pupils do, and the lady-pupils shirk all the work.
I've seen a lot of it whilst I've been sitting here on duty."
A
The sympathetic gesture of the man addressed might
have been interpreted as betokening kindred sentiments;
and the constable proceeded to vouchsafe some further
particulars. "They don't want to touch anything, the
young lady-pupils don't, and they try to carry on with
the doctors. They come here to study, as they call it,
for three months, and more than half of them are only
thinking of making themselves interesting to the people
they get to know outside. Look how different they are
from the nurses. The nurses do nurse; they do learn
their business, and they do study the patients. Some of
them are younger than the lady-pupils, and better brought-
up, too, I should say. Lady-pupils! Ah,-nice lady-
pupils! They'll make mistakes in the medicines; or
they'll give a dose of medicine on their own responsibility
where no medicine of any kind is wanted; or, may be,
just for the lark of the thing, they'll give a pill, and it'll
be a joke with them for a fortnight together. And then
they'll forget to change the poultices; and they'll use tea-
cups for the medicines, instead of the medicine-glasses,
and the same tea-cups, without washing them, for the pa-
tients' tea, afterwards. Ah, it isn't many of the pupils that
take up the business in a serious spirit, believe me. I've
seen them! They do it for show, outside, half of them do ;
and it's out of that material, if they can qualify them-
selves, that you get the ward-sisters.
Ward-sisters !
200
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
There's one of them that I could tell you of, in a hospital
#
not over far from here, who got to be a ward-sister
because she belonged to a religious guild, and belonged
to a religious guild because she was too bad-tempered to
get married.
I was in her ward once. She's cross enough
and ugly enough-though she can't help her features to
be sure to frighten a poor man back into his illness,
again. She's as unkind to the male patients as if they had
all jilted her; ah, and I daresay she has been the death.
of one or two! When a man's on the bed of sickness, you
see, very weak and trying to get round, a very little noise,
a very little neglect,-a push, perhaps, -a shock, don't
you see, will sometimes send him back, and settle him
out of hand."
"Do you think so?" objected the stranger, replying to
the constable for the first time.
"I don't think so; I know it."
"C There are such cases? "
"Of course there are."
"Would this be one of them?" He indicated the senile
occupant of No. 15.
"Might."
“Would that?”-transferring his gaze to the unconscious
patient under the constable's own care.
"
'Perhaps," answered the constable slowly.
"What is the case?
"This one,
"Yes."
Number 14?”
"I don't know, I'm sure," responded the constable,
with an almost imperceptible change of manner.
There was an instant's pause. "Well, I shall hope to
find some improvement in my unfortunate old friend here,
when I come again," murmured the visitor, deeply con-
cerned once more. He beckoned to the nurse, and put a
question as to the prospects of the case No. 15. He went
on to express, in tones discreetly hushed, how regrettable
I I
A
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
(201
it was to him, as an old friend of the stricken invalid, that
he had failed to encounter the latter's relatives, either to-
day or during his two previous visits. He was not per-
sonally known to them, and for the invalid's sake, should
have been glad to make their acquaintance. The rela-
tives were working-people, replied the nurse, and this was
not the day in the week upon which they could absent
themselves from their employment; the requisite informa-
tion in such particular being thereupon very innocently
added by the nurse.
"We shall meet again, then, constable," said the visitor,
in a frank and open kind of fashion. Whatever his object,
whether in good faith the formation of acquaintance with
the relatives in question, or simply their avoidance, he
had now become sufficiently enlightened.
"No doubt, sir, no doubt," answered, the police-con-
stable.
((
And yet I don't think you were here when I came
before?" The visitor paused as he was turning away.
'Very likely not, sir, very likely not."
..
C
They relieve one another on duty," explained the
nurse, innocently again.
kay
A mild display of serious pantomime at the bedside of
the aged and helpless paralytic patient, No. 15, followed
upon the visitor's further response. He acquitted himself
in a style of expert and flattering discernment, renewing his
farewells punctiliously by salute, and retiring along the
ward with a mien as of one who is involuntarily hushed and
humble amid surroundings that are solemn and sublime.
Not until the hour had arrived, and had passed, up to
which the visits of "strangers" were permissible, did the
detective, posted opposite the constable on duty, rise from
his seat and approach the bedside of the patient thus
officially watched, No: 14.
"Nothing to occupy you very busily, yet, I see," he
remarked carelessly.
202
THE NIGHT OF THE 32 ULT.
"Nothing, Sergeant," was the reply.
Erne glanced at the unconscious patient, and then
turned to consult the covered file attached to the wall.
Only the latest additions to this history of the case ap-
peared to appeal to him with any interest. The first entry
had been made on June 5th, the particulars then noted
running as follows:-"Patient admitted at 3-15 A. M.
State on admission-Was brought in unconscious, by two
constables. There was a bullet-wound on the left side,
under the apex of the heart. No corresponding wound to
indicate that the bullet had passed through the body.
Flow of blood, copious. Constable stated that about
twenty minutes had elapsed since the discovery of the
patient and his admission to the hospital. Appearance.-
Patient was well-dressed, and looked in good condition.
Body well nourished. Face pale, the pallor being evi-
dently due to loss of blood. Eyes half closed; pulse
regular. Temperature on admission, sub-normal. Slight
contusion at the right temple, caused apparently by fall."
Against the next morning's date appeared the entry :-
"Temperature slightly higher. No change in patient.
Has taken no nourishment." One of the more recent
passages perused by Detective Erne consisted of a dir ec-
tion to which was appended the signature of the head
visiting surgeon :-"No material change. Continue ice;
and, if possible, brandy to be administered in small
quantities."
"Your patient may end anyhow, still, it seems," com-
mented Vincent Erne.
39
The doctors think there is an improvement," answered
the policeman," but I don't see it, myself."
"No notes for either of you, I suppose?"
"Here's my book, so far as I'm concerned. The
speaker exhibited the first page and the last and rapidly
ran the leaves over from cover to cover; all were blank.
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
203
"Have there been no inquiries for the patient, or for
anyone answering his description?"
"I believe not, Sergeant.".
"And M'Kagherty?"
"The Inspector? Oh," and an insubordinate smile.
accompanied the response-" you know how it always
is with the Inspector. Nobody knows anything but
M'Kagherty."
Which seems to be about the plain truth in the pres-
ent instance, does it not?"
"This case ?" The speaker excogitated for a moment
"Well, I daresay it's so. I daresay!"
or two.
"Who knows the patient's name ? ”
"None of us, at any rate," pronounced the constable
emphatically. Not even the two that brought him in.
It wasn't their business to search him, and they had no
time to lose."
"Everything M'Kagherty does just now," said Detective
Erne, with an appearance of excusing himself," pos-
sesses a certain interest for me, you know.'
(6
Just so, Sergeant,-just so! I understand.”
Well, then," continued the other," give me your
own candid personal opinion. What is his object in the
observance of all this mystery about your patient, there?
The constable looked up comically at his interlocutor.
"And what's your object, sergeant, in the observance of
all this mystery," quoth he,-"about your patient over
there, opposite, I mean? No offence, Mr. Erne, but it's
business that has brought you here; why, I can tell!
Look here you think what I think, and what one or two
more of us think, although we hold our tongues; this case
of No. 14, that we're watching without knowing anything
about it, belongs to M'Kagherty's story for the affair of
the 3d ult. Isn't that it?"
$
..
""
"Perhaps, acquiesced Erne, smiling.
Well, it's all right, s`r.—go on with it.
<<
We quite
204
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT,
understand. We understand how you feel in the matter,
and we don't wish you any harm. I'd help you, myself,
if I knew anything, but which of us does? Believe me,
it's all kept dark.”
"Has nobody been brought in, to identify?
"Not a soul."
"They are in no doubt, then," concluded the detective.
"Since the commencement they have had no doubt
whatever as to the identity."
"That's what we say, although they make out that the
pockets contained no evidence, and that there were noth-
ing but initials on the clothes.'
"And the hospital authorities?
"There is an understanding with M'Kagherty, of
course. As it's a police case, which we're watching
officially, the heads don't bother about anything but the
patient's chances of recovery. The nurses and the rest of
them, upstairs in the ward here, ask me what the patient's
name is, and so on, from time to time, and why we are
watching the case that's all. They're inclined to the
opinion that it's a case of attempted suicide, and that the
reason of our watching the patient is he had been going
wrong."
K
""
<<
""
4
""
""
J
?
A guilty man, of course.
'Just so. But they don't know anything about
M'Kagherty's interest in the condition of their patient
No. 14."
"You, however, who are differently situated?”
Their voices had sunk to a murmur. As the detective
made this final interrogation he gazed at the other with a
sudden significance.
"Oh, one or two of us who are differently situated,'
returned the constable, unhesitatingly,-"myself and my
mate who relieves me, for instance, we can 'rumble,'
although we mustn't put our spoke in: This is the man
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
205
to be charged by M'Kaghefty with the Paradise Row case
of the 3d.'
""
Perhaps the unconscious prisoner before them would
never again wake to answer to the charge; but, if so,
why was the spirit to be recalled? The form before them
might have passed for that of a wax figure, simulating au-
tomatically the respirations of tranquil sleep. The nar-
rowed eyes were fixed and dull; the countenance was pale
as death. Was this unconscious prisoner to be rescued
from his death, indeed, for the mere sake of a brief respite
and a torture, for the mere sake of being placed upon his
trial for his life?
"The doctors are confident, it seems," remarked
Vincent Erne.
""
He was the sole stranger in civilian attire remaining
in the ward, and the business which had brought him
thither appeared now to be at an end. The "Sister
came to exchange a few formal words with him as he
withdrew, and it was manifest that she, individually, was
quite cognizant of, at any rate, his political capacity, -a
secret for the young lady-pupil, who nodded in a sprightly
fashion to him from the rear, as well as for the remainder
of the staff at whose head the Sister reigned.
Ensconced in a quiet little retreat of his own, a quarter
of an hour afterwards, Detective Erne was adding to the
notes, upon the second page of a new pocket-book, labelled
upon the cover: "The night of the 3d ult." By a mem-
orandum appended, the pocket-book was apparently con-
nected with a previous volume, under reference "June."
The second page was headed with the second day of the
month, July 2, and thus ran the present entries
visited the ward. Brand's identity still withheld.
tion said to be improved. The ward again visited by
*** [The sign he placed here doubtless indicated a
personality well known to himself.] Watched all strangers
to the best of my ability, and waited until ward cleared;
"Re-:
Condi-
S
206
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
*** [Here he
but the other man not yet en évidence.
had repeated the sign] was clearly studying the state of
patient with great anxiety. Irrespective of Burleigh Street,
time is arriving to act. Bonne chance !"
B
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
207
****
CHAPTER XIV.
WHEN Mr. Vowcher waited upon Sir Sydney Chard at
Oakdene, he found that there were to be two witnesses
to their interview. The fact was announced to him by
his client with the restive brevity which the man of
Burleigh Street had already recognized as characteristic
of Sir Sydney in certain moods. In resolving upon the
presence of these witnesses his client had plainly antic-
ipated opposition to his wish; and upon what ground
soever the reasons for it might be based, the opposition
was to be allowed neither to prevail nor to waste a
moment of his time. These things were clear to Mr.
Aaron Vowcher, and he forebore to oppose. The wit-
nesses were to be Sir Sydney's niece and Adrienne St.
Maur.
靠
​On his way to Oakdene from the railway station Mr.
Vowcher had been thinking a good deal of the share
which Adrienne St. Maur had, as it appeared in his own
mind, usurped in the course of the more personal com-
munications between himself and Sir Sydney Chard.
From what he had observed of her she was quite astute
enough, as well as handsome and enterprising enough,
'to succeed in some such project as that upon which, he
did not doubt, she had embarked. If this elderly
widower were enamoured of the vernant and resplendent
person who called herself St. Maur, his intolerance of
all question as to his acts, and the obstinacy with which
he seemed to adhere to resolutions he had once adopted
might be relied upon for enormously facilitating the pro-
ject; and, with a little ostensible reluctance, hesitation,
208
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
or self-sacrificing unwillingness applied by the fair strat-
egist, not too soon but just at the right time, the field
was won. This adventuress would be Lady Chard.
Adventuresses, whether rich or poor, were scoring
heavily all round us; this one, too, would have scored.
She must be poor, not rich, this one," reflected Mr.
Aaron Vow-cher: "a wealthy adventuress, or adventurer's
daughter, would have purchased an impoverished peer;
this one puts up with a city knight M. P., because he is a
millionaire." Here was one more recruit for the cohort
of lady patronesses. She would be canvassing at elec-
tions with the best of them; she would be giving away
the prizes at the local high school for girls; she would
be speaking to amendments, upon public platforms; and,
one of these days, with her reputation firmly established
as the "model helpmate of a public man," she might edit
an Improved Catechism of Political Economy, compiled
from the antiphonal but accepted treatise of an academic
sophist. There would be worthy and intelligent people
who would be most pleased if she shook hands with
them. Smattering, volubility, and assurance would do
much for her; and, by degrees, she might lecture, pat-
ronize, preach and snub: she might even sit on a School
Board.
Before very long she would doubtless be presiding over
this fine property, thought Mr. Aaron Vowcher as he was
driven along the by-road skirting Oakdene. The lot of
a pretty woman contained enviable possibilities. Often
she would do nothing but dress nicely and sit still, or, if.
she talked, it might be but to launch inanities, or covert
impertinence; and, nevertheless, if only she were pretty
enough, some "honest gander" with the adequate hoard
of sequins would be sure, soon or late, to raise the
deuce to make her his. They sometimes proved unequal
to the gander's worldly greatness; and sometimes the
brilliant match would bring employment afterwards to
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
209
offices such as Vowcher's; there would be "Emmas
to Jacks," and "Jacks to Emmas," in the agony
column of a morning newspaper, or there would be
"Rita" with a rendezvous, and "Thine Alone" with
"H. has returned to town." But this one had already
been to Burleigh Street, and, now that everything was to
be accounted for in the matter of Brand's strange disap-
pearance, would be not at all likely to revisit that estab-
lishment. Once Lady Chard, she would forget Aaron
Vowcher conscientiously. This one would rise to her
new position.
心
​"And so good looks, audacity, and an elderly gentle-
man's infatuation, can lead up to this!" commented Mr.
Vowcher, admiringly. They had passed through the
lodge-gates, and a turn in the avenue abruptly disclosed
a portion of the house. "Oakdene! of course its Oakdene,
or Deepdene, or Fairview, The Cedars, or Ferndale,
Where are the oaks? Can't see any. Got 'em all packed
together, in a toy forest behind the house, I suppose.
Ah, a nice place, nicely appointed; a fine property!
'Lady Chard,''Lady Chard!' Sounds pretty well for
somebody who's sprung from nothing. Sprung from
nothing? What's her past, I wonder! If one only knew
it in time, if one could only get hold of it, there'd be a
fine price going for that article. And she'd pay too."
Bills at three; no, I'd give her fair play and I'd make it
six. Time to look about her, and to just settle into
things a bit.”
A
Whilst waiting, Mr. Vowcher liked everything he saw.
This was one of England's Citizen Homes; divers mem-
bers of the aristocracy he knew extremely well, but this
was the aristocracy of the respectable. He himself lived
in a sphere totally different. He had been more often to
Monte Carlo, than to Wimbledon, and none of his own
addresses lay beyond the four-mile radius. St. Maur had
done well, by Jupiter! He could not help reverting to
14
210
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
his previous train of thought. Handicapped in this event,
she had beaten the whole field,-for evidently there must
have been other competitors. He did not blame her, and
the bills might be at twelve months, if she wanted time.
The prize which she had set herself to win and enjoy
was the sort of prize for which many a proud, superior,
delicately-nurtured dame or damsel pined or strove.
"When they have started with the birth, the breeding,
the refining influences, and all the social advantages they
plume themselves upon," virtuously mused Mr. Vowcher,
-"such schemes as these, such sordid, artful scheming
for the big bidder, bring them down far lower than the
level of the poor adventuress. I don't know that I would
have backed St. Maur against the field; the field against
St. Maur would have looked the right transaction. But
if she comes in, she shall buy me cheap; I'll sell the
silence of the Vowcher office at as reasonable rate as may
be compatible with enhanced tariffs everywhere. And
perhaps she'll make a better Lady Chard than any of the
rest of them, their birth, their breeding, their delicacy
and their refinement all thrown in. Oh, they're humbugs,
all the rest of them,-when they can make no better use
of their social, educational, and Christian superiorities
than to plot for a matrimonial prize and hunt after a mat-
rimonial quarry in the venal spirit of any unprincipled
adventuress, they're nought but humbugs! I'd let the
St. Maur off for nothing if I could, provided that my
people discover something ugly in her past. But business
is business !'
The man of Burleigh Street was not left long in mental
contemplation of the "prize." He had just renewed his
approval of the atmosphere at Oakdene as worthily civic,
austerely millionaire, regally middle-class, when Sir
Sydney came to receive him and to prepare him for the
presence of the two witnesses. Mr. Vowcher accepted
the intimation with professional composure and grace.
$
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
211
At the same time, to find that "her Ladyship," was in-
stalled here, at Oakdene, already, did constitute a certain
surprise for him. She was clever, unquestionably ;
but it was possible to be too clever, and to spoil all.
There was a species of over-cleverness which flourished
exceedingly in America, and which, risked as a method,
upon the British side of the Atlantic, would usually bring
failure to the practitioner. That American over-cleverness.
was curiously infantile; when you caught it fresh from
home it formed an amusing study; but if she trusted,
with the ordinary American childlike faith, to the Amer-
ican cleverness which she had possibly brought back
with her from the other side (Mr. Vowcher grieved to think
it, but-) St. Maur would make a bungle of this business.
What a pity that their footing was so merely formal! He
might have aided her with his advice, as well as in other
modes. But, alone she had embarked upon this venture,
and alone, doubtless, she would resolve to carry it through.
There was nothing for it but to wait for the end, and then,
if practicable, tax her prosperity. After all, she must
expect to pay some toll. Worldly successes of this de-
scription were pernicious in their effect upon the rest of
the community; they discouraged the industrious, they
tended to divert attention from the best kind of effort,
they put honest patience to shame. Mr. Vowcher cyni
cally pictured himself the avenger of all women whose
diligence, humility, and usefulness obtained no such
substantial recognition here below as the prize which,
like many another adventuress. or coquette, St. Maur
seemed in a fair way of securing. Yes, she must pay
.toll. A "past" would have to be worked up in Burleigh
Street.
Somewhat disarmed by his visitor's ready acquiescence,
Sir Sydney vouchsafed an explanation. The ladies were
to be present at the delivery of Mr. Vowcher's report, be-
cause the matters confidentially entrusted to him for final
212
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
#
investigation possessed a serious family interest for them
both. It was, necessary to premise that both Miss Chard
and Miss St. Maur had been made fully acquainted with
what had hitherto taken place.
Mr. Vowcher acknowledged with a slight bow.
"In the case of Miss St. Maur, the fact will be no more
than you must have anticipated," continued Sir Sydney.
"I have had the honor of receiving the visit of Miss St.
Maur," assented the proprietor of the Inquiry Office.
"She was indefatigable to console and cheer us under
our great personal trial. But for her help, I really do not
know how, with my manifold occupations, I could have
followed, step by step, the details in this matter which you
have been good enough to place before me without loss
of time: I mean, of course, as soon as you felt you could
do so without unfairness to a third person, an individual
whom we prefer not to name. Her presence here, and
her womanly sympathy, have been especially precious
to my niece, Miss Chard.”
"I am afraid I may have shown a lack of perspicacity,"
began the visitor,-"but I hope that allowance has been
made for the delicacy of my situation. When Miss St.
Maur called, once or twice,-I was not quite certain-
how far-
STAND
""
"The fault was mine," interrupted Sir Sydney; "I
ought to have foreseen that. Her visit was spontaneous,
and I duly heard of it from her, afterwards.
We were
most anxious for news of Mr. Brand. Your reiterated
assurances that Mr. Lester Brand was unconnected with
these frauds had ended by gaining us over, but there re-
mained, still, the mystery of his disappearance. Miss St.
Maur has been actuated throughout by her deep sym-
pathy with us. Her anxiety is quite as keen as my own.
We are longing to hear the nature of the tidings which
you say you have received.
And, first,
And, first, thank you cor-
dially for your prompt message." Wringing his visitor
G
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
213
:
with some abruptness by the hand, Sir Sydney went on
hurriedly "we fully comprehended your reticence,
however, Miss St. Maur not less than myself. The fact
is, I had not imagined that Miss St. Maur, who has great
capabilities in art, and is pursuing her studies here, would
have been able to spare the time for a call at your office,
upon our behalf. In acquainting me with the circum-
stance, afterwards, she made no reflection whatever upon
your attitude, except, indeed, to express approval."
"That relieves me enormously," observed Mr. Vow-
cher; "for in the conduct of such a business as mine-
"Quite so, quite so." Your hesitancy was quite legit-
imate."
P
"And a lady who calls upon us alone," continued Mr.
Vowcher, with a pleasant smile,-"and exhibits so strong
an interest in a gentleman whom we are endeavoring to
our utmost to trace-
"
""
"Miss St. Maur is a very close friend of my niece,"
interrupted the other. As they advanced, the notes of a
piano reached their ears. A domestic, awaiting them,
threw open a door, and in another moment Mr. Vowcher
found himself in the presence of the two ladies.
The apartment they had entered apparently extended
along a large portion of one side of the house, -the ex-
tremity to the right-hand of the visitor approaching from
the lodge-gates. His own arrival had been perceived
from the window of the far end, reflected Mr. Vowcher,
glancing for an instant at the view of the winding drive.
The other windows, those opposite, as he and Sir Sydney
had made their entrance, opened upon a leafy veranda,
facing shrubbery. Upon this clouded July day, the at-
mosphere without was sultry and oppressive; here, on
the contrary, by some means or illusion, the high open
windows admitting the heavy air, the sense seemed rested
and refreshed. A fragrance of plants and flowers after
the gentlest summer rain, or in the late dew of the morn-
܀
214
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ing, lingered about the interior; the arrangement of the
rich furniture, ornaments, and oddly-contrasted curi-
osities, was suggestive rather of disorder, or easy negli-
gence than of display for effect. In proportion to its
breadth, the length of the room appeared excessive,
although as to its real dimensions the eye was to some
extent deceived by the rows of closely-packed canvases
upon each of the four walls. The majority of these
paintings, landscapes, marine, and genre, belonged prob-
ably to the British school, and it was no difficult matter
to discern that their selection had been governed less by
regard for vogue, or for mere novelty, than by a deep
vein of individual sentiment.
With the sound of the piano had ceased the notes of a
subdued soprano voice. The singer was Adrienne St.
Maur, and she remained for a moment or two bending
forward at the piano, in the attitude of one conning an
unfamiliar theme. Then she turned, and slowly rose,
her left hand posed at the extremity of the key-board.
The freedom of the movement seemed as false as her
There was
previous absorption in the page before her.
an affectation of the statuesque and a sort of peacock
stateliness in both attitude and movement, which warred
with the homelike surroundings, and which, to any but
the blunted perceptions of a lover, should have been
instantly clear. Mr. Vowcher did not doubt that he was
in the presence of a woman struggling hard to preserve
her outward calm.
•
It was the visitor's first meeting with Miss Ida Chard,
and here his homage was unfeigned and natural. Miss
Ida's emotion, however, bore the aspect of longer date, and
sought no concealment. The charm of the young girl's
manner lay perhaps in its spontaneity and in the solicitude
for others which it apparently conveyed; her charm of
feature, ennobled under its cast of thought by purity and
candor of expression, was direct and undeniable. Well
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
215
"1
accustomed to the faces and the graces of pretty women
brought within his special ken as a man of business deal-
ing with delicate confidences, the visitor was not impen-
etrable to the fascinations of simplicity and kindliness in
a pretty girl just twenty-one. He helped her to remove
the work she was removing; it lay around her on the
carpet, in yards; and, as he noted the colors, texture, and
shaping of the material, Mr. Vowcher thought of poor
men's cottage interiors rendered more comfortable for
the winter. Ten minutes ago they had never met; nor
many moments had elapsed since the formal words of
presentation by Sir Sydney Chard; and here was the head
of the Burleigh Street Inquiry Office, thrashing his brains
to find a permissible compliment, and an innocent jest,
for this young girl.
"A strikingly handsome man, Vowcher," commented
Sir Sydney, in an undertone, to the fourth occupant of
the room.
"The type is decided," murmured Miss St. Maur, in
disapproval.
"Oh, I have pensioners,—yes," Miss Ida was saying,
with a smile; "I have plenty of pensioners, but you
must not think that I spoil them. Economy in adminis-
tration, you know, and justice in the distribution of
awards! Besides, they are proud."
"It's a hard task to aid some kinds of poor people,”
answered Mr. Vowcher; "they won't allow you to assist
them very often when they can't do anything for them-
selves."
"Still-with a little thought," suggested Miss Ida; and
her interlocutor could only acquiesce that with a little
thought the difficulty was perhaps to be bridged over.
She smiled again, frankly and seriously, and Mr. Vow-
cher perceived that he was expected to begin his narra-
tion. It had not been his habit to treat otherwise than as
equals the personages, whatever their exalted dignity,
216
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
honors and wealth, with whom his private as well as his
professional life placed him in immediate relations
;
neither years nor beauty, neither griefs nor fervent
desires, could, as a rule, extort from this gentleman very
much sympathy or respect. In Vincent Erne's case, the
interest he had exhibited, sprang from a variety of causes,
principal amongst which was doubtless a strong personal
liking for Vincent Erne. But it was only at this moment,
whilst under this influence new to him, that he was able
to feel some pity for the man whom he had seen hardly
yet rescued from the grave, and who, as he knew, had
been so strangely wronged. During his visit to the hos-
pital ward in company with Erne, he had acquainted the
latter with the ties which, as he himself had gathered,
subsisted between Lester and the young lady now before
him. The communication had been pertinent to their
discussion upon the whole case; in their review of
potential motive, the personality of Miss Ida Chard, re-
puted an heiress, had inevitably obtained its share of their
attention. Neither Erne nor the present visitor to Oak-
dene had in the least troubled themselves upon the score
of the gratitude they might be earning by their respective
vindications of Brand's innocence. In Aaron Vowcher's
mind, Miss Chard had figured with the utmost vagueness
as a conventionally interesting character in domestic
drama, an actual representative of parts which half a
dozen professional ladies who had consulted him in the
course of business were playing both on and off the
stage. All these ladies were too desperately interesting
to be endured; they seemed to imagine that their good
looks would pay his bills; and if he had given to Sir
Sydney's niece a single moment's thought in advance,
it would have been to picture her with a smile that was
"winning," or "pained," or in languishing woe, or in
some other selected "style," petrified by artifice upon a
pretty countenance. Not until this moment, whilst under
*
:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
217
an influence that was new to him, had Mr. Vowcher con-
templated with the smallest satisfaction arising out of
sentiment, his continuous defence of Lester Brand as a
man guiltless of the frauds which had been laid to his
charge. The pity that had found no place in his breast
as he had gazed upon the wronged man, helpless, and
suspected of a still graver act, came to him now, and
filled him with a lukewarm indignation. He was glad
to be the bearer of conclusive tidings at last, he said;
and, as the young girl before him held her breath and
paled, he made no endeavor to conceal the platonic
gratification afforded him by the remembrance that the
tidings he thus announced would be deemed favorable in
their import. She had held her breath, and paled, when
he began to speak, as though he had suddenly become
for her an arbiter of life and death.
"To save time in the recapitulation of your reports,"
interrupted Sir Sidney,-"let me tell you that my niece
and Miss St. Maur are in full possession of all the facts
which you have hitherto communicated to myself. The
main author of the frauds is not, thank heaven, the son
of my old friend-
A
"You knew the father of Lester Brand?" inquired the
gentleman from Burleigh Street.
"I am speaking of his mother. Both parents died dur-
ing Lester's boyhood. The father was the first to die,
and Lester was then too young"-the speaker hesitated,
and his voice faltered, but he quickly resumed, with
greater firmness, "Lester was too young to retain the
slightest recollection of him. During the lifetime of his
mother the lad stood in no need of any help from me;
at her death he found himself penniless, and it was then
that I was enabled to honor a memory of bygone years,
and to befriend him. I tell you this, in order that you
may understand the immense relief which your vindica-
tion of Lester Brand has brought to me."
""
""
218
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"I am glad of that," answered Mr. Vowcher, simply,
"but, remember that, apart from the evidence obtainable
by my office, I had no personal opinion whatever."
蘖
​"Of course,” acquiesced Sir Sydney, "I know. At the
same time. I cannot forget your steady adherence to
the impression which you formed upon that evidence,
in face of really the most strenuous opposition-my
own included. I owe you a great debt of gratitude, Mr.
Vowcher."
"We are all your debtors," proceeded from Adrienne
St. Maur. Her accent and manner expressed the tenderest
concern. She was seated with her hands clasped before
her, a little to Mr. Vowcher's right, and her clear blue
eyes were fixed full upon the visitor's countenance with .
every appearance of the most appreciative respect.
"I hope it is perceived on all hands now," added Mr.
Vowcher," that greater dispatch upon my part was
impossible. The delay was hardly to be avoided."
-20
'Your conduct of the entire affair has been marked by
excellent judgment, admirable discretion. Seeing the
position of the person incriminated, you could not do
otherwise than wait until your proofs were undeniable.
That is quite clear." After a pause Sir Sydney added,-
"The news was shocking to me; it was so absolutely
unexpected; but, in presence of the severe blow to the
young man's unfortunate father, my own resentment
vanishes."
繁
​"You are so good," murmured Miss St. Maur.
The visitor glanced instinctively in the direction of
Miss Ida, and their regards met. Perhaps by each the
other's mental.comment was divined,-they two were the
spectators of a comedy.
"You are so noble," repeated Miss St. Maur, transfer-
ring her clear gaze to the lined features of Sir Sydney
Chard.
"I think we should accord all credit in the matter to
:
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
219
11
!
our very good friend here, Mr. Vowcher," protested the
object of the encomium, his knit brow relaxing. "When
I remember that we were within an ace of denouncing
him as an incapable!"
Mr. Vowcher bowed, and smiled.
"It was most honorable of Mr. Vowcher to refrain
from uttering a word which might have prejudiced Julian
in your mind,—I mean, until he was quite sure," said
Ida, rapidly.
"My dear!" exclaimed her uncle, with a slight gesture
of reproof.
"Ida!" echoed Miss St. Maur, in deep reproach.
"I forgot!" answered the young girl, flushing, “I for-
got!"
"The name was never to pass our lips, you know, dear
Ida," pursued the fair Adrienne, softly emphasizing her
rebuke,-"we should strive to our utmost to save Sir
Sydney the infliction of further pain.”
"I wish to dismiss the whole miserable business from
my thoughts!" Sir Sydney's obstinate frown returned
again, as he spoke. "The subject is dead, between my-
self and the boy's poor father; and henceforward we must
have done with it, all of us. Nothing now remains to be
ascertained in that matter but the discovery of the person
in our employ who has acted as Julian's confederate,
and we shall very quickly solve the problem by means
of the young man's avowal. He has hitherto refused to
speak, alleging that the temptation came from himself,
and that the other merely yielded. His father will have
convinced him of the necessity of speaking. However we
shall not prosecute;, we cannot possibly retain in our em-
ployment a clerk who has profited by his position to
defraud us. Our signatures were not forged by Julian
himself. From beginning to end, the scheme is inex-
pressibly revolting in its treachery. Not only was the
firm to be plundered, to the serious extent we know of,
•
:
220
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
but suspicion was to be insidiously directed towards poor
Lester, and to be allowed to rest upon him."
"That was very base," said Miss Ida, half audibly.
"The excuse has been, forsooth, that Lester would
escape all serious consequences! My own regard for
him, and our past ties, were reckoned upon for averting
prosecution or exposure. His life was to be dishonored,
and his career broken,-not to speak of the personal
suffering to be inflicted upon him,—and upon others."
Miss St. Maur broke in with sympathetic vehemence ;
"Oh, it was wicked, indeed wicked!" said she.
'I say nothing about the sorrow which I myself have
undergone since the first of these atrocious accusations.'
"The unexpected blow to Sir Sydney, was almost
more than he could bear," said Miss St. Maur to the
gentleman at her side.
"But the strain and trial are now at an end," continued
the senior partner, slowly, "and thank Heaven! my faith
in those nearest to me is permitted to remain unchanged.
I have been blessed with an unswerving solicitude, and
by-and-well-we must dismiss this matter from our
thoughts, for good and all. You understand me, Mr.
Vowcher. These further particulars I have gone into
solely because I consider them your due. I consider it
right that you should know of the admissions which have
been made since you last heard from us,— admissions
confirming your own reports to the firm, in almost every
point."
Mr. Vowcher bowed and smiled once more.
"You have a great deal to tell us, I daresay, with
respect to Mr. Brand, himself. We are all impatience to
hear it."
??
"Were these
"One word," interposed the visitor.
admissions made to you personally, Sir Sydney?"
"No. I have refused to see the young man.
The
avowal he made was communicated to me by his father."
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
221
"My point is," proceeded the visitor, "whether anything
in the course of that statement implicates your employee,
Mardell ? "
"Nothing."
"You propose to, retain Mardell in your employment?"
"Certainly," answered the senior partner, "certainly.
Why not?"
"Oh, so far as I can give you any reason, there is
none to the contrary. I only wished, in winding up this
matter, to be quite sure whether my own investigations
regarding this man Mardell have or have not been borne
out by the avowal of which you speak. My own con-
viction has been all through, of course, that Mardell was
in no way implicated in the frauds.”
"Your reports have turned out perfectly accurate, in
that respect. His name was at once put to Julian, -SO
the father tells me; and, whilst refusing to indicate the
member of our staff who was his accomplice, the young
man yielded the point of assuring us that the clerk was
not Mardell."
The other fixed his black-rimmed single eyeglass and
leaned back gently in his chair. "That by itself might be
suspicious," said he, surveying the ceiling as if in quest
of the tropical bird chasing the tropical butterfly. "But
there is nothing against Mardell, I feel persuaded,—this
time."
"This time?"
"He was once the victim of appearances," explained
Mr. Vowcher; "he was once wrongfully sentenced to
penal servitude. When he had undergone some three
years of the full term, the individual upon whom the
guilt really rested, made a deathbed confession; Mardell
was released, but he has never been fortunate. He
became a Methodist minister, and then occurred the only
blot which we have been able to discover upon his life.
Excuse me if I trouble you with this. As you are keeping
222
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
him in the employment of your house, Sir Sydney, I do
not think I should be discharging my fair part of the
contract if I withheld from you what we now know as to
his antecedents."
桑
​"In our place," demanded Sir Sydney, "would you
consider what you have learnt as to his antecedents to
unfit him for the sort of position he holds with us?"
CC No."
"I will take your word for it, and I think that we need
go no further."
His conduct while a Minister gave rise to certain
scandals,—that is all. He disappeared for a time, and
subsisted as best he could. He came out of his misfortunes
almost a monomaniac in his dread of want and disaster.
Avarice is his passion; for the sake of hoarding he has
lived at nearly starvation rates. In entering the employ-
ment of your house, he had a past history to conceal, but
in what my office has been able to ascertain, there is
nothing that can in the least reflect upon his probity."
"That will do, then," answered the senior partner.
"The man is a good servant, and we will not turn him
out again upon the world. He has been kept in total
ignorance of the inquiry, hitherto, and I am glad of it.
In future the house will be able to safeguard its interests.
But, enough of this!"
There was a pause.
Mr. Vowcher allowed his eye-
glass to drop, and bent forward again, clearing his throat
with a short, dry cough.
"What is to become of Julian, I cannot help asking
myself!" exclaimed Miss Ida, precipitately."
"C
He will be sent abroad to begin life anew," said her
uncle. "Of course he will not be sent out altogether
unprovided for."
'I felt sure that you would deal generously with him,"
murmured Adrienne St. Maur, ecstatically.
"Let us hope he may atone for his past misconduct,
"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
223
concluded Sir Sydney, with a certain complacence.
"And now I do pray that, once for all, we may abandon
the distressing topic!”
(C
Ida, dear!" whispered Miss St. Maur in angelic
reproof.
The visitor pushed his chair back imperceptibly. From
their relative positions it had been difficult for him to
command a view of the last speaker. She looked even
handsomer to-day, in this simpler toilette, thought he,
than on the occasion of that first visit to his offices in
Burleigh Street, when he had been struck with the dis-
tinctively English type of her personal beauty, an air of
robust vitality underlying.
"C
May I inquire, Sir Sydney," began Mr. Vowcher,
"whether the means possessed by the mother of Lester
Brand ceased with her life?"
"The means possessed by his mother," echoed Sir
Sydney in some surprise. "A portion of them,-yes ;
but not the whole. Her annuity died with her, of course.
But what has this to do with Lester's situation at the
present moment?" he demanded testily.
"Was not the rest of the property dissipated by the
elder son ?"
Mr. Vowcher put the question tranquilly enough, but
he could hardly have been unprepared for the effect
which it produced. If he had sought to satisfy himself
whether the existence of Albert Lionel Brand had been
known to each of his three auditors, there could be small
doubt indeed as to the fact. Sir Sydney's astonishment
was manifestly accompanied by keen chagrin. A half-
checked exclamation which burst from Miss Ida left her
immobile and proud; an expression of pain settled itself
upon her features, but her whole demeanor suddenly
revealed strong decision not less than dignity and reserve.
During the few moments of silence which ensued,
Adrienne St. Maur rose gracefully from her lounging seat
224
THE NIGHT OF THE 8d ULT.
near Mr. Vowcher's chair, and nonchalantly occupied.
herself with an etagere that lay almost within her reach.
"You are aware, then," muttered Sir Sydney,-"that
there are two sons.-Do not go," he added, mistaking a
fresh movement by "her ladyship" for an intention to
depart from the room. 'There is nothing in their sad
history which should be withheld from you." She re-
warded the speaker with a glance of affectionate trustful-
ness. 'We know little of the elder son," he continued,
addressing Aaron Vowcher; "and, personally, I must
say that I have little desire ever to meet with him. His
name revives in my mind associations that are peculiarly
odious."
((
"
"I regret" began Mr. Vowcher again, but he was not
suffered to complete the phrase.
Are we to understand that the report you have to
make to us with regard to the younger brother involves
the personality of the elder?"
"That is so."
;
"I am sorry to hear it," returned Sir Sydney Chard.
It was perhaps natural that the fair Adrienne should
exhibit no interest of an overpowering order in the
reminiscences thus repeatedly referred to. At the same
time, her display of indifference to the sentiment which
Sir Sydney appeared anxious to share with her, might not
have been deemed, under the circumstances, in keeping
with the most exquisite taste. She was idly passing in
review a litter of new music.
"I am sorry to hear it," declared Sir Sydney,-
"and
for his brother's sake above all. I thought we had lost
sight of him forever.”
<<
'You shall hear," said Mr. Voucher, blandly.
"In what guise has he reappeared,-if indeed he has
reappeared? In what manner can he have influenced
Lester?" Sir Sydney's vehemence ran away with him.
"I am afraid--I am very greatly afraid that any influence.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
225
exerted upon Lester by his elder brother can only have
been for serious ill." Miss Ida's lips moved, but no
sound issued from them. "This boy Lionel was the
favorite of the two, and from his earliest years profited
by his mother's weakness. He plundered her, for I call
it nothing more; but, what is very much to the immediate
purpose, in so doing he plundered the younger son.
However, let us get at once to the business which has
brought you here."
Mr. Vowcher begged that Sir Sydney might continue.
All this was really essential as a preliminary.
As matters invested with something of a family interest
for us, these details are known both to my niece and to
Miss St. Maur. But it is only of late, under the compul-
sion of events, that I have recounted them. As soon as
the elder son was of an age at which he could travel, he
went abroad, and from that moment the greater portion of
his mother's income was sunk in the satisfaction of his
unceasing demands. They never met again, and, so far
as I know, he had never again set foot in this country.
At her death, she bequeathed to him everything she pos-
sessed, and I believe that everything was soon squandered.
He wrote to me afterwards, from time to time, from abroad,
with appeals for pecuniary aid. To his letters I never
replied." The speaker broke off his hurried recital to
excuse himself to Miss St. Maur for iterations of a story
which must be tedious to her. She was perusing a
"Fan-
tasia," whose cover alone might have justified the title,
and at these words she came slowly towards her former
place, mechanically rolling and unrolling the piece of
music in her large white hands. She did not resume her
seat but stood leaning against its low support, lightly,
from the rear. "I never replied to his letters! Sir Sydney
went on; "I had witnessed too many examples of his
unscrupulousness, and unbridled selfishness and profli-
gacy to entertain anything but unmitigated contempt for
15
226
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
that young man's character. No provision had been made
for Lester, and the welfare of his younger brother never
troubled the other in the slightest degree. Lester was
confided to my care by their mother, in the last letter she
ever wrote."
A sarcastic little laugh from the handsome Adrienne
proved that she was a by no means inattentive listener.
"I had offered my assistance," explained Sir Sydney
Chard, apologetically, and with a certain hesitation;
"long before the end arrived I had pledged myself volun-
tarily to afford any aid that unforeseen contingencies.
might render necessary. That demand was the only one
she ever addressed to me, in response to my own volun-
tary pledge."
"What other could you have looked for? What demand
could possibly have been made?" Miss St. Maur's leisurely
malignance struck a fresh note. "It was not she who
had been wronged; it was you. Instead of demands, you
were entitled to expect amends. During her lifetime she
wanted for nothing; had she wanted for anything you
would soon have heard from her!”
"Perhaps, perhaps,"-the other admitted, sadly,-"no
doubt! Who knows!"
"It is the privilege of my nationality and my education
to be free of judgment as of speech; and it is the privilege
of my sex to judge its members without any cant as to
concessions by the strong towards the feeble. This
!
woman-
She was Lester's mother," urged Miss Ida, indistinctly.
This weak, or wide-awake person,-which you will,"
continued Adrienne St. Maur,-“refuses you while you
are obscure, Sir Sydney, and saddles you with her own
responsibilities when you have become rich. She saddles
you with her own responsibilities, having previously dis-
honored you by her choice of your rival-'choice'? no,
it was not she who chose: it was she who was chosen,
شره
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
227
it was she to whom the handkerchief was cast,—the coro-
netted handkerchief which signified that she had been
deemed worthy of my lord's high admiration! What gift
does she leave you? Her gift is your rival's son! She
was widowed, without having the right to call herself a
widow. What was she then?"
"Remember that she is dead," interrupted the young
girl, hardly audibly.
"She preferred a noble name, an overpoweringly noble
name, indeed," proceeded the other, with deliberate harsh-
ness,-"to the nobleness of your own nature, Sir Sydney,
proffering itself in an honorable suit. You are too well
acquainted with my character, I should hope, to suspect
me of flattery in this?" Her indignantly virtuous repudia-
tion of any such doubt was very well done, perhaps,
commented Mr. Vowcher. "We Americans are above
flattery, but we prize truth. She scorned you, Sir Sydney,
and she preferred a bar sinister for her children, did she
not? You married, but it was a marriage d'affaires. The
grief she plunged you in was not only life-long, but
twofold."
-}
That grief had been twofold, responded Sir Sydney,
firmly enough,-but it was not life-long.
Mr. Vowcher regarded the accusing fair one with an
evident trepidation. Was this jealousy upon her part?
Was she jealous of the past? If so, her hold upon the
elderly gentleman before them might be less stable than
they supposed, a case which rendered his own prospective
operations precarious. If she were merely simulating
jealousy, however, well and good.
"What was she, I say? Unworthy of you, at any rate,
Sir Sydney. But what is her son?
Ida started to her feet, trembling.
"Do not misin-
terpret Adrienne, my dear," said her uncle checking her.
"To shut our eyes to what are facts which anyone may
learn would be absurd; to ignore the facts themselves can
228
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
only be, in my opinion false delicacy. We live in an age
when unpleasant facts are by far the most conspicuous;
and, with my views upon the matter-my well-known
views, I think I may say there can be no reason why
discussion between us should not be rational and unre-
strained. Adrienne is right. She comes from a country
which has more truly realized social progress than our
own. There women speak plainly; they are freed from
conventional trammels. They look facts in the face,
in Adrienne's country, and they put them in few
words."
"Their words are braver than their actions, I suspect,"
rejoined Miss Ida, striving to control her agitation.
"Which of them could forget poor, poor Lester's misery?
Which of them if she had--like poor Lester-and had
promised notwithstanding."-She paused, turned her
head, and then suddenly resumed, with greater calmness,
"They tell you nonsense, Uncle Sydney. Their 'free
and untrammelled' boastings are untrue, or they are merely
a contemptible device for excusing atrocious vulgarity, the
coarsest selfishness, and immodest license. You are de-
luded, Uncle Sydney. Miss St. Maur must pardon me, but
I have listened to her quite often enough, and patiently
enough to have some right, myself, to speak. And I am
sick of all these American shams, and arrogances, and
sordid schemings that we hear of, dressed up with pre-
tentious names.'
M
"}
A
"Ida!" exclaimed Sir Sydney, shocked and alarmed.
The large white hand closed upon the roll of music with
a curicus grip, noticed Mr. Aaron Vowcher.
"Let me go away, Uncle Sydney. Each week is
separating us more widely,-yes, indeed it is so. I do
not know how, but it is so, indeed, although we do our
utmost to disguise it from ourselves."
Sir Sydney tendered a curt apology to his visitor; a
fashion of rebuking his niece which only confirmed the
THE NIGHT OF THE 32 ULT.
229
young lady's decision of tone.
"Let me go away,-any-
where, anywhere, but away from all this.”
"What do you mean, Ida?”
"Other girls take situations; why should not I! You
say that women should be independent and free: let me
have my own independence and my own freedom. There
is some difference between us, and our ideas, Miss St.
Maur," pronounced the young girl, regarding very steadily
the individual addressed. "I am only an ordinary
English girl, Miss St. Maur, and perhaps that is why
nothing in what I hear you constantly term 'ambition,'
tempts me. 'Ambition?'. The word has different mean-
ings for us, Miss St. Maur. I have learnt, I think, that
from your American point of view, it means covetousness,
cupidity, the rage for getting the better of an exchange,
the passion for successful sale,-fraudulent sale, too, if
necessary, yes, and the sale of ourselves: it means the
parvenu terror of indigence, the parvenu pining for noto-
riety. This vexes you, uncle, but it is the last time we
shall discuss any such matter, or, rather, it is the last
time I shall be lectured at, for I have never hitherto
raised my voice. You must not think that I have been
lacking in 'independence,' or intelligence, but I thought
of my dear papa, and for his sake I preferred to be
silent."
"Remember, that we are not alone," ejaculated her
uncle, surprised as well as shocked. His rising to his
feet appeared to be accepted by his visitor as a signal
that their present interview should close. Mr. Vowcher's
movement to withdraw, however, was arrested brusquely
by Miss, St. Maur.
"There is nothing that you need not hear," said she,
"and family differences are no new things in your
experience, I imagine?"
Mr. Vowcher's discreet response ended with a reiter-
ation they would presently perceive how important it
230
THE NIGHT OF THE зα ULT.
was that he should grasp the entire situation; and all
these matters were essential as preliminaries.
"I don't see how the relations existing within my
family can concern you, sir," observed Sir Sydney, with
sternness. "Let us have no more of these intemperate
outbursts, Ida.”
dade
"I will go," answered the young girl, briefly. "Let
me hear afterwards from Mr. Vowcher."
•
"You ought to know that I shall permit no such
romantic nonsense, Ida. Come, -forget your extraor-
dinary and ungenerous antipathies. I am not opposing
you in the determination at which you have arrived with
respect to your future; but bear in mind that something
is due to Adrienne at least: a great deal is due to her for
refraining from the opposition which she might with
perfect justice urge, in her own behalf,-and-and-on
behalf of her own family connections.
"(
My family connections!" murmured deprecatingly
the object of so much punctilious consideration,-"I wish
to see dear Ida happy."
""
Her family connections! And what might they be?
Stealthily regarding his statuesque neighbor, Mr. Vowcher
encountered a gaze instinct with a transient suspicion.
"The intense individualism of American life," she went
on, cautiously,-"prompts us to resent intrusions which
are admitted in the older communities, the old-world and
conservative communities; I refer to the ties and bonds of,
as you say, family connection: we decline to be their
slaves; if necessary, we repudiate them. As a free-born
American woman, I prize my freedom highly, very, very
highly. At the same time, there are susceptibilities
common to us all.—Dearest Ida is free to follow her own
resolves; and you, dear Sir Sydney, no one possesses
the right to dictate your acts; I, too, am free to shape
my course, cherishing my independence dearly. I do
not seek to injure Mr. Brand, but "-she uttered these
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
231
words with marked ostentation-"how can I hold out
my hand to him without a blush?"
They were to go away together, faltered Miss Ida, with
crimson cheeks and shining eyes.
If it were unwomanly
to speak like this, if she herself appeared unwomanly, Sir
Sydney should remember what his indirect teachings had
been. They would go away, perhaps to a new country.
Lester knew that he had her pledge, and if he had no
other friends, and if he never found friends elsewhere,
she declared Miss Ida would be proud to be his friend.
If he would take her, she would share his property with
him, and his struggles; and the only gift which she
would suffer him to accept from her own family was the
gift of their name. "You are here to explain, are you
not?" concluded Miss Ida, turning to the visitor, but
with downcast eyes,-"Are you not here to explain Mr.
Brand's absence?"
Acquiescing, Mr. Vowcher without more ado plunged
into a recital of the circumstances by which that absence
had been directly occasioned. To his own mind, said
he, notwithstanding the police theory to the opposite
effect, it was manifest that Mr. Lester Brand had been the
object of an attempt at assassination. After a pause, in
deference to the horror and amazement produced by his
narrative, Mr. Vowcher added some satisfactory assur-
ances as to the prospects of the patient's gradual recov-
ery. There were one or two details, however, upon
which he wished to lay some stress: on returning to con-
sciousness, the patient had seemed lost in wonder at the
nature of his surroundings, and, as soon as his greatly
enfeebled condition would allow, he had begged those
attendant upon him to explain the fact of his presence in
the hospital ward. He remembered a dark street, and a
sudden shock; a man had passed near him, emerging
from he knew not where; but whether that man had
been an assailant, whether, indeed, he himself had been
232
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
injured at that moment, it was impossible for him to say.
Beyond that point, his recollections were confused, and
all effort to recall his previous movements was for the
present, of course, fatiguing. In a day or two his mind
would have become clearer. M. Vowcher laid stress.
upon these details because they seemed to indicate sud-
den attack by some person or persons fully prepared,
and profiting by favorable opportunity.
"My poor child, Ida," whispered Sir Sydney, who had
taken the young girl's hand. His revulsion of feeling
was complete. "And this was Lester's fate, when we
had suspected him of I do not know what unworthiness!
We owe poor Lester immense reparation, Adrienne."
"For my part," responded Miss St. Maur, not altogether
unmoved,—“I am somewhat curious to learn the 'theory
of the police.
"""
"Their theory is attempted suicide," said Mr. Vow-
cher; and, as his host declared the notion preposterous,
he added, "they will probably hold that nothing in
the utterances or the professions of the patient, since, dis-
proves that theory.
">
"It might be, too, that an overwhelming sense of
wrong," commented Sir Sydney, evidently under a strong
impulse of remorse,-“a sense of injustice and irradi-
cable wrong, drove poor Lester to that which we must
all contemn."
Stang m
Miss Ida would not hear of any such supposition. She
sat with her face averted, but there was no tremor in her
voice. "Wrong and injustice he would have met, and
battled against," said she. "Besides, he did not know,
and cannot possibly yet know that he had become the
object of such cruel suspicion. He believed that you had
been prejudiced against him, uncle Sydney; but that was
all. He did not know how much he had been wronged
by others, the Urwens, I mean."
"May there not be matters which have been withheld
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
233
by him?" interposed Adrienne St. Maur. "Some stigma
or danger of which we ourselves are ignorant?”
"To account for an attempt to take his own life?"
asked Mr. Vowcher. "What danger, possible?"
"If so," pronounced Miss Ida, a little disdainfully,-
'the 'professions' and utterances you refer to would be
false; and falsehood we may as well put out of the ques-
tion. When will you see Lester, Uncle Sydney?"
As soon as I find that visits may take place without
risk to the patient, my dear.
"Soon?"
"At the very earliest moment, depend upon it, my dear
child."
"He will wonder why we are not there. He will
think he has been abandoned. With nobody to explain,
the suspense will be horrible. Mr. Vowcher may regard
all this as exceedingly unfeminine on my part,—yes, you
do, Mr. Vowcher, it's of no use protesting,-but I fancy
I owe it to your large and liberal and emancipatory ideas,
uncle. If I were a man, I should want to see Lester,
myself, and I should say so, and I should go and see
him. But—as it´is—of course you will demur, won't t you,
dear?"
Sir Sydney did, in fact demur; whereupon his niece,
descended suddenly upon him with an embrace, and then
retreated laughingly to a gilded, carved, and high-backed
chair that looked like a throne and had a footstool in front
of it.
The theory held by the police, proceeded Mr. Vowcher,
connected this " attempted suicide" with an event which
had created wide sensation at the time, and which was
still unexplained. The event he referred to was none
other than the "Parsonage Case," the mysterious crime
committed at a lodging-house in Paradise Row, on the
3d of last month. As Sir Sydney would remember, the
234
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
identity of the victim upon that occasion had formed the
subject of the most extravagant conjecture.
"I myself," asserted Sir Sydney,-"took some action
in the matter.
•
The crime had been committed during the night of the
3d; and during the night of the 4th Lester Brand was
discovered insensible from the effect of his present injury,
in one of the smaller streets immediately contiguous to
Paradise Row. It was known to the police that he had
re-visited the “Parsonage.
""
"Re-visited?”
"Yes; for earlier in the evening he had attended at
the premises, openly and spontaneously, to identify the
murdered man.
"How! It was Lester who supplied the identification?"
exclaimed Sir Sydney.
"Lester !" echoed Miss Chard.
"The deceased was his brother, Albert Lionel Brand,"
replied the chief of the Burleigh Street Inquiry Office.
"Good heavens!" There was incredulity as well as
amazement in Sir Sydney's accent and gesture.
"Is it
possible? Are you sure?"
وز
"The identification by the younger brother was unhes-
itating. If the police have been keeping back what is
known to them, they have done so solely in the interests
of justice, and you will be good enough to consider this
communication of my own to you as absolutely confiden-
tial.'
"C
">
And, pray,” demanded Miss St. Maur, toying with the
roll of music,-" might one inquire the sources of your
-own information."
Mr. Vowcher's answer verged on the magniloquent.
In his concluding words, however, without naming Vin-
cent Erne, he indicated sufficiently the existence of a
counter or informal investigation conducted by a detec-
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
235
tive officer who had at the outset had some personal con-
nection with the case.
“There was a man who was displaced,—yes, I remem-
ber," said Sir Sydney. "I have forgotten his name, but
it can easily be ascertained. We must see him."
"These failures by the police have been too scandalous,
really," observed Miss St. Maur, "let us hope that,
for once, a 'Mystery' is to be elucidated. They are still
""
prosecuting their inquiries?'
"They are awaiting the recovery of Mr. Lester Brand,"
said Aaron Vowcher; and in a few sentences, to his host's
consternation, he retailed the theory advanced and ad-
hered to by Inspector M'Kagherty,-"M'Kagherty & Co.,"
to quote Vincent Erne.
Whilst Miss Ida heard the announcement with perfect
composure, only breaking silence to ridicule the notion as
preposterous, Adrienne St. Maur gravely shook her head.
"Lester must at any rate have known of his brother's
return to England," commented Sir Sydney. "He must
have known of his brother's actual whereabouts in Lon-
don; and yet he could conceal the fact from me!"
"He did not conceal' the fact from you, uncle; what
he did was to studiously avoid everything which might
resemble a fresh claim upon your kindness. I knew of
his brother's return, some time ago, but not of his where-
abouts in London; and I must say that I supported Les-
ter in the view he took. He used to tell me that if you
were made acquainted with Lionel's unfortunate condi-
tion, you would never rest satisfied until you had helped
him in some generous way or another; and of course
Lester had his pride: they both had their pride!"
"Lionel, too?"
"Lionel, too. From what Lester told me, his brother
was totally altered. He had come back to England an
invalid, and very poor, and utterly broken in spirit.
What had happened during the later years of his absence,
236
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
he would never disclose; but he had been very ill, and
very unhappy. All that remained to him of his property
was an infinitesimal fixed allowance which just enabled
him to subsist. He had had a stroke of paralysis."
"That was proved in the evidence at the inquest,"
remarked Mr. Vowcher.
"Well,-Lester did his utmost to persuade his brother
to accept assistance from him, personally, but for some
time without success. At last, the allowance which
Lionel received quarterly, from abroad, failed. That left
him entirely destitute, and he then consented to accept
the same quarterly allowance from Lester himself, the
sums to be paid through the post in exactly the same round-
about way; because he would never agree to Lester's
calling at the place at which he lived. He was ashamed,
and helpless, and proud. Lester thought that everything
would turn out well in the end, and in the meantime
humored his brother; only he insisted upon somewhat in-
creasing the quarterly allowance. When Lionel first wrote,
announcing his return, and they met by appointment in
an Oxford Street café, Lester was terribly shocked at the
change in his brother's appearance. Lionel's first stipula-
tion was that you, Uncle Sydney, should not be told of
his presence here, nor of the state' to which he was re-
duced. He was most sensitive on this point. And Les-
ter himself has been too appreciative of everything you
have done for him, Uncle Sydney, -to wish to ever to
wish to add in any way-
""
But was it not dear Ida's own duty, observed Miss St.
Maur, to abstain from concealment. Was it not her duty
to acquaint her dear uncle with all these matters, instead
of withholding them?
Lester was very, very grateful to Sir Sydney, repeated the
young girl. If she had known all these matters, it was
only by Lionel's reluctant permission. How could she
speak, without the brother's sanction? And with regard
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
237
to Lester himself, had not her uncle's interest in him ap-
peared to diminish, latterly? She was not alluding to
the disgraceful charges whose unfounded nature had been
proved; she was thinking, rather, of a gradual and
general change which had been visible for some time
previously.
"He has well repaid me for anything I have done for
him," answered Sir Sydney Chard; "and I feel that we
have great amends to make to him, now, all of us. But
what could have been the reason for the murderous
attack made upon himself? Where is the motive? Who
could have sought to take his life?"
"I can give you one supposition," began Mr. Vowcher,
swinging his eyeglass gently by its black ribbon.
"It is too late to say what might have been-in his
brother's case-had he survived; it is too late. But I
shall be able at least to provide for Lester's future."
He had inherited a fortune," hereupon observed the
chief of the Burleigh Street establishment. Mr. Lester
Brand was a rich man.
"Lester?" exclaimed Sir Sydney.
"A rich man !"
"Yes, he had inherited; and when he was restored to
health again, and had been rescued from his inconvenient
situation of the present moment, he would probably find
that it had been well worth his while to come back to life."
If substantiated, the news was extremely gratifying,
remarked Adrienne St. Maur, slowly; and Mr. Vowcher,
following her with his gaze as she moved to her former
place at the piano, thought that he detected a slowly-
mantling color and a sudden hardening of the expression.
She sat apart from them, a little way, her features not
easily discernible.
"The supposition I can tell you of," he resumed,-
"belongs to the case-shall I divulge it?"
"We have some right to know, have we not?" said
Sir Sydney.
A
"
238
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"Belongs to the case, then, of Detective Vincent
Erne; and, in fact, has formed the basis of his whole
superstructure, -the whole superstructure," pronounced.
Mr. Vowcher, again, reflectively,-"or, the first link in
the fetters. One of these days, out may come the story
-the story of the 3d ultimo, Sir Sydney, as well as the
story of the attempted assassination of Mr. Lester Brand.
The achievement will be Erne's. The only man who
can explain the murders of the 3d ultimo, and the
attempt at murder which ensued in the course of the night
next following, is Detective Erne."
<<
Quite a wonderful being," commented Adrienne St.
. Maur. "Let us hope he may succeed.”
"Let us hope he may succeed," approved Sir Sydney,
fervently. "If so, I shall most unquestionably call atten-
tion to the matter from my place in the House. He has
a distinct grievance."
"The supposition he has gone upon has been that the
attempt upon Mr. Lester Brand was the act of the assassin
of the 3d. Why? Because, the motives of the crime at
the Parsonage being, presumably, of no ordinary nature-
such as robbery, and so forth-the criminals might pre-
sumably be known to the younger brother, or their identity
might presumably be guessed by him with ease."
The fair Adrienne, profoundly interested, turned to
regard the speaker.
"It was deposed at the inquest," continued Aaron
Vowcher," that the deceased Albert Lionel Brand, had
latterly given expression to fears for his life. The witness.
who tendered this evidence was Mardell; and Mardell
had made a similar statement to Detective Erne, on the
night of the 3d, at the lodging-house itself. Those fears.
received no attention at the time. Mardell has explained
that he looked upon 'H. R. H.,' as the deceased was
called, as a confirmed hypochondriac. But, on whatever
ground the fears were entertained, they were justified."
4
•
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
239
"One word," said Miss St. Maur. 'Remember what
I suggested. There were matters, I assume, which had
been withheld by Lester. There might be some danger
or some stigma of which we were ignorant.”
'We are now concerned with the origin of the entire
affair," responded Aaron Vowcher," that is with matters.
personal to, not the younger, but the elder brother. Now,
then,-if Mr. Lester Brand was supposed to have good
reason for suspecting his brother's murderer, there would
be every argument in favor of his own immediate sup-
pression. We know that an attempt to suppress him was
made. It failed; but the result has been the silence of
the person aimed at; and that the person aimed at would
not indeed actually succumb, became at one moment by
no means certain. He is recovering, however; conse-
quently, there is every presumption in favor of a second
attempt,- -a second attempt upon the life of Mr. Lester
Brand-
..
Exclamations broke from the three hearers, simul-
taneously.
"But for these essential conditions: firstly, that he is
in the custody of the police, and safe; and secondly,
that he may possibly denounce the persons whom he may
suspect, before any second attempt upon his own life, by
those persons, can become at all practicable, he must
speak."
"Speak? Of course he must!" declared Sir Sydney,
pacing the room.
(C
'Speak?" echoed Miss St. Maur, satirically, address-
ing the gentleman from Burleigh Street,-"don't you
think that rather thin, Mr. Vowcher? Don't you think
those persons have been likely to get a pretty good dis-
tance away, by this time? It don't seem natural to sup-
pose that they've been waiting about until people shall be
wishing to find them without trouble,-sort of here I am
when you want me,' you know." She droned a little,
240
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
as if intentionally. Was it not the consciousness of that
superior American shrewdness which imparted the bright
sparkle to her eye, the "cunning" archness to her smile?
Mr. Vowcher may have fancied so, for, with excellent
chivalry, undesirous of point-blank confuting her, het
deferred his interesting response.
"I told you just now," resumed Mr. Vowcher, glanc-
ing towards his other interlocutors,-"That Mr. Lester
Brand had inherited a fortune. He inherits by the death
of his brother."
،
'By the death of his brother!" ejaculated Sir Sydney,
stopping in his walk. The sparkle and the superior smile
vanished. The white hands of the fair Adrienne, clasped
behind her, out of view, suddenly clenched. Detailing
the circumstances of the legacy, and of his own employ-
ment by the firm of country solicitors, Mr. Vowcher cited
the testator's name. "The father's relative," muttered Sir
Sydney, his brow clouding,-"a relative of their father."
At the time of his death, therefore, concluded Mr. Vow-
cher, Albert Lionel Brand had become entitled to the pos-
session of very considerable wealth. Up to the present,
however, this fact was known but to a single individual
besides themselves, viz., to Detective Erne. He, Mr.
Vowcher, had prevailed upon the country solicitors.
instructing him, to accept his assurances that the inquiry
they had placed in his hands was progressing satis-
factorily, he held a clue as to the whereabouts of Albert
Lionel Brand, he had informed them, and they had ac-
cordingly been good enough to refrain from applying
pressure: the fact really being that he himself was pledged
to Erne to temporarily withhold from the solicitors.
in question all information which would identify Albert
Lionel Brand as the victim of the Paradise Row affair.
No public steps had yet been taken by the solicitors for
the purpose of tracing the two brothers; the nature of
the latter's family relationships had doubtless weighed for
al
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
241
a great deal in their minds, when determining upon the
course adopted. The police were consequently unac-
quainted with the fact of the inheritance.
"And so poor Lionel had just inherited a fortune,
when he was murdered," muttered Sir Sydney, again.
"The irony of fate, indeed, Adrienne !"
"The
"Yes Yes, indeed!" The speaker remained stand-
ing, motionless, hardly seeming to draw breath.
irony of fate!" The color had forsaken her cheeks, and
her lips were paling, but she repeated these words in an un-
altered voice, almost mechanically-" the irony of fate !"
Aaron Vowcher was replying to a brief question from
Miss Ida, and Sir Sydney hastened to the side of the
"future Lady Chard." The theme had been too painful,
he urged; the strain had been too prolonged. She
repelled him, as if in resentment. "I am afraid," she
added, presently, in an undertone,—“I am afraid for poor
Lester.
"
"The fact of the inheritance was known solely to my-
self," Aaron Vowcher was explaining,-" and by myself
it was communicated, in exchange for other facts, to
Detective Vincent Erne.
""
"Let us confront these matters at once, and with
courage," said Adrienne St. Maur, calmly, addressing her-
self to the gentleman from Burleigh Street,-"it is as well
to look them in the face. Does not that feature of the
inheritance gravely affect the situation of the surviving
brother, the younger? Will it not be held by-people
who do not know him, of course-people who blunder-
that there might have been some motive; will there not
be suspicion, I mean? In short, you see however
grieved we may feel at the appearances-it is by the
death of the one that the other becomes enriched. It has
been by the murder of the 3d that this inheritance passed
to Lester,-Lester Brand; and people may suspect him-
he may be accused. The thought is terrible !"
16
1ļ
242
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
f
CHAPTER XV.
THE thought would certainly have been terrible for
two of the fair Adrienne's auditors; but it was at once
dispelled. "Mr. Lester Brand was not aware of the
inheritance," replied Vowcher; he does not know of it
even now. I repeat that the only persons acquainted
with the fact are the executors; the country solicitors
who instructed my office,-each of those parties being
ignorant, totally ignorant, as to the whereabouts of the
two brothers; yourselves, myself, and Vincent Erne."
“I breathe again," murmured Adrienne St. Maur; and
Mr. Vowcher, detecting the semi-theatrical emphasis, fell
to wondering why it should be that the profession was
insincere. Insincere? Was the profession actually so?
Was it not rather insincerity itself, dissembling, using a
show of insincerity as a cloak? Her apparent hostility
to Lester Brand might have been accounted for by jeal-
ousy of the ties which would soon re-exert their influence
over Sir Sydney, and were to be strengthened; but what
if that apparent hostility hid a sentiment its diametrical
opposite? If their studies of her ladyship's reputation
were to take them no farther than a secret intrigue with
Lester Brand at Sloane Street, the Vowcher office would
be spared much trouble and expense. What hypocrisy,
however, upon both sides! The terms must go up.
Hypocrisy would have to pay.
Sir Sydney's mind reverted for a moment to the circum-
stances of the bequest. "The testator was a species of
recluse,” said he,—“and, I suppose, this measure is a
sort of atonement for the other's neglect."
"Why the younger brother did not immediately com-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
243
1
municate his suspicions to the police, we shall probably
hear before very long from Detective Vincent Erne,
whether the younger brother approves of the disclosure
or not," Mr. Vowcher continued. "On Erne's theory,
there must have been suspicions of some kind entertained
by Mr. Lester Brand. Twice Mr. Lester Brand could have
reported those suspicions to the police: first, when he
identified the victim of the crime; secondly, when late
on the same night-the night of the 4th-he paid another
visit to the Paradise Row premises. Why did he not
speak? The suspicions were either too vague, or too
unlikely, or too horrible.”
"And the detective you tell us of can clear up all this?"
demanded Adrienne St. Maur.
"I think so."
"How?"
The visitor hesitated.
"Well, it does not really matter how, I guess," she went
on, with an air of relief,-"it suffices for us to be certain
that Lester's interests are in good care. Thank you, Mr.
Vowcher; thank you, cordially." She gave him her hand.
'But the police theory of suicide?" interposed Sir
Sydney. "Do I understand you to say that the appear-
ances at the time Lester was discovered insensible, give
color to that theory?"
"The pistol was lying at his feet, as if, after having
been discharged, it had dropped from his grasp. That
proves nothing, if you like; the assassin may have
placed it there; only, in the experience of the police,
assassins are usually too hurried or too inartistic to be cap-
able of such a refinement,-they would plant the weapon
carefully near the right hand, if they did not actually
leave it between the fingers. But the police investigation
is in the hands of Inspector M'Kagherty, a blunderer."
"Whereas-Erne?" inquired Miss St. Maur.
"Oh, Erne was a man of a very different calibre."
244
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"Let us fervently hope he may succeed!" exclaimed
Miss St. Maur. "But, oh-do you think we may have
confidence?"
The fact was, answered the distinguished Aaron, brush-
ing an imperceptible speck of dust from his left coat-
sleeve, a few memoranda and a photograph belong-
ing to the deceased had passed into the possession of
Detective Vincent Erne. Erne had bought them, indeed.
He had been struck with the scantiness of the articles
contained in the box of the deceased, when, shortly after
the discovery of the crime that box had come tempora-
rily into his charge. The contents had been pilfered by
somebody,—a tramp, as it had turned out, -a man whose
quarters had been close to the deceased's, and who had
profited by the confusion, downstairs, at the lodging-
house to abstract such articles as wearing-apparel, which
he could sell for a few shillings. The deceased had been
in the habit of keeping the box at his bedside, and the
theft was easy. Together with the objects he admitted
having disposed of, the tramp had unwittingly carried
away the memoranda and the photograph in question,
and, bargaining privately with Erne for his own secu-
rity, as well as for a price, the man had handed them
over, not comprehending their purport in the least, but
in a spirit of partisanship for Erne himself. These people.
had their favorites, commented the narrator; "they
were above all, 'good sportsmen,' and they thought, most
of them, that Erne had not received fair play."
"What do you suppose can be the nature of these
memoranda?" asked Sir Sydney. "I presume you have
not seen them ?"
"I have not seen them. Erne is naturally reticent
upon the subject, but, as far as I can gather, they consist
of two or three letters, with notes of the replies by the
deceased."
"And the photograph?"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
245
"Gives the deceased himself, so Erne tells me-but as
he was ten years ago. The photograph is indorsed with
a date, -doubtless the date at which the likeness was
executed."
"Do you know whether the letters contain menaces of
any kind?"
(C
'Oh, quite the contrary, I believe."
Mr. Vowcher ap-
peared disinclined to pursue the topic, excusing his own
communicativeness, so far, on the ground of his hearers'
direct and personal interest in the matter, as well as by
the fact of Sir Sydney's relations with himself as client.
In consideration of their anxiety, Vincent Erne might be.
willing to add other details, and perhaps Sir Sydney
might desire to see him, for the purpose. They would
find Erne difficult to deal with, however. He was bent
upon proving the injustice of his own displacement; he
was bent upon bringing the present case home, conclu-
sively; and nothing that might seem to him to form an
essential portion of the evidence in his hands, would be
imparted by him to any person whatsoever.
"Not even to Mr. Vowcher?" inquired Miss St. Maur,
with an enigmatical smile.
"Not even to Mr. Vowcher," responded that gentle-
man, blandly.
"So that we may take it that, if Mr. Vowcher deems it
inadvisable to pursue the topic further," continued Miss
St. Maur,—“it is because-it is because-shall I say, he
knows no more, now, than he has told us?"
"Yes," drawled Mr. Vowcher, dallying with his eye-
glass.
A courteous intimation in an undertone by his host
elicited nevertheless, an additional particular from the
man of Burleigh Street. The senior partner in Chard &
Urwen would be happy, he said, to accompany the settle-
ment of their account with Mr. Vowcher by the enclosure
of a special check. "I was forgetting to state that the
246
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
letters were written abroad," remarked Mr. Vowcher,-
"and that the photograph was taken in the same country.
With that, you have, I fancy, the whole extent of my own
knowledge; no-there is yet something-and very ma-
terial, too; it is odd that the fact should have almost
escaped my mind. I could not have gone away, how-
ever, without remembering that you were unacquainted
with this feature of Erne's case, as it stands. Erne is
confident that the testimony of Mr. Lester Brand will not
be indispensable. He will be able, he thinks, if requisite,
to dispense with that testimony altogether."
That seemed to imply, observed Sir Sydney, that re-
luctance was expected upon Lester's part. Why should
there be reluctance? The question was echoed by
NOW
Adrienne St. Maur.
"Of course I cannot even so much as guess at the
nature of the clues at present in Erne's hands," responded
the visitor. "I do not know what the letters may not have
betrayed. Harmless enough at the time they were
written, they may have turned out invaluable to him as
revealing other personalities,-personalities which the
rest of us do not suspect. The younger brother may
know of these personalities and, under different circum-
stances, of course he would have been called as a witness
at the inquest, and would have been closely questioned.
But if anything happened to this detective gentleman,"
said Miss St. Maur,-"for all we know, I mean, he might
be the victim of some accident at any moment, to-day,
to-morrow-we cannot tell-Lester might be left abso-
lutely unable to exculpate himself. What would his
protests be worth without proof? What would be the
value of any assertion which he may make? The whole
case centres in this single individual, as it seems to me,
your detective friend?”
، ،
"That is so," answered Mr. Vowcher: and he added,
jocularly," He might have been robbed of his docu-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
247.
mentary evidence, in order to obviate the risks in which
any such untoward event might involve Mr. Brand."
"Robbed?" exclaimed Miss St. Maur.
"Is he so
imprudent as to carry those letters and his own notes,
and so forth, about with him?"
He is the kind of man who would consider it a great
imprudence not to do so."
"But we cannot await his good pleasure, sir," objected
Sir Sydney.
"Tell him I will buy the letters, photo-
He shall have his own
graphed notes and everything.
price."
"He won't sell."
"At any rate, make him the offer. Our object is the
same as his; and he shan't be deprived of his personal
success, and renown,-not a bit of it! My own position
in this matter gives me certain rights. I can't be expected
to dance attendance on a detective-sergeant. Tell him
we must be placed in possession of his facts at once.
'He will choose his own time, Sir Sydney."
"7
Si rSydney declared, with some heat, that he should
communicate directly with Detective Vincent Erne.
Was he free to quote their present conversation?”
"Quite free," answered Mr. Vowcher, slowly.
"You
might say, too, that you know it only rests with him to
make the capture when he chooses,-one of the captures,
at all events, but perhaps both."
No response to this abrupt intimation came from Mr.
Vowcher's listeners. They looked on, expecting him to
continue. Miss St. Maur, who had risen to her feet, sank
down again, her hands clasped behind her, and her eyes
fixed on the visitor with an expression of almost menacing
impatience.
"I am very happy to serve my friend Erne, and I can
say for him what he would not say for himself. His
retirement from the detective force-for he has told me
that this case will be his last-would be a great prospect-
248
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ive loss. They don't know at Scotland Yard the superior
calibre of this man who has been repeatedly deprived of
his chance. They will begin to understand a little,
when it is too late. He wants to prove the cases of the
3d, and then go out; and those who are above him will
be able to congratulate themselves upon the extinction of
a talent.
Can you blame him for wishing to make sure
of his result,—for declining to strike until he can show
that no portion of his task has been left undone? He
can make the one capture when he chooses, it seems; but
what he is aiming at is to secure them both."
The long silence which ensued was broken by Miss St.
Maur, who complained of fatigue and of the oppressive
weather, and upon whom the strain of the protracted in-
terview appeared now to be producing its effect. The tale,
as it concerned Mr. Brand, she added, was too absurd,
too extravagant. She spoke these words as if relenting,
and was rewarded by Sir Sydney's manifest gratitude.
She presently took leave of their visitor, and, as she
withdrew, carrying with her a portion of the new music.
Mr. Vowcher noticed that the peacock stateliness of her
mien and gait had altogether vanished. "Just the ton-
ing down that was necessary for her style," thought he;
"like this, she is much improved. Been a little too loud;
a little too much 'go' about her; wanted a slighter.
physique for that sort of thing." The English atmosphere
would turn her into a tolerable Lady Chard; yes, she
would rise to the position. New music, and old music,
the piano, and a voice: she would be the kind of Lady
Chard who sang "Cherry Ripe" at concerts for the Blind,
and who composed. The fair Adrienne did not reappear.
Mr. Vowcher stayed to take luncheon with Sir Sydney and
his niece, the young girl informing her uncle that Miss St.
Maur was confined to her room with a violent headache.
*
:
There was an afternoon sitting at the House of Com-
mons, and Sir Sydney, who had a speech to deliver,
10
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
249
decided to return to town with his guest. Their departure
from Oakdene, however, became somewhat delayed by
the arrival of the four Misses Urwen, these young ladies
having, as they charmingly explained, obeyed a subtle
Bohemian impulse to run over and see Ida, dearest Ida,
and that clever and interesting Miss St. Maur. Two of
them had walking-sticks, and two of them whips for their
dogs; they all wore single eyeglasses; and everything
with them was "quite" this, "quite" that, "distinctly "
so-and-so, and "int'r'sting," themselves not included.
Mr. Vowcher enjoyed the privilege of an introduction
to the daughters of the junior in the firm of Chard &
Urwen. He quickly perceived that they were ignorant
not only of his own professional situation but of the
unfortunate occurrences which had brought about his
employment by the Gresham Street house. In the course
of their discursive remarks, ranging from whistling
soloists in drawing-rooms to the reputed discovery of
diamonds at the South Pole, they spoke of preparations.
by their brother for a prolonged absence in the Colonies,
and questioned Mr. Vowcher languidly upon the con-
ditions of residence at the Antipodes.
Their society
seemed to Mr. Vowcher to be no more congenial to
Miss Ida Chard than the companionship of the adventu-
rous Adrienne, upstairs. For the first time in his life,
perhaps, he divined the lot of characters not easily mated.
This was no indifference to the eventualities fore-
shadowed by the arduous interview of that day, he
reflected, watching Miss Ida as she bore her full share in
the conversation; this was no native volubility running
its sway, withstanding the emotional reaction of whose
influence Sir Sydney himself began to betray some signs;
this was the courage which repressed and concealed
a keen growing anguish of suspense. One glance from
the young girl-her last, as they parted-proved to Mr.
Vowcher that he was right.
250
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
On their way together to Waterloo, Sir Sydney informed
the Chief of the Burleigh Street Inquiry Office that all
knowledge of the circumstances so distressing for his
partner had been, and would be still, scrupulously with-
held from the innocent members of the family. Julian
Urwen was to quit the country.. His elder brother Ray-
mond was the only other member of the Urwen family
who, with their father, would be cognizant of the real
reason for the young man's expatriation. "You will
think it rather superfluous," observed Sir Sydney, in some
bitterness," for me to moralize upon this theme to a
man of your experience, Mr. Vowcher;-but just see how
much ill is wrought by these things. In consequence of
Julian's misconduct, their father has refused to permit
the continuance of the other's tacit association with our
house. I am sorry for this. Raymond was showing
aptitude for business; he might soon have taken a useful
part in our minor transactions. But my partner, Mr.
Urwen, is inexorable on the point of closing the house
henceforward against the whole of his family connections,
so that as great a sufferer by the culpability of the
younger of the two sons will be the elder, Raymond,
whose zeal for our interests I fully believe in. Evil does
not end with itself,-does not end with itself! Ay, dear
me! Perhaps the intercession of poor Lester, if all go'
well, may one day move the father of these young men
to a different frame of mind, in so far as the eldest son,
Raymond, is concerned.
W
""
"The lesson may be a salutary one, after all, for Mr.
Raymond Urwen," remarked Sir Sydney's companion.
"He is in a fastish set, let me tell you,-the Mithras peo-
ple. How did he get in ?"
"They were acquaintances formed at the University.
"Get him to resign membership of the club, Sir Sydney.
He can't go the paces. To keep it up at the Mithras you
must be either rich and leisured, or a first-rate sharp. He
"
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
251
may be leisured, but, as I understand it, he is not rich."
"Rich? He has nothing but the allowance which his
father can make him—I see," added Sir Sydney, after a
moment's reflection. "The danger's the same in the two
cases?"
Not quite. Julian Urwen had gone to the money
lenders, and his brother has never been so young as to
do that. They were in different spheres, too.
Before parting from Sir Sydney, Mr. Vowcher adverted
for an instant, somewhat aimlessly as it appeared to the
senior partner, to the injustice of the suspicions which had
descended upon Mardell. "I am very glad to think that
Mardell has had no inkling of those suspicions," replied
the senior partner. "He is completely exonerated by
Julian's statement to his father, and if he likes to continue
in our service, shall certainly remain."
"He must have suffered atrociously," said Mr. Vowcher
with a smile, "to find that his evidence at the coroner's
inquest had obliged him to change his quarters."
"A manager of ours warned him upon our behalf,” was
the response, "that we could not possibly countenance
such a state of things as that any of our clerks, even the
most subordinate, should be residing at a common lodg-
ing-house. The opportunity for making this objection
was of course provided by the publication of his evidence
in the newspapers. He has gone into a more reputable
style of living, and I trust he will not attempt to deceive
us again."
""
""
"The change of quarters would mean for Mardell a
diminished power of hoarding," observed Aaron Vowcher,
a severe blow, indeed! And Mr. Julian's departure?
Was Mr. Julian Urwen to leave the country at once?"
"As soon as possible, I believe," said Sir Sydney..
The indisposition of Miss St. Maur persisted throughout
the day. Sir Sydney delivered his speech, dined with an
ex-Under Secretary, and, on the resumption of the sitting
252
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
in the evening, saw the House counted-out. He returned
home in excellent spirits, but obliged to confess to his
niece that he had found no time for a visit to Charing
Cross Hospital. On the whole, as the patient's identity
had not been divulged by the police to the staff at the
hospital, it would be preferable to rely upon Mr. Vowcher
for their news. "And Adrienne?" he demanded.
Adrienne had not been able to leave her room, replied
Miss Ida; the gathering heat seemed to have prostrated
her: a thunderstorm was in the air.
"Come and see me at once," telegraphed Mr. Vowcher
to Detective-Sergeant Erne, after shaking hands with Sir
Sydney at Waterloo. He wished to acquaint Erne im-
mediately with the purport of his conversation with Sir
Sydney Chard, so far as it related to the affairs of the 3rd
ultimo, and to the position and interests of Erne in person.
The afternoon was far advanced, and although he assumed
that no visit from Erne would be practicable until the fol-
lowing day, he enforced his telegram by the dispatch of
a Burleigh Street messenger to various points where it
was conceivable that Erne might be encountered. Mr.
Vowcher's efforts for that day, however, proved fruitless.
Late on the same night the detective was in brief con-
ference with Mr. Parson, of the lodging-house, Paradise
Row; but the scene of their colloquy was not the "Par-
sonage" nor would Vincent Erne himself have been at
first sight recognizable.
There was no improvement on the following morning
in the condition of health which had imprisoned Miss St.
Maur within her own apartments. It was one of Sir
Sydney's days for attendance at the offices in Gresham
Street, and he left for the city in some uneasiness, resolv-
ing to return to Oakdene at the earliest moment possible.
He succeeded in effecting his escape from the vicinity of
Guildhall, betimes; but at Oakdene a great shock awaited
him.
THE NIGHT OF THE 30 ULT.
253
CHAPTER XVI.
THE proprietor of the "Parsonage" proved inexact at
his rendezvous with Detective Vincent Erne, but, as he
hastily prefaced the information which he had to impart,
now for as it proved-the last time, the delay had been
unavoidable. Some "swells had looked in," said he,
and he had been "kept at the house.
kept at the house." The personages
thus referred to had made up a party, under the guidance
of Lord Hamyncar and "Euchre" Chase. They had
seen some sport.
0
The evening was still young, indeed, when a com-
missionaire from the Pall Mall Theatre arrived at Mr.
Parson's establishment with the intelligence that his
lordship and the Major were "coming round." His
lordship and the Major, with lady friends, had gone to
the first night of a poetic drama at the Royal Pall Mall,
and, notwithstanding the greatness of the names upon
whose celebrity the entertainment was supported, in the
two leading positions, and the dramatist being of not less
exalted distinction than the ducal designer of the cos-
tumes, the prelate who had supervised the mounting of a
church "interior," the archæological student specially
retained for the prompt-box, and the gentlemen who saw
to the gas-had found, by the time the curtain descended
upon the first act, that they had had enough of it. They
had had enough of mannerism and delirium, they decided;
both they and a select few of the acquaintances whom
they descried and saluted in different portions of the
house were travelled and experienced theatre-goers, but
they all appeared to have arrived at the conclusion that
they had had quite enough. Will you trot round to the
، ،
鲁
​1
254
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
→
'Parsonage' with us, Claude?" said the Major to the
Hon. Mr. Beechamtre, during the interval-"We shall
be off presently." "Who's going?" "We're making up
a small party, and Hamyncar has just sent on word."
"Is Hamyncar here?" asked Mr. Beechamtre, smother-
ing a yawn and looking about,-"What the devil did he
come here for?" "Came with Maria." "Oh, is Maria
here?" ejaculated Mr. Beechamtre, following his com-
panion's indication-"Yes, I can just see her. Always
looks well, that woman does, however well she's dressed.
"She'd play this part, too, by Jove!" murmured "Euchre "
Chase, meditatively." What a pity that the British
Theatres are so infernally respectable! Poor Maria !
Temperament and talent all thrown away. As it is,
they'll never stand her out of the music halls." "Oh,
my boy," protested young Mr. Beechamtre,-"oh, my
boy! Let's at any rate hold on to the respectability of
the theatre. Maria's dramatic, there's not a doubt of it,
and I'm very fond of her, myself; but I'd be the first to
hiss the piece off the stage that provided her with a part.
-Here's old Alfred. How-do, Edgbaston !" Lord Alfred
Edgbaston, flushed with the post-prandial content of
generous maturity, passed them just then in the wake of
an attendant who was seeking his stall.
'What do you
think of the first act?" continued Mr. Beechamtre.
On'y
just turned up," growled his lordship,-"What's it like?"
"Beastly bad.” "Ah," grumbled his lordship-"that
don't surprise me. Always are bad, these people are."
He wavered, as the attendant, at the end of a row, seemed
to be discreetly signalling. "Same as ever, I s'pose?”
"Just the same," responded Major Chase, gloomily,-
"she's artificial, and he's uncouth, and nobody else has
been left with the ghost of a chance. We're off." "Off?"”
echoed his lordship, ducking his head once or twice in
acknowledgment of persons in the groups before them,
-"What are you fellows, I say, going to do?" There
((
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
255
was to be something at the "Parsonage," explained the
Major; and as the curtain rose upon the carefully built-
up church interior of the second act, all three were to be
perceived awaiting hansoms at the portals of the Royal
Pall Mall. "It will be a big success," commented Mr.
Beechamtre, noting the placards at the entrance that the
house was full," the people at this theatre can't do
wrong."
“I'll take odds it don't run a hundred nights,"
growled Lord Alfred. Why, you haven't seen anything
of the piece, Edgbaston," objected the Hon. Claude.
"
(C
'No, my boy, and don't want to. Chase, I'll take odds.”
"Lay 'em, and it's a bet!" "What the devil did we all
come for!" muttered the Hon. Claude. They separated
for different intermediate destinations. 'Euchre" and
Lord Alfred preferring to break their journey at the
Mithras, whilst the Hon. Claude resolved to run up just
as far as Welbeck Street, in order to call for somebody
whom he knew.
((
By the time the last arrivals, recruits from either the
Mithras Club or the theatre, drew up at the entrance to the
notorious lodging-house in Paradise Row, the large general
room in the basement had already been converted into a
species of amphitheatre, with the first-comers, among the
"swells," in the best places. The cabs, which now
brought up the rearmost contingent swung with a rattle
round the corner out of the thoroughfare at the extremity
of the obscure by-street, and plunged confidently along
towards the familiar "Parsonage," midway in the line of
houses. There was a good deal of prancing and rearing
as the animal in the foremost vehicle was pulled sharply
back, and one of the two occupants threw open the doors
to alight. Several heavy kicks resounded against the
splashboard, and the other occupant, a lady in a hood
and an opera-shawl, uttered a little shrill scream, and
clung nervously to her companion, beseeching him to
"mind." Her companion shouted to a couple of men
;
2560
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
lounging at the entrance to the lodging-house.
"Hold
!
his head, can't you, you?" said he. The men remained
motionless where they stood, their backs, to the light
which issued from the double gas-jet within. The sum-
mons was repeated, more angrily, and one of the men
moved slightly forward, as if half-ashamed, when his
comrade checked him. "It's Lord Menteath," urged
the former, gruffly. "I know the well enough,
was the reponse,-"let him hold his horses him-
self." "Well, he's a good sportsman, anyhow!"
"A
good sportsman?". The speaker took his short pipe out
of his mouth, and stared at his interlocutor with as lofty
an expression of surprise and disgust as his battered
countenance could convey. And so are we good sports-
men," he retorted,-"ain't we?
His lordship had sprung out of the cab and was assist-
ing his fair friend. "Didn't you hear me call to you?" he
demanded, imperiously, as the lady tripped across the
broad white flagstone between the basement railings, and
took refuge in the capacious passage. "Beg pardon, my
lord," answered the recalcitrant individual with the short
pipe,-"but my trade's fighting, not holding horses'
heads."
. .
""
'What's your name? Oh, it's you, Weaver, is it?'
said his lordship, in tremendous ire.-"Look here,-you
shall never spar before me again, you 199 "It's no
great catch to spar, my lord; and I don't know as I should
spar if I wasn't inclined to." "Very well, then, -don't
you ever put the gloves on before me!" "Your lordship
needn't ask me to put the gloves on, either." "Not
another word, or I'll punch your confounded head for
you!"
"All right, my lord," returned the other, with a
smile.
The remainder of the party had noisily gathered in a
group upon the pavement, out of earshot of the foregoing
dialogue. Mr. Raymond Urwen was one of these; Mr.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
257
A
Thesiger was another. They were accompanied by young
gentlemen who seemed very young gentlemen indeed,
and who were acting as escort to ladies possibly not re-
lated to them at all, but possibly, also, either their aunt
or their mammas. These young gentlemen apparently
derived the greatest satisfaction from vociferations of
"By G, sah!" They were evidently convinced that
they were tremendous "dogs," that what they had
embarked upon this night was fast life, verily! They
stamped a little with one foot on the other, they struck
the ground emphatically with their walking sticks, they
drew their breath in through their teeth with a hissing
sound, as if they had been scalded by something, some-
where, and thus ran their conversation,—“By G—
sah!" "By G, sah!" "By G-, sah!" One of
these young lads in prodigious shirt-cuffs, white cravats,
and flashing studs, excitedly hailed the pugilist addressed
as Weaver," and demanded "if he felt fit."
"Not very
te
،،
!
، ،
fit this evening, sir," replied the pugilist respectfully,
touching his hat. Oh, that's all rot," insisted the
other,—“You must spar this evening, Sam! I'm going
to have you spar before these ladies. You're fit enough,
-come!" He pushed into the wide, bare passage in
the midst of his companions, explaining to the ladies, as
they picked up their trains with both hands, that Sam,
nicknamed "the Weaver," from his bull-dog style of
"weaving in," was a fighter of the old school, a "real
old ring-fighter," who had latterly been giving him in-
structions in the noble art. The ladies chorused that
the speaker was a bad boy, that the men were horrid and
extremely low, that the walls of the "Parsonage" were
grimy, and that the staircase smelt of carbolic acid.
1
"A good little chap, he is," commented Sam to the
other loungers who had joined him at the doorway,-
"but I wonder what they think it is to spar before a lot
258
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
'
of like that!" and, uncomplimentary as it was,
the indication referred to the disdainful dames.
"When a man's got a wife and kids at home," observed
a member of the group, sententiously," he has to stoop
to a good deal.
me
"Don't you go downstairs and spar, Sam,” said the
witness of the latter's passage of arms; "his lordship 'll
set about you."
"Ah, that's how they talk," answered the pugilist,-
"that's how they talk! And we've, got to humor them,
-for the game ain't alive. But if ever I had a house of
my own, I'd show 'em how to keep it. I'd have no swells
in that couldn't behave like gentlemen; and I'd have
none of 'em taking liberties with the scrappers that used
my house. It's bad enough to give the swells tuition.
If you treat 'em properly, and let 'em hit you about a bit,
and take care not to hurt 'em in return, blest if they
don't say they're as good as you are, and perhaps they
don't come back; whereas, if you do just wake 'em up a
bit, just to let 'em know a bit what it is like, blest if they
don't say you've gone and taken a unfair advantage, and
then cert'nly they don't come back.. It's a hundred to
one, this way, that you lose your pupil; and it ain't any
odds, the other way, that you're ever a-going to keep
him."
1.66
'That's quite right," assented a listener, whose thick-
ened left ear and indented nose sufficiently testified to
•
battles lost and won; "and we've got to 'kid' to 'em.
Have a spar with me, Sam, to-night! Have three rounds
for the brass."
A preliminary musical entertainment provided by the
Parson for his patrons downstairs had not been over cor-
dially received Lord Hamyncar clamored for a bit of
sport, and the Parson was hard put to it, for a time, to
bridge over a formidable difficulty, the fact being, as he
confided to one of the "boys," that while he was glad
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
259
enough to see the swells in at the "home" that evening,
it was of no use "twenty hundred of them coming there,
if they didn't put down the pieces." Up to the present
not one of them had shown a fiver. The gentlemen of
the party had contented themselves with throwing small
change into the arena for the remuneration of the fustian
clad artists who had "obliged" with recitals upon the
banjo and the concertina, as well as with a comic song
and step-dances. "What can you give us now, Parson?"
demanded the noble lord whose difference with Sam
the Weaver had apparently kept the latter above-stairs.
"We've Tall Tom ready to oblige," suggested Mr. Parson.
"Tall Tom Towler, the mandolinist.” "Towler be
d—d!” said his lordship.-"I've had enough of his
infernal mandolin at benefits. What's come to you,
Parson? Let's see some sport." "Oh, there's plenty of
it to be had, my lord," assured the proprietor of the estab-
lishment, cheerfully, "and I've sent out for something
good; but I thought the ladies would like a little music.'
A couple of men then stepped into the open space and
tried the best of three falls, Cumberland and Westmore-
land. "It's all very well for his lordship to grumble,
whispered the Parson confidentially to Major Chase, in
the meanwhile, indicating Menteath," but when he was
here last and ordered several spars, he went away with-
out paying the men.
"Throw all that in to-night," was
the response, in a whisper, likewise, "we'll make all
that up.
There's plenty of money here to-night." The
difficulty lay just in this way, hinted Mr. Parson; he
didn't happen to have much ready money upon the prem-
ises, and the boys wouldn't "show," unless they were
certain of being paid. He was astonished at Lord Ham-
yncar, he was; Hamyncar knew what things were, he did,
and he ought to have seen to all. this, he ought to have;
it was placing Mr. Parson in a position of grievous embar-
rassment. A little "whip-round," now, would smooth
·
*
""
2600
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ULT.
over everything; and there would be no moment like the
present, because, as it happened, there was to be a fight.
to a finish that evening. Sheeny Abe and Rodger Tegg,
for £25 a side,-no fuss, and the backers very quiet, nice.
parties. "Here?" "Well, it wasn't to be here, exactly,
but it was to be in a house close by, and within an hour's
time, too; and if the Major and his friends would sub-,
scribe a little addition-something to increase the winner's
stake, and something to console the loser-neither the
principals nor their backers would object to the "change
of venue." "We'll have all the roughs out, presently,
and we'll shut the doors; added Mr. Parson," and
then there'll be no shouting. We'll have no one inside
but a few of the boys.'
As the result of Mr. Parson's private appeal, the Major
returned to him in the course of a few minutes with a
handful of bank notes, contributed chiefly by the junior
members of the band. That would be about it, mur-
mured the Parson, after noting that the total might be
handsomely sweated" by himself; and four stout
posts, filled midway and at the summit with strong iron
wings made their appearances as if by enchantment.
With an equal celerity four equidistant sockets were dis-
closed in the floor, whilst the clerk went upstairs for the
ropes. "Where's Isaac?" demanded Mr. Parsons; and
that cadaverous young man prèsenting himself in answer
to the summons, he was dispatched by Mr. Parson-
upon an errand, whose purport, to judge by his grin
as he turned his back on the company and passed out of
the door, could hardly be of an unpalatable nature.
4
The Hon. Claude was entertaining his fair friend from
Welbeck Street with a description of his last previous
visit to this place, the memorable occasion, said he, of
the "Parsonage." murder, will be remembered that day,
June 3d, because- "You don't recollect it, pet, but
I do," archly he interpolated; there had been between
""
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
261
4
his fair friend and himself a slight difference of opinion, at
home, during the afternoon, and he had joined Edgbaston,
over here, and Hamyncar, and one or two others of the
Mithras men who were coming on to the "Parsonage"
for a plunge. All of them had bet heavily upon every
event provided. The Hon. Claude had won on the first
event, a cock-fight, but he had lost upon all the others, and
he had felt "pretty blue" the next morning. That very
same night the murder had occurred, and by the same
token the murder was committed in this very room. He
had fully intended to look in, at about the time the public
sensation was at its height, but somehow or another he
had never been able to get round. "I've never been
here since the famous evening," he repeated, more
loudly, addressing the companions whom he had named,
-"that evening of the crime, who won that evening? I
know-well, I lost. Did you win, Edg?" "Don'rec'lec,"
answered his lordship-, "d'd you win, Chase?"
"Men-
teath won from me, at any rate," said Lord Hamyncar,
-"and I picked up a trifle, I think from Urwen?" That
was so, concurred Raymond Urwen; he had lost to both
Hamyncar and Menteath and later on pretty heavily to
"old" Euchre. 'Who are you calling "old Euchre?"
retorted the Major with some fierceness. "If I admit
you to the honor of a bet with me, sir, or to a game of
chance, I wish you to comprehend that the transactions
involve no privileges of familiarity." Oh, bosh!" in-
terposed the Hon. Claude, jocularly. "Yes, you d—d
old fool,—bosh! At one time, for about six months, I
used to wish to G that you had never admitted me to
either those privileges or those honors !” 'Aha!" com-
mented Mr. Urwen, sarcastically. "Look here-" began
the Major. Fact is," continued Raymond Urwen coolly,
"Chase can't forget Ascot. Had him sweetly at Ascot;
got it all back, and something more." The Major suffered
his wrath to be appeased at this response; he rolled his
:
• ((
(C
༣
262
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
€
\
1
prominent brown eyes portentously, and stroked his
drooping blue-black moustache; there were moments
when he felt, in truth, that he was little reputed to lose
money.
G.
A reciprocal frigidity of reserve had hitherto held the
ladies markedly asunder, although they were not all now
meeting for the first time. But the reminiscences thus
evoked by Mr. Beechamtre proved a 'stimulus to their
curiosity too keen to be resisted. The Hon. Claude and
his associates, plied with questions, could only reiterate
that they knew nothing about the victim, nothing about
the crime, and nothing about the intentions of the police.
Not one of them could even say that H, R. H., as the
murdered man was called, had been known to him by.
sight. The detectives in the case, and consequently their
chief, were supposed to be aware of the victim's actual
identity, but the fact appeared to have placed no clue
whatever in their hands, and they were presumably drop-
ping the whole business. "Did not some fellow pay
you a visit here, Parson?" inquired the Hon. Claude,-
"Some fellow, I mean, who identified the corpse?"
!
"There was a gentleman who came twice," answered
Mr. Parson,-"twice on the same day-the 4th. The
murder of H. R. H. was published in the papers early in
the afternoon, and it was earlyish in the evening when
this gentleman'first called. Who he was I don't know.
As soon as he arrived he asked for Erne, whose name had
been given in the papers; and Erne took him on to Bow
Street for his declaration. He showed again, after mid-
night, and seemed very much cut up about H. R. H.,
whoever he was. I was out, just then, but my clerk saw
him. He wanted to help the police, he couldn't rest, he
said, and he couldn't believe that there was nothing to be
done. But he hadn't anything to add to what he had
already stated at Bow Street, and so he went away again.
He told my clerk that he should come back in the course
*
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
263
of the next day, but he never did come back, and we never
heard of him any more. What I can't make out is why
the police didn't call him at the inquest. They not only
didn't call him," concluded Mr. Parson, testing the tautness
of one of the ropes,-"but they didn't say anything about
him at all. They've kept him in the background; and the
coroner was put up to it, that's my belief, -he was put up
to it by M'Kagherty."
"Perhaps he was the murderer, and he got away,'
suggested one of Mr. Parson's visitors.
""
"Begging your pardon, my lord," began the clerk
touching his sandy forelock, and blinking his weak eyes,-
'he wasn't the murderer; I know who-
Ordered roughly by his employer to continue his work,
and to attend to his own business, the clerk phlegmati-
cally resumed his occupation of scattering sawdust about
the floor of the roped arena; but a general appeal from
the visitors induced Mr. Parson to withdraw his veto.
"Well, go on," growled Mr. Parson, in an undertone,-
"but look sharp about it. Here,—one of the boys '11
finish with that sawdust."
""
"Ah, I do know, begging my guv'nor's pardon, my
lord, and begging the company's pardon, for it ain't my
place to speak, I know that,—I do know," persisted the
clerk, "who the murderer of him was, and I'm speaking
of our H. R. H., rest his soul! Who was it? Why, it
was them two that come while Mr. Mardell was going up-
stairs to bed. Wait a minute, guv'nor. I see one of
them two on a previous occasion, and Mardell see them
both; and Mr. Mardell knows that the gentleman as
called with the identification wasn't neither of them two,
because he see the gentleman as he come in the first time.'
Her temporary ladyship of Menteath, having visited
the premises out of curiosity some few days subsequent
to the committal of the crime, so far thawed towards her
feminine neighbors as to indicate the precise spot at
"}
264
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
which the body had been found, as well as the approx-
imate outlines of the pool of blood. In this latter par-
ticular much interest was manifested. The mature, com-
panions of the boisterous young gentlemen shrank at first
like sensitive plants beneath a blast of contamination,
but when they had applied their enameled noses to their
smelling-bottles, and had observed that less attention was
paid to them than to the pair of professional boxers who,
stripped to the waist, and gloved, now entered for the
preliminary Set-to, they recovered with remarkable brisk-
ness. The youth addressed as Warm Isaac came in at
the same moment, laden with a box of cigars, and a
bucket containing bottles of champagnę packed in ice.
"Never you mind about that, Isaac'll see to all that,"
muttered the proprietor of the establishment gruffly to the
clerk, as the latter rose from his knees. "You see that
the pit's in readiness for presently-and don't you have.
so much to say." The clerk had been tracing with his
finger a portion of the blood-stains not yet altogether
obliterated. "Ladies and gentlemen," went on Mr.
Parson, stepping up to his visitors, and falling into a re-
spectful attitude for his harangue,-"I trust that you will
be satisfied and contented, ons and all, with my humble
efforts for your entertainment this evening. I trust that,
one and all, you will approve of this evening's sport, and
that you will consider that I have merited a long continu-
ance of your distinguished patronage. Their lordships
know, I believe, that I have always put forth my utmost
efforts to please them, when they have done me the honor
of visiting my house. It will ever be my most earnest
wish and ambition to earn the confidence and esteem,
both of their lordships, and of their lordships' numerous
friends; and I can only say, ladies and gentlemen, and
repeat, that I trust you will not go away this evening
without feeling, one and all, that the sport it is my priv-
ilege to place before you has been worthy, not only of
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
265
:݂
my house, but of myself." Their lordships nodded and
scrutinized the two boxers, whilst the youngest of the
young gentlemen sang out "Hear, hear," in a rather dis-
orderly fashion of burlesque. "But I can only undertake
to supply good sport," proceeded the burly speaker, with
some severity-"so long as my endeavors are appre-
ciated by good sportsmen, and so long as I feel that I
can fully rely upon the discretion of all those who are
réceived at my house, and who honor me with their
patronage. Let me say, in conclusion, that every lad this
night will do his best. Refreshments will be passed round.
If the ladies will permit me, I will remove my coat.'
""
Except that the benches and wooden arm-chairs
ranged upon three sides of the ring were now tenanted,
and that, out of consideration for the visitors, the gas-jets
had been fitted with globes, the general aspect of the
interior hardly differed from that which had confronted
Detective Erne late on the night of the 3d ult. Pushed
close up to the wall, the oblong tables furnished stout
support for the row of benches hoisted upon them to
form the topmost tier; above the flaring gas the ceiling
was blackened in heavy patches; and, although not
visible behind its enormous screen, a small fire smouldered
in the grate. The shutters had been partially closed, but
the basement windows stood wide open to admit the
night air.
On the present occasion, "the swells were
in," and the ring was up. At opposite corners of the
arena, clean towels had been slung across the ropes, and
a chair had been placed side by side with a pail contain-
ing iced water and sponges, for the needs of combatants
in the intervals of fighting. The first streaks of blood
upon the towels drew from the ladies-that is to say from
some of them-inarticulate ejaculations indicative, no
doubt, of horror. Their horror gave way soon to curiosity,
their curiosity by degrees to callousness; and those who
at the outset had smelt most vigorously at their salts, and
266
THE NIGHT OF THE 30 ULT.
L
had shuddered, were not long in selecting favorites among
the men who boxed before them in the ring, establishing
their preferences upon such grounds as a fair or a dark
complexion, "gentlemanly bearing," and similar points
non-pertinent to the display.
When three pairs of boxers had exhibited their skill,
Mr. Parson changed the form of entertainment. He had
put two clever big ones together, as he remarked to the
Hon. Claude,—"two clever little ones, and a clever little
one against a clumsy big one." They would now have.
the rats in. He had sent round for half a hundred rats
and a terrier, and when the terrier had killed the rats,
there was to be a first class four-round spar-the Weaver
and Hogan on their merits, Hogan above Sam's weight
by nearly a stone. "Has Menteath yielded, then?"
asked Mr. Beechamtre in an undertone. "It was Sam
that wouldn't spar," said the perspiring host," but those
young gentlemen have got 'em to make it up, and have
subscribed a little present, extra. His lordship picked
Hogan. 'Menteath picked him! Well it's hardly fair?
Sam's over-matched." "Oh, I don't know, sir," whis-
pered Mr. Parson, watching the two men as they moved
out of the room to disrobe, "it is a lot of weight to give,
when the other's a mechanic at the game; but Sam's a
wonderful good man, sir,-one of the old school, and a
rare in-fighter. He'll come on very hot in the last round.
You'll see."
There was one amongst the tenants of the lodging-
house, privileged to remain in the "kitchen" during the
visit of Mr. Parson's patrons, whom Vincent Erne would
have recognized instantly. He was seated on one of the
higher benches, near an angle of the wall, and, although
exchanging from time to time a nod, or a few muttered
syllables, with the fellow-lodgers grouped at the same
spot, he seemed upon familiar terms with none. His
proportions might have fitted him for successes in the
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
267
་
arena beneath his gaze. He sat with his long arms folded
loosely upon his chest, and with his head bent slightly
forward. The torso should have connoted a stature
far more considerable; as he rose from the bench, and
stepped lightly downwards, to answer a request from Mr.
Parson himself, he looked well below medium height.
His bushy locks, parted at the right side and brushed out
into a kind of ringleted confusion, at once distinguished
him amongst his close-cropped neighbors. Like several
of the pugilists, however, big or little, he had the brows,
cheek-bones and jaw strikingly pronounced.
clean-shaven, save for a short, thick moustache, the lower
portion of the face being, it was easy to perceive, densely
planted with a dark and heavy beard. The eyes were
brown, small, and deep-set, the complexion dull, the
cheeks rather thin.
It was the man who had attended at the "Albert
Edward" surgical ward, Charing Cross Hospital — the
man by whom the police-constable in charge of Case No.
14 had been casually interrogated as to the unconscious
patient's prospects of recovery. The patient was Lester
Brand.
It was the same man, the physiognomy of a type not
uncommon in the lower orders of the metropolis, the
frame indicative of abnormal activity, endurance, and
muscular force. Who that had casually observed, how-
ever, that well-dressed caller at the "Albert Edward"
ward, would have recognized him in this coarse and
dingy, ill-assorted apparel? Who would have looked for
him here? The voice, too, was different. Agreeing to Mr.
Parson's request, without condition or demur, he spoke
nevertheless in tones of low sullenness and brutality, the
habitual accent of many among these associates.
"That man's new to me," said Lord Menteath, as the
burly host returned from his brief colloquy. "Who is he,
Parson? Not a fighting-man, with that head of hair!"
↑
268
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"No,-but the brother of one, my lord. That's the
brother of Young Burr."
"Never knew the Bijou had a brother. A good deal
older, this one. What's his line?
M
Mr. Parson answered with momentary constraint.
went on his lordship,
(C
"Perhaps you don't want to say!"
adding an oath and a rough jest. Perhaps you don't
want to know?" suggested others of the party equally
jocular. "Well, what can he do, I say?" repeated his
lordship. "What's he here for? We don't want any
loafers about when we call, you know, Parson.
"I've just asked him to exhibit feats of strength," replied.
their host, lowering his voice, and affecting to regard
intently in the direction opposite the place occupied by
this brother to young Burr.
"He's a gymnast by pro-
fession, that is, he was a gymnast by profession until
he went abroad, and perhaps afterwards, too.
It's a good
many years ago since he went out to America. Your lord-
ships remember the Burini family?"
((
**
"Burini-Burini?" echoed Lord Hameyncar, consult-
ing his souvenirs. "Remember them, Maria?'
Slightly before my time," answered the damsel ad-
""
dressed. 'I wasn't born a good many years ago.”
温馨
​(C
"Father, daughter, and three sons," continued Mr.
Parson, mumbling his sentences as if in apprehension of
being overheard. Professional name, the Athos troupe.
Daughter fell from trapeze, in provinces,-killed on the
spot; father died of bad temper and delirium tremens.
Eldest brother went out to America; second brother keeps
an English bar somewhere on the Continent;-the youngest
-the little boy of the troupe, that used to be-was left
on the street.'
""
"Rec'lec family well," said Lord Alfred Edgbaston ster-
torously. "Saw 'm at Glasgow-went down to political
gathering, and saw 'm at a music hall. Girl clever; used
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
269
to be shot up from the stage on to a little platform near
the roof."
"Well. Young Burr, my lord, is the youngest, -the
little boy they used to show with. As your lordships are
aware, he has his sparring rooms down the street; and
when the eldest brother came back from abroad, a few
weeks since, down on his luck, young Burr recommended
him to my house. He's quite a superior sort of fellow,'
added Mr. Parson apparently convinced that his words
were travelling to the ears of the individual discussed,
"and I'd like to do him a turn. I was thinking of a friendly
Tead for him in a week or two, just to help him into
work again."
葛
​""
""
"What's the real name, -Burr, I suppose?
"Burgh is the name, my lord,-B-u-r-g-h, Burini was
the private name for the profession. They're like a good
many more of the Italian pro's travelling.
'Anglo-Saxons, eh?"
"
"Out of Lambeth.
$
Whether or not the purport of their conversation had
reached his ears, the man referred to as Burini madę no
sign that could betray the fact. Impassive, like those of
his neighbors who had performed their share in the
scenes already enacted, he looked on as though concerned
by nothing here but his own possible chance of gaining
a fee. The contrivances which served for promptly form-
ing the enclosure utilized as a rat-pit had been disconnect-
ed again and were being carried back to their customary
places before the man's attitude could be observed to
change. He looked at his watch, a plain silver article.
attached to a slender steel guard; taking the watch with
the left hand out of the waistcoat pocket of the right side.
Mr. Parson signalled to him to remain in his seat, and,
approaching presently, informed him with expressions.
of regret that after all it was unlikely he would be needed.
The light-weights for the glove fight to a finish had arrived.
270
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
ten minutes ago; their backers and seconds wanted an
immediate commencement; and the lads themselves were
getting ready in the parlor, upstairs. They would
go into
the ring as soon as Hogan and the Weaver had finished
their spar.
I'll make it up to you another time, Burini,"
said Mr. Parson, with an amiable wink! "I've asked
the swells to put their names down for your lead." The
other nodded, in surly acknowledgment. "I'm going to
have the hall cleared and the doors shut," continued the
Parson, "But you can stay and see it, if you like." “I
may as well be here as anywhere else," was the reply.
"I'll get you to keep the door, with somebody, if you'
don't mind," Mr. Parson then suggested. "Your brother's
come on with the party; they've selected him to stand
referee."
M
The ex-gymnast concurred in each proposal with an
unvarying indifference. Until the moment presented itself
for the demand upon his services, he sat above a cluster
of Mr. Parson's tenants, still leaning nonchalantly against
the wall, his head bent forward, his arms crossed loosely
upon his breast. What interested him here? Neither the
sport nor its exponents, nor the patrons of the sport;
neither Mr. Parson nor his premises; neither the prospect
of remuneration nor its loss, nothing. He was the sole
personage present for whom the arrival of his notorious
brother was evidently a matter of unaffected and absolute
unconcern. They exchanged cool nods, like individuals
who knew little of each other, and who experience not
the slightest desire to push their acquaintance as far as
terms of familiarity. The younger brother must have
been, nevertheless, well known by repute to even the least
sophisticated of the ladies who were that evening at the
Parsonage in satisfaction of a modish curiosity. He had
figured in widely dissimilar public proceedings; it was in
consequence of his advent that a baritone singer had relin-
quished his yacht and drag, and was once more a salaried
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
271.
member of an English Opera Company, and those who
wagered money with this severely-attired young man who
bowed rather stiffly to the Major, and not at all to Lord
Menteath, averred that he now wrote out checks.
"Charles Burgh, otherwise the 'Bijou,' otherwise
'Young Burr,' or 'Bijou Burr,' formerly the boy acrobat
in the Athos troupe," commented Mr. Thesiger in an
undertone to Raymond Urwen,-"There is a friend of
mine who'd be delighted at the character."
**
"I'll have a bet on with you, Thesiger; look at old
Sam forcing it!"
"Don't get
"Go in, Hogan!" cried his lordship.
away; go in !"
"Pass no remarks, gentlemen, please!" said Mr.
Parson authoritatively. He was working his shoulders
in irrepressible sympathies with the renewed efforts of
the antagonists, and a further incitement by his lordship
passed unreproved. "Out him, Hogan," called his
lordship, fiercely. "It's very brutal, but it's very interest-
ing," whispered one of the ladies to Major Chase: "luck-
ily they can't hurt one another with those things upon
their hands!" "Luckily," assented the Major, with a
grimace. "Hurt one 'nother," ejaculated Lord Alfred.
Look at poor old Euch's nose!
You could stand upon
the bridge at midnight. Done at a lesson, wasn't it,
Euch, -one shot from the left? How many years ago's
that?" "Years, and years, and years," murmured the
other, with a sigh; "had just gone into the Guards."
"Hurt one 'nother!" repeated Lord Alfred," Minds,
me of something that was said by our Imperial visitor
from the east. When we were ent'taining his Majesty
over here. Majesty very anxious to see some of the
English boxers, of whom he had heard, and we got in a
few, best couples, short notice. Young Burr was one of
'em, I rec'lec'; just coming on at the time; used to move
and spring like a panther; Majesty much taken with his
/
272
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
style. Well, while they were setting to, his Majesty
wanted to know why those things not taken off hands;
would hurt one 'nother good deal more, without, he said."
The ladies laughed.
•
A minute or two later, the contest came to an end.
"It's Hogan, for a fiver!" declared Menteath. "I give
my verdict to Sam," announced the judge, firmly. "And
a good decision, too," remarked Mr. Charles Burgh;
"Sam shall fight him for as much as he can find." There
was no response. 'Anything up to £200, catch-weight;
money to be posted with the Parson; first deposit to-
night." There was still no response, and the challenger,
after a moment's pause, turned upon his heel to follow the
two men.
، ،
"Why does he leave his brother in destitution, then?"
asked the Hon. Claude, confidentially, glancing towards
the immobile Burini.
"Oh, he's not in destitution, sir," answered Mr. Parson,
immediately engrossed elsewhere. "Burini's not in want.
It suits them sometimes to make out that they're broke,
and it suits me sometimes to make out that I believe
them."
The subject of the remark seemed to have lapsed into
total apathy. Beneath his half-closed eyes the faintly
outlined patch which the clerk had traced upon his knees
as the stain of blood; in front of him the enormous fire-
place, where the blood-red hue had faded from the moul-
dering coal; to the left, as he regarded drowsily, the door
of the Parson's "chapel," ajar; further, at his left hand, the
windows grimed and sightless. In a vivid reverie he
might have reconstructed the entire scene which two wit-
nesses had in his own hearing recently described. Mr.
Parson had told them how, when he entered, he had
found the gas turned low, and, prone, at this precise
spot, the man known amongst them by the sobriquet,
H. R. H. To-morrow morning, at the dawn, the first rays,
་
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
273
paling the dark windows here, in the iron-barred base-
ment, would pause upon a vacant space as if to recall a
crime. The oral description had supplied the prone
figure, the corpse, with its ghastly throat-wound, and the
pool of blood; a very moderate exertion of the imagina-
tion, and it was easy to place a second figure near the
sinister, irregular patch in part outlined upon the ground,
——a figure which had murdered, -a figure which, as it
fled, looked back from the door.
M
1
Whom had that man, the murderer, resembled? The
clerk, seeking an analogy, had gazed round the room
passing in review one after another of Mr. Parson's dis-
tinguished visitors. No-he had decided, greatly to the
amusement of those gentlemen-the party as had come
walking home with H. R. H. one day, and had gone down
into the kitchen and sat with him, there being nobody
about, wasn't like any of their lordships and gentlemen,
begging their pardon. He was a party wearing spec-
tacles, a fur collar, and a diamond stud; he had a heavy
black beard and moustache, and a sunburnt complexion;
and he spoke like-well, not like any of them, there.
The clerk had given an imitation of the stranger's voice
and utterance; the voice was high-pitched, the utterance
affected; and all the ladies and gentlemen, recognizing a
"flunkeyfied pronunciation" prevalent amongst their
tradespeople, had laughed heartily.
((
Would your clerk know the person he refers to, if
he saw him again?" demanded one of the visitors, re-
verting to the tragedy of the 3d, whilst preparations for
the next item in the entertainment were in progress.
"Well, you see," began the clerk himself," begging
your pardon, it's like this.
وو
“Oh, no. I think not, sir," interrupted the proprietor
of the establishment, roughly silencing his clerk; "it's
only lately that I've been able to keep him sober."
"Ah, my guv'nor's been a onappreciative master to me,
18
274
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
at times, he has," soliloquized the clerk, as he shuffled
away," but I don't complain, bless yer,-I don't com-
plain! He's got a good 'eart, like me-a good 'eart."
Outside, the clerk came upon the "Weaver" and Mr.
Charles Burgh, and was welcomed by the former in cor-
roboration of a tale. "We are to go on our merits, four
rounds. That's the agreement," narrated Sam-" but
while we're getting ready Hogan says to me, 'Sam,' he
says, 'keep that long left out of my face,' he says,-
'let's make a level spar!' 'All right,' I says, 'Hogan,
-all right.' 'We'll cut up the brass,' he says,' but there's
one or two of 'em that fancy me a bit, and let's make a
spar. Don't come weaving in with that there long left.'
'All right, Hogan,' I says. Well, just before we goes into
the ring, Mike the clerk here, gives me the office. Mike has
heard Lord Menteath promise Hogan a present if he knocks
me out. And no sooner have we shaped then in he
comes with that - dash, tries that 'pull'of his, and then
we're at it, slish-slosh." The speaker broke off to vent
his indignation and disgust in terms characteristic. "After
what he'd said to me about the spar, if it hadn't been for
old Mike here, I might have been 'outed '!" "You shall
fight him for his own sum," said Mr. Burgh, serenely,-
"I'll put the money down myself." Ah, but Mr.
Lord Menteath won't put no money down! Money? He's
got to sharp somebody before he can find any money. A
nice beauty, for a lord, he is! Ain't it a blooming shame
that scrappers have got to spar before such wrong 'uns,
for their living!"
<<
The clerk shambled up the basement staircase to inform
the parties concerned in the "principal feature of the even-
ing" that all had been placed in readiness for them below.
He repelled at the same time the advances of two bullet-
headed youths who had stepped round from Claw Market.
"You want to be engaged?" echoed the clerk contempt-
uously-"here? Why, boxers like you we can get at three-
#
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
275
pence a dozen!' The applicants retired in some discom-
fiture and joined a group of taciturn loiterers at the entrance
from the street. "Don't you hang about here," the clerk
called after them,-"There's nothing to hang about for.
"Go on,—we know !" answered one of the pair in a surly
undertone," it's Sheeny and the Bodger." "You know
more than me, then," said the clerk.
As the door was closed downstairs, and Burini, with
another tenant of the house, took up his duties at the post
assigned to him, Mr. Parson, for the second or third time
in ten minutes, anxiously consulted his watch. The hour
of his rendezvous with Vincent Erne had passed.
**
Certain among his guests who mistook the meaning of
his uneasiness assured him that the night was young yet,
and that nobody was tired. There would be time for an
exhibition, as wind-up, between the Bijou and a picked
man. The Bijou heard the suggestion with a sudden
haughtiness, and the Parson was obliged to interpose with
the remark, sotto voce, that for Young Burr to "take his
coat off," at the present epoch in his fortunes, might
"mean a maker of a pony" or so, if indeed he could be
prevailed upon åt all. Invited to quaff a goblet of cham-
pagne, Mr. Charles Burgh proffered, in return, cigars from
a very handsome case which he brought out of his breast
pocket. Edg' and the Hon. Claude accepted a cigar
frankly; The Major took two; the others declined.
"No
smoking, gentlemen, please," urged Mr. Parson," here
come the lads?" Put one in your pocket," insisted Mr.
Burgh, affably, to Raymond Urwen.
•
With the combatants entered their seconds, the backers,
and a few friends, not altogether unknown to some of Mr.
Parson's visitors. Their lordships questioned their ac-
quaintances minutely as to the antecedents and the capa-
bilities of the men. And where had the Bodger trained?
Looked bigger than his eight-stone-seven. And the other
man, -where had he done his training? Didn't look more
M
276
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
""
than eight feet five or six. Whilst the two antagonists
rested quietly in their corners, their eyes fixed on the ceil-
ing, their arms supported along the lower ropes, Mr.
Parson became the recipient of confidences from both
sides. ((
My man's got a cold," muttered one of the
worthies who had crossed from the far corner,—“ and just
look at Tegg. If Tegg's not over-weight I don't know
white from black. We ought to have turned up to
weigh, and claimed forfeit." "Didn't you turn up to
weigh?" "No; I left it to them, and they didn't go?'
The speaker retired with a shrug of discontent, and his
place was taken by a member of the opposing camp.
"My man ain't been well since Saturday," announced the
newcomer, ostensibly not less discontented; "a pound or
two more off him would ha' done him good, but I had to
stop his training. Ain't they over-weight, don't you think,
the other side? Why didn't they come to weigh ?"
"Didn't they turn up to weigh?" "No,-and wouldn't
they have come to weigh, if they wasn't over?" "Well,
why don't you claim?” "Not me, they can have it.
Our man's got a marv'lous right. But 'ere, Mr. Parson,
-what sort of a fighter's this Sheeny?. I never see him.
fight,—'ave you? He's a picker, ain't he,-one for noth-
ing, and away?"
That night, the proprietor of the Parsonage, supposed
by his lodgers to have gone out merely as an escort to the
departing visitors, reported for the last time to Detective
Vincent Erne. There was no reason for disquietude, said
he; Burini would be remaining in his present abode for
at least another week. Of one thing Erne might rest
absolutely assured: Burini was unsuspecting ; he had no
notion whatever that he was watched. The morrow
brought with it a surprise for Mr. Parson! as it brought
Sir Sydney Chard, M. P., so terrible a shock, so poignant
a grief.
3
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
277
CHAPTER XVII.
RETURNING betimes on the morrow from the vicny un
Guild Hall, Sir Sydney found that Miss St. Maur was no
longer at Oakdene. Shortly after his own departure she
had sent off a telegram by one of the servants, and within
an hour from that time she had quitted the house. A letter
from Miss St. Maur, said the butler, was awaiting Sir
Sydney. There had been nothing in the appearance of
Miss St. Maur to denote serious ill-health.
It was with no special misgiving that Sir Sydney opened
the missive placed in his hands, but à perusal of the first
few lines left him with trembling fingers and with a
blanched face. He broke off to ask two questions with re-
spect to his niece. Miss Chard was not at this moment at
home, he was told in reply to the first; she had driven out
as usual upon her visits to the poor people. In reply to
the second, he learnt that Miss Ida had been greatly aston-
ished at the suddenness of the determination which in-
volved the departure of their guest, but that the latter had
pleaded immediate business,--professional business ad-
mitting of no delay. "Had Miss St. Maur received letters
that morning?" he inquired. She had received no
letters," was the response.
Alone, he read through the first few lines again, with
greater deliberation. "My heart beats loudly, and my
eyes are suffused with tears, as I take up my pen, dear
Sir Sydney, to trace the sad lines which I feel must part
me from you forever. How can I make to you the
avowal which I have to make,-how can I confess to
falsehood! But before I am condemned, hear me in
278
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT
}
extenuation of my fault. I loved you." Her "fault?"
What fault? Deception? But there the words were,
which he prized, "I loved you." They were words.
which he could echo with the utmost fervor and the ut-
most earnestness, -echo and reiterate, except that he could
never say, as if the time were past, "Adrienne, I loved
you:" with him it still was, it must be, forever.
"And yet I have no right," he read on,
no right,” he read on,-“to ask for
indulgence or for pardon. The falsehood I was guilty of,
however excusable under circumstances of an ordinary
nature, and in relations of life which are merely casual
and may justify, as I may put it, an incognito, became an
act of miserable cowardice and criminal deceit the mo-
ment those circumstances and those relations changed, as
they have done. You asked me to be your wife; I re-
fused. You asked me for the reasons of my refusal. Ah,
too well I remember! Could I tell you that I loved you
not? It would have been a lie. What did I tell you?
That my birthright of independence was too dear to me for
sacrifice; that with the proud spirit of my countrywomen
I preferred to labor for myself, to toil in the service and.
in the interests of Art; that your great wealth was alone
an obstacle to our union, however ardently I might de-
sire both your affection and your trust. I said, did I
not, my dearest friend," Sir Sydney, listen, if there are
women in this world so base, so vilely mercenary, that
not the heart, and the soul, but riches, lucre, self aggran-;
dizement, guide them where we are taught that we should
love, those women are of other countries than mine. The
American girl, I said, is far too fearless, and too noble
ever to prize mere worldly advantage, gold,-dross.
More than that, the American girl,' I said, 'so values her
self-respect and her moral independence that she would
rather do her own heart deadly violence than accept her
happiness when accompanied by worldly profit.' I said
that, dearest friend, did I not?-and it was true; and my
;
اس
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
279
own high spirit--I see it clearly now-could never have
afterwards brooked the thought that I, I, proud to clarion
forth, 'Je suis Américane,' had consented to become the
wife of Sir Sydney Chard, millionaire, bringing him noth-
ing but myself. Ah, you will answer yes, I hear those
accents I have learned to love-you will answer, as you
answered before; but, alas, I cannot listen again as then,
too weakly, I listened. I yielded, then-hoping for the
best-no, not hoping for but believing in the best. Why
did I not tell you, then, what I must now so sadly con-
fess! When I met you first-you remember your charm-
ing kindness to me, on that eve?-I had been married
already."
This, then, was the falsehood; and her conscience
tortured her for its committal. Herein, too, lay the ex-
planation of so much that had formed a torture for him-
self: her changing moods, her reveries, preoccupations,
abrupt sternnesses. Poor Adrienne! She had fled rather
than confront him whom she regarded as the victim of her
duplicity. He saw now that her daily life must latterly
have been wretched indeed. But if she thought that any
such paltry error or pardonable expedient would be suf-
fered to imperil for one instant their future happiness to-
gether, she had measured ill the capacity of his love.
An immense tenderness, a pity, and an indulgence that
were almost paternal, rose up in his breast as he pictured
the fair delinquent crushed with the shame of a treachery,
and weeping in secret his fancied estrangement. An
error, an expedient? Why, it was she who was the vic-
tim. She was the martyr of strictly conventional circum-
stances, those which, after a severance of association be-
tween husband and wife, sanction the severance of name.
It was no more than the right of a wronged woman to
shut out absolutely the memory of her wrongs. One
epoch in her life Adrienne had evidently sought to forget
and to erase; and she was now actually in the position of
{
280
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
That
a martyr to conventional injustice and mistrust.
noble girl, with-he had often thanked heaven devoutly
for the fact-no relatives, had thrown off the name of an
unworthy, perhaps an infamous, husband, and alone,
subsisting upon a slender independence, had begun the
world anew. She had resolved never to re-marry, per-
haps, and then-and then, they had met, and he, Sir
Sydney, had triumphed over her determination. It was
he, Sir Sydney, who was to blame; it was none other
than he himself who had placed her in a dilemma so
humiliating.
She had been married; what had been the story?
A divorce, a death? If so, the man might still be living.
He took up the letter again, and, with an overpowering
pang of jealousy, read through the sentences which en-
sued:"Rating truth and honor highly as you do, dear
Sir Sydney, you can never overlook my offence; irrevo-
cably I have forfeited your esteem. The reflection is bit-
ter to me as death; my poor temples throb as though
they would burst, I dare hardly pronounce your loved
name, even to myself, in the solitude of my chamber,
my tottering fingers can barely trace these characters.
Alas! my innocent dream of happiness has been too
surely dispelled. But it is impossible for me not to
perceive that I should have been unwelcome in your fam-
ily, amidst your friends, and in your social sphere. You
will deny this. In fancy I see the earnest expression of
your thoughtful face, I hear the ringing sincerity of your
tones. Ah, dear and kind friend, those assurances I can
only receive with a sceptical and sorrowing smile. Signs
have not been wanting that from the commencement I
was looked on in the light of an intruder; and I feel it
incumbent upon me now to release from a position of
embarrassment an honorable man who sees that he has
too hastily pledged his word, and who feels that his truest
happiness will require him to withdraw from that pledge.
;
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
281
I shall go forth, hand-in-hand with Art, bravely into the
world. Do not seek to discover my whereabouts; you
would distress me beyond the power of words. I am not
returning to Sloane Street, nor do I intend that it shall
Let this
be practicable to trace me from that address.
be our parting. I do not speak to you of my brief mar-
ried life. I married early it was the mistaken acquies-
cence of an ingenuous nature. If I have erred again, in
hearkening to the impulses of my own heart, and in
cherishing the chimerical prospect of a union with your-
self, dearest friend, forgive me. I did not sufficiently re-
member your own interest, the manifold considerations
which must necessarily weigh with you. Forgive me!
I shall think of you as happier with another; and if, in
the future, aught should recall to you the souvenir of her
who with an aching void pens these lines, let it be with,
if you like, compassion for her proud spirit, but, at any
rate, with respect for her high sense of duty." Then
followed the signature, a negligent scrawl, so terribly en-
deared to this elderly and arbitrary member of Parliament
and millionaire that, as he pressed it to his lips, his sight
became dim. "Your sincere friend and well-wisher,
Adrienne St. Maur." Your sincere friend and well-wisher,
-your sinceré friend and well-wisher! It sounded like
mockery.
}
But, for the inditer of these valedictory periods, for this
well-wisher and sincere friend of his, Sir Sydney had no
anger, no suspicion, no clear judgment. Her marriage
had been a girlish impulse, or she had allowed her will
to be controlled by someone whom she believed she
loved, someone beneath her, and the end had been
unhappiness, disaster, perhaps. This secret she had kept
through the ensuing years inviolate, happy in the
present, happy to efface the past; and Fate, with its
unerring justice, for those who could discern and duly
weigh, had brought to her, not too tardily, the compensa-
t
282
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
tion which was to reward them both: because in his own
life, likewise, a compensation had been owing by Fate.
When he had married, it had been with the truest and the
most estimable of friends; but their marriage had, after
all, been the mere neighborly business of a prosperous
felicity; and, if the jealous madness and the misery of his
first passion and disappointment had by that time passed
away, he could not honestly aver that his wife had either
possessed or fathomed his whole nature. No; he had
mourned her as the most estimable and the truest of his
friends. Adrienne had evoked less tranquil notions of an
earthly bliss, or, rather, had re-awakened the buoyant
aspirations and the glowing dreams which he had fancied
had forever gone from him with his first great grief.
Mingled with his vehement admiration for her was an
unbridled gratitude.
He would rejoin Adrienne at once. When she returned
to Oakdene it should be as Lady Chard. He could not
lose her. Fate, which had ordered their converging paths,
meant them to blend their lives. The senior partner
in the house of Chard & Urwen had unconsciously accus- »
tomed himself to see the hand of a propitious Deity in
the minutest incident concerning his relations with this
heroine of his maturity; and he might at the present
juncture have been capable of offering up a quad-
rupedal sacrifice to Lacheris, had he not been far too
busy a self-made city man ever to have heard of that
sister, star-enrobed. Fate had so ordered it that day,
however, that he should arrive in Sloane Street in time to
avert much,-in time to retrieve everything. If he had
returned earlier, he argued, as he rapidly gave directions
securing his immediate conveyance to the station, their
meeting would have formed too poignant a humiliation
for poor Adrienne-his presence would positively have
been unwelcome; if he had returned later to Oakdene,
as late as his habitual hour, he could not have arrived at
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
283
Sloane Street prior to her own hasty departure,-she
would have been lost to him,-lost, lost!-for he could
not doubt her high and manifest resolve.
In the foregoing train of meditation it was curious that
Sir Sydney proceeded on the assumption of deliberate
falsehood by his idol. She had expressly written that her
destination from Oakdene was not Sloane Street, and yet
he did not question that at Sloane Street he should find
her.
""
The absence of Miss Ida upon her customary charitable
visit afforded Sir Sydney prodigious relief of mind. In-
forming himself hurriedly as to the three points following,
he learned (1) that the servant carrying Miss St. Maur's
telegram for dispatch had not neglected to peruse the con-
tents of the message as well as its superscription; (2)
that the superscription was to initials, care of a news-
room in the district of Charing Cross; and (3) that the
language of the message itself "had no sense. The
words were ordinary words, and were legible enough,
but what they had meant, as written out together, in
Miss St. Maur's own hand, the domestic who had
counted them had been "perfickly unable to conjec-
toor." They were not in any order that seemed right.
Sir Sydney started, and his countenance changed.
might repel suspicion, but he could not banish a growing
wonder and alarm. The fact confronted him as unmistak-
able the telegram.addressed by Adrienne to initials, care
of a public newsroom, had been couched in terms of a
code.
*****
G
284
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
2
!
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE prosaic spectacle of Sloane Street, parched, ordi-
nary, and dust-laden on these languorous and threatening
July days, the distant view of an aspect absolutely normal,
accomplished much toward restoring in Sir Sydney the
benign and confident attitude of mind in which he had
usually approached the terrace wherein dwelt his "well-
wisher and sincere friend." Where everything around
him bore its normal look, he could not bring himself
actually to believe that what to his own view seemed the
abnormal could be in store for him,-amongst so many,
for him alone. As his cab came to a standstill he
glanced up at the familiar windows; they were open,
partly screened by curtains and blinds; but no face was
to be discerned. If he had thought to discern a pale
expectant face awaiting his arrival,—not a movement was
there, not a tremor of blind or curtain, to betray a watch-
ful presence. She had gone!
In the few seconds that immediately thereafter followed,
Sir Sydney, moving and speaking like a rational person
super-lucid and calm, virtually lost consciousness of his
acts. If she had gone!
It might have been better, too, that they had met no
more. What if the signal dupe of an immoral cheat, the
senile glorifier of a murderous lie, Sir Sydney Chard had
lived his life out, in abandonment, but always with
hope, always with an exalted faith! One of the few
things of beauty that are joys for any length of time, a
splendid creed, a fine, insensate, obstinate delusion, hal-
lowing the dreamer, not the dreamed, would have lived
out Sir Sydney's life along with him. It would have been
THE NIGHT OF THE 32 1
ULT.
285
well-the world would have been richer by one human
cultus, noble and enduring-if that well-wisher, that
sincere friend of his, could have performed a saintly
exit out of Sir Sydney's story, once for all, in the fashion
of an anodyne delinquency such as that which she had
chosen to avów.
The housemaid greeted him with sunny smiles; for if
Sir Sydney had been always open-handed, so had that
amiable domestic. Miss St. Maur was at home; Miss St.
Maur was expecting his visit. "I think that can hardly
be?" questioned Sir Sydney, outwardly assured and
pleasant, but clasping the balustrade firmly while the
steps in the cramped staircase before him settled once
more into their places. The girl excused herself: Miss
St. Maur was certainly anticipating an urgent call; and
the direction which had been given she had supposed to
apply to the present visitor. "What direction?" ventured
Sir Sydney. "Only that the caller should be shown up
to Miss St. Maur's apartments without delay," answered.
the girl, preceding him. "Do not trouble, do not
trouble," protested Sir Sydney; and his agreeable voice.
and manner convinced the girl apparently that, as gentle-
men would have their joke, this middle-aged or elderly
gentleman had unbent a little to be sportive like the rest
of them.
Sir Sydney turned, the handle of the door, and passed
in. The first room, smaller than the one beyond, was
clouded with tobacco-smoke, and about the floor lay
half-a-dozen cigarette-ends, of which one still smouldered.
Sir Sydney passed into the larger apartment beyond, and,
at the same instant, at the folding doors nearly opposite,
Adrienne appeared.
She was dressed for travelling. From a cigarette
clasped loosely between two fingers of her left hand, a
thin blue line of smoke ascended; her hands were un-
gloved.
1
286.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"You!" she exclaimed; and her accent struck Sir
Sydney to the heart.
He had been prepared for every-
thing he thought,—confusion, coyness, bitter self-denun-
ciation, majestic silence—even for an angry repulse, and
for each of these he had held a formula in readiness,
designed to soothe the sweet repentant, designed to spare
the uneasy pride. "You!" The gathering disappoint-
ment and impatience of her tone re-echoed in his ears
like repercussions of a knell.
"Adrienne!" he faltered, advancing.
"I told you that you would not find me here,” said
she.
Sir Sydney took her right hand and bent over it, press-
ing the fingers tenderly to his lips. "Why have you
followed me?" she demanded, glancing on one side, at
the time-piece.
"I came to call you back," murmured Sir Sydney.
"It is impossible."
"I came to bring you back to Oakdene, your home. I
came to tell you-
""
"My home? It is at an end, Sir Sydney,-all that is
at an end." Her tones were harsh and loud; she turned
from him with undisguised irritation.
Anybody would have imagined that, of these two, the
transgressor was the elderly gentleman. Sir Sydney re-
coiled from her, astounded and appalled. Something
had transformed her utterly; the being face to face with
him was unknown; this nature was not hers. He recoiled,
incredulous and dazed; and then, with a revulsion of
feeling, and overmastered by the physical enslavement
to which from the first he had assigned sophistical desig-
nations predicating qualities of intellect or soul, the senior
partner in the firm of Chard & Urwen cast himself at
her feet. The scene, that pitiable scene, ensued once
more; a frenzied man pleading for the answer "Yes,"
from a woman whose look, gesture, intonation, reminis-
?
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
287
cence, hope and unregretful resolve, speak brutally the
plain word, "No." In this poor, miserable situation the
man, grovelling in vain, offers and would sacrifice his
all; and very often his "all" means nothing but himself,
however perfect an equivalent, however true and just a
measure, of the object coveted; but here was a case in
which, indubitably, the offer of everything did mean that
there was everything to offer.
"My resolution is immovable, Sir Sydney. It was
adopted after deep thought, for your interests and happi-
ness, and for my own peace of mind."
"Adrienne!"
""
“You should have spared me this.
"I love you, Adrienne,-I love you!"
"Look-I have burnt everything-even your most
formal notes to me." She flung her cigarette into the
midst of a black heap strewn about the fireplace, and, as
Sir Sydney's habits of peroration came back to him in.
the energy of despair, interrupted him with a sudden.
fury. 'Do you not see," she broke out,- "that there
was more to say than I have told you! Otherwise, do
you think-do you think that this would have been noth-
ing to me?".
"There was something that you left unsaid?" whis-
pered Sir Sydney, very pale, but almost with reverent
hope.
In the act of replying she checked herself, and listened,
as if, whether from the ante-room or from the outer
entrance, the sound of movement had caught her ear.
"I wrote to you frankly, did I not?" she went on,-"I
wrote to you that your confidence had been misplaced,
that you had been misled."
$
"You are too cruel to yourself-and to me, Adrienne!”
"I told you that I had been married, but I did not say
that either death or the Divorce-court had set me free.
Well, I am not free." She watched him for an instant,
288
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
searching in his expression the effect of her words, and
then, as if the vacancy of his regard convinced her that
the blow must be repeated, to strike home, continued
slowly, "we can be friends, Sir Sydney, but no more. I
am not free."
Thus, all was over,-all, all! Fate smote him down.
Twice in his life this blow had fallen; and the strength.
of his earlier years, that elasticity of reaction, could not
avail him now, was gone, he felt, could never be recalled.
The mirage had again deluded him. Where lay the Para-
dise which he had seen? Nowhere, but in his heart-in
his own heart, alone, and what if, with the last breath by
us, came finality, extinction! O heavens! was life in
itself not the probation for a hereafter, but the punish-
ment, the bitter penalty, for some sin anterior ?
"I believed my husband to be dead. We had long been
separated, but he has full right to claim me; and he has
returned."
Before Sir Sydney's sombre mental vision the picture
of his past existence rose up in exaggerated shades. What
had his life resembled? A most dull journey through a
desert, where gold was to be picked up by the way. And
what was his life to be, henceforth? Of the same dull
march towards the horizon, always remote, a continuance,
with waning energies, and with a greater load of gold,
until he died.
"My husband claims me, and I must obey. It is my
duty."
Sir Sydney stretched out his arms, and, as he did so,
reeled, and caught at the nearest object of support. The
end had perhaps come, thought he, cautiously raising one
hand and seizing his head in a fierce grip; the end might
possibly be near, and he was helpless. This home, and
everything inanimate within it, he could buy-these and
the neighboring houses, their inanimate contents, and
some of the men and women, too, who lived in them, he
$
THE NIGHT OF THE 3α ÜLT.
289
could buy ; but his infatuation and his wealth combined
could not purchase for him the prize he had so madly
valued and had looked on as his own.
"The sufferings that a woman can endure, men do not
know," resumed Adrienne St. Maur, eying him curiously.
"We must part, Sir Sydney, but I am always your friend
and well-wisher, you know."
"Answer one question, Adrienne," whispered Sir
Sydney, again,-" do you rejoin him of your unfettered
choice? Can you be happy with him. Do you love
him?"
:
"Three questions!" she protested, with an unin-
telligible gesture.
"You do not love him, -is it not so? You do not love
him?" His voice gained in firmness. "You are obeying
what you deem to be your duty. But you will be sacri-
ficing your life,-and, remember, -ask yourself-have.
you the right? Do others count for nothing? Does your
life belong absolutely to yourself? Have we no claim
upon you?”
"He is my husband.'
The other paused, confronted by the reflection of his
furrowed and colorless visage in the glass upon the dis-
ordered mantelpiece. It seemed to him that he read
there, as plainly mirrored as his discomposed features,
the bare suggestion which he could not frame in words.
Facile is the downward path, proverbially. He did not
shrink from this betrayal of his thoughts. Would she not
comprehend?
She comprehended perfectly.
"That is madness," said
she.
?
""
"Our lives must not be broken, Adrienne," he urged,
huskily, averting his gaze.
"Is this man poor?"
"You would buy him!
!
"You had believed him to be dead. A little later, and
he would have returned to find you my wife. Well,
19
290
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
my fortune would have been yours-and I am rich."
"This from you!"
!
Adrienne, Adrienne-
"C
""
"This, from you, Sir Sydney! You would be capable
of purchasing my dishonor? Oh!"
To a third person, not bewitched, the accent of this
woman, and her gesture, meant to be both reproachful
and impressive, would have appeared simply vulgar and
overcharged. But there could be no gainsaying her rare
beauty; and if ever truth apparently spoke in the clear
regard of fervent blue eyes, if ever, to all appearances, an
expression was inspired by candor, it was here.
The sound of a hasty footstep reached them from with-,
out. The door was thrown brusquely open, and a man
of foreign aspect entered, wrapped in a cloak. On per-
ceiving Sir Sydney he stopped short, closing the door
noiselessly behind him. Sir Sydney advanced a pace or
two, his countenance convulsed.
"My husband," pronounced Adrienne St. Maur, in the
manner of an introduction.
"Enchanté!" responded the newcomer, bowing.
This man, her husband? Could this really be the end?
What was to be done? As he mechanically rendered the
salute, the vacant look settled over Sir Sydney's counte-
´nance again.
"We must go," observed the newcomer, this time with
the "peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkeyfied pro-
nunciation which says 'cage' for 'carriage,' and for 'time,'
'taim.' "We shall just have time to get to Euston.'
His broad-brimmed, high-crowned, soft felt hat removed,
and his cloak half thrown aside, he had much less of the
foreign aspect remarked at first sight. His complexion
was embrowned, he was clean-shaven, and he wore his
hair cropped close to his head. The eyes were small,
brown, and deepset, the cheekbones and jaw very strongly
pronounced, and the cheeks themselves slightly hollowed.
}
ܐ
"}
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
291
j
His massive torso, and long arms, revealed by the open
cloak, seemed out of proportion to his moderate stature,
but, this ungainliness of figure, notwithstanding, his
movements were full of grace and ease, and his step was
active and light. The man was Burini.
"We must go," he repeated,
"
"Are you not ready?"
Adrienne St. Maur buried her face in her hands, and,
as it appeared to Sir Sydney, gave way to sobs of the
profoundest grief. Rendered speechless, too, for the
moment by his own emotion, Sir Sydney could do nothing
but grasp the hand which, turning from him, she held
outstretched. An instant more, and she had fled. This
was to be their hour of parting, then! The man before
him had stepped in to thwart his will, and to ruin their
happiness; had risen from the grave bringing death with
him,-death to their souls! Perhaps,-"perhaps, only,
ran Sir Sydney's thought; by prompt action he might
rescue her. If this man had his price, he should be
bought; he should be bribed to disappear,-to go away
now, at once, never to return; he should be kept off, at
the other side of the world, anywhere, by means of fresh
bribes, which no doubt he would endeavor to extort, and
which Sir Sydney would but too cheerfully consent to
pay. Adrienne should be saved from him, and her
deliverance should be by the act of this man himself, not
by any act of her own. And, rather than incur the sus-
picion of having been impelled by any vile or interested
motive, he, Sir Sydney, would not seek to see her again.
No; he would be satisfied with having saved her from a
miserable existence, and he would live on, as best he
could, meeting her no more; or, they might meet occa-
sionally-yes, they might meet as friends-and he would
win at least her entire respect, by never again speaking
to her of his great love,-unless, of course, they should
learn that something had happened to this man.
rate, if this man's absence and desertion were to be pur-
At any
•
}
292
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
chased, the process never should entitle Adrienne even to
think those cruel words of just now, that he could be
capable of purchasing-the phrase rankled terribly, and
he shrank from its repetition-of purchasing dishonor.
The man passed him to reach the door by which
Adrienne had re-entered the inner apartment.
"I wish to speak with you," said Sir Sydney.
"With me?" The man paused. "Not now. Call
when we return to town. This afternoon we have not
much time to spare.'
"It is with you alone that I wish to speak."
"Ah?”
•
<<
""
'And, not when you return to town, but this afternoon
now."
"Be good enough to await me here, then," answered
Burini, assuming a slightly foreign intonation; "I shall
return to you presently." He passed through, into the
inner apartment, moving with a lithe and quick step.
The door closed behind him.
Left to his reflections, Sir Sydney pursued his plan with
a growing enthusiasm. Adrienne had given him sufficient
assurances of her affection, he argued, to place beyond
all question the belief that for this man, her husband, no
sentiment but absolute indifference-perhaps he might
say, aversion-remained in her mind. She was nobly de-
termined, however; the sense of duty always paramount
with her would banish rigorously from her view all saving
clauses and minor obligations, all personal regrets; she
would recognize but a single tie, the tie which bound her
to this man before the law. Sir Sydney honored her all
the more fervently for so much self-abnegation, so com-
plete a devotion to what she doubtless'deemed high prin-
ciple. At the same time she must in nowise be permitted,
from mistaken notions of duty, to work havoc upon her
own life. His should be the task of buying off St. Maur.
Sir Sydney started, at the recollection that St. Maur was
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
293
probably not the patronymic of the man he had just seen.
There was every likelihood that, if deserted by her hus-
band, in the past, Adrienne had reverted to the name of
her own family.
Whoever he might be, mused Sir Sydney, gazing
absently from one of the open windows, the man did not
look "unpurchasable." Just such a type of plausible
and impudent adventurer, with unbounded animal vigor,
might have been expected to ensnare or to over-awe a
Poor Adrienne! He
young girl astonished at advances.
could reconstruct the whole history, he thought. A
girlish impulse, hastened by unhappiness at home. She
had never wished to talk to him of the few relatives she
had known, or of her earlier years.
The rising and falling bustle of traffic, the normal
afternoon street-cries, mounted continuously from the
thoroughfare below. Through the half-closed Venetian
blinds he could discern the passers-by, the vehicles in the
roadway, a man who issued from the house itself and
who turned in the direction of a cab-rank stationed near.
A four-wheeled cab was drawn up at the pavement in
front of the house.
E
Now that he knew the worst, now that the shock and
first pangs were over, now that the uncertainty had
passed, carrying away with it all vague dread, his
strength seemed to return, his spirits revived. That
characteristic obstinacy came to his aid. She should
never doubt the motives that impelled him to the course
upon which he had resolved.. If she wished it they need
never meet. He would provide her with an annual
income, the acceptance of which would form the sole
request that ever she should have from him, and then,
happy in the thought that he had rescued her from
misery and was of service to her thenceforward in the
career which she had chosen, he could live on, not "as
-
294
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
best he might," bereft, abandoned, but in full possession of
a felicity ennobling.
#
Two figures traversed the pavement, beneath his eyes.
For one moment, recognizing these two figures, he failed
to grasp their reality, the meaning of what he looked
upon. They entered the cab; one moment more, and
the place at which it had stood, drawn up before the
house, was void. Collecting his thoughts, he could
scarcely convince himself that what he had seen was
actually so. Adrienne had gone. The figures he had
perceived were those of Adrienne and her husband.
The individual who had quitted the house slightly
in advance of them, re-passed, following in the same.
direction. He was now comfortably installed in a han-
som, but Sir Sydney recognized him easily. The features.
of this individual suddenly struck him as familiar; he
had certainly encountered the man before that day.
Where?
Where? The matter was of no consequence. "Where,"
-indeed! Whilst every instant was bearing away from
him the woman he loved, the woman who had deceived
him, whom he had forgiven, and of whose future he had
just disposed, he could gape at a window like a veritable
John-a-dreams, wondering whether, or how, he had not
somewhere once before met some occupant of a hackney
carriage, driven along a public thoroughfare! Rogue
and peasant slave! Peaking, "dull, and muddy-mettled
rascal!" Why, what had happened passed all compre-
hension. What did it mean? What could it mean ?
"Adrienne!” There was
He called her by her name.
no response. 'Adrienne !”
O, heaven !—if but those doors could open, and if
Adrienne, fair and equable, compassionate and indulgent,
pleased, and returning his mad love for her, could but
appear there and reply! He wandered through the room
unsteadily. She had not heard him; it might be that she
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
295
yet was there. At the folding-doors he paused; that
threshold he had never crossed; Sacro-sanct, the delimita-
tion must for him still be. He called to her once more.
Doubtless she had intended to return personally. That
man's resuscitation was a blow which she had thought
that she could bear, but which proved too terrible. With
the independence of her sex, in her nationality, she had
resolved to sever the merely legal tie which bound her to
that man, and she had escorted him, once and forever, away
from her home. At this very moment she was perhaps
bidding him adieu. How, otherwise, would it be possible
to account for her abrupt departure, without any leave-
taking towards himself, without any rendezvous, without
promise, without a word? No, he should hear her foot-
steps presently upon the polished flooring of the ante-
chamber; he should hear her voice in tender thanks to
him for his patience and his trust; he would fold her
presently in his arms, as though she was but a child, his
child, and he would beg her to forgive, and not to despise
or to disdain the weakness which his whitening hair had
planted in his heart. Would she not enter as she had
gone out, by the smaller door which gave ingress
directly to her private rooms? What step was that? It
passed. What voice? No chord vibrated in his breast.
O, heaven,-if but! Ay, "if but!" The spirit
that groaned was the spirit of a man extreme in pride
and arbitrariness, extreme in generosity and affection,
breaking.
1
*
A domestic of the house responded to his summons.
"When was Miss St. Maur expected to return?" inquired
Sir Sydney, outwardly as calm and super-lucid as at the
instant of his arrival, when filled with a foreboding of
that which had not happened.
ну вотка
"Miss St. Maur had left no word," answered the
domestic, new to Sir Sydney.
1
296
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
"She would probably return soon,-in the course of the
day, that evening?
The domestic entertained no doubt whatever upon the
subject, and promptly acquiesced.
"The caller of just now,-the gentleman who-"
"Had left the cab at the door?" The domestic
obligingly completed the indication. "That gentleman
was the professor who gave lessons to Miss St. Maur."
"You recognize him?" faltered Sir Sydney.
"Are you
certain he has called before?"
"Oh, yes, sir,-certain. Why it's Miss St. Maur's
professor."
"Since when?"
"Ever since I've been here, and that's three months,
and more."
'So that for the past three months he has been a con-
stant caller?"
"Not constant, sir, "-the speaker hesitated, inquisi-
tively," not continual, like, but off and on."
Without another word Sir Sydney turned upon his heel.
In a few seconds he found himself in the street.
What a day was this! Where should he go? What
should he think of? The cabman waited for Sir Sydney's
direction, attributing the speechlessnes of this absorbed
gentleman who had signalled to him from the footpath,
to a multiplicity of business engagements. The recollec-
tion of a promise to bring back to Oakdene news of
Lester's progress, dawned vaguely in Sir Sydney's mind.
He would drive to Burleigh Street; Vowcher would have
kept himself well posted: Lester and Ida, at least, thank
heaven, were still left to him. But before travelling far,
Sir Sydney substituted another destination for Burleigh
Street. An additional misgiving had suddenly assumed
tangible shape. For he now remembered, with distinct-
ness, it was in Vowcher's office that he had already
encountered the individual who had hurried from the
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ÜLT. ·
2.97
house just prior to Adrienne's departure,-the individual
whom he had perceived, the second time, following in the
track of the vehicle which contained Adrienne and her
companion. Sir Sydney shrank at his fears. He had
learnt enough.
In the interests of truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, it was a pity that Sir S. Chard, M. P., did thus
countermand his instruction. He would have arrived in
Burleigh Street almost simultaneously with Detective-
Sergeant Vincent Erne, whose case had moved his ire
some four weeks earlier, and whose partial disclosures,
at a moment of discomfiture, would now have taught him
by implication, that which henceforward he could never
know.
Sir Sydney attended in his place at the House of Com-
mons that night, and delivered a long and closely-reasoned
speech upon an abstract question of economics. Crossing
the member's lobby, afterwards, and apparently much
fatigued by his exertions, he was observed to stumble
once or twice, and then to fall; and those who ran to his
assistance, found that he had succumbed to a fainting fit.
A paragraph in the next day's evening newspaper an-
nounced that the Hon. Baronet, who lay in a critical
condition of health, would probably absent himself from
his parliamentary duties during the remainder of the
session.
!
298
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
CHAPTER XIX.
VINCENT ERNE was calling upon Mr. Vowcher in obedi-
ence to the latter's telegram, but also with an object of
immediate moment. As soon as Mr. Vowcher had
informed him of the facts interchanged during the inter-
view with Sir Sydney at Oakdene, Erne confessed that'
appearances now pointed to failure. Bitterly he regretted
that he had not in good time withdrawn from the force,
and regained his full freedom of movement. The event
had shown him that he was to be hampered by his duties
at the very culmination of his self-imposed task. "I
shall beg you to accept a little volume from me, one of
these days," he added, anxiously ; "whatever happens
in this business of Paradise Row, whether the guilty
people do, or do not get away from us, you will see
from my daily notes how completely the evidence pieces
together." From his breast-pocket he produced an oblong
book. It was the note-book in which he had entered the
particulars of his visits to the "Albert Edward" surgical
ward, Charing Cross Hospital. An indication at the top
left-hand corner connected the contents with certain
memoranda or records that had gone before; and across
the cover of this volume ran the title, broken into two
equal lines "The Night of the 3d ult.”
"July 1st,-July 2d," read Mr. Vowcher, turning
over the leaves," what will all this teach us?"
"When I have filled in the summary, -everything.
shall ask you to accept that little souvenir from me, on
my disappearance from Great Scotland Yard."
And now, to explain the grievous character of his mis-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
299
Y
Detective Vincent Erne
hap at the eleventh hour.
plunged into a rapid epitome of the results he had
obtained. By means of a close watch, he had succeeded,
first, as he believed, in identifying the murderous assail-
ant of the younger brother, Lester Brand. That assailant
he had, both then and since, traced to cloak-rooms at
railway termini, where the man would either deposit or
recover a bundle which contained his change of costume.
For the avoidance of remark? Yes, evidently; inasmuch、
as the garb which he had assumed for his visits to the
newsroom where he received occasional letters, could
not for an instant have been worn by him at home, an
inmate, as he was, of the lodging-house in Paradise Row,
the "Parsonage " itself.
"At the Parsonage !" ejaculated Vowcher.
"At the Parsonage."
Aaron Vowcher laughed outright. "Good," said he.
"Elementary, but,-good!"
""
The man had passed that night at the "Parsonage,” as
usual, but, attending at about midday at the newsroom,
he had received a telegram which must have suddenly
altered his plans. And now had occurred the vexatious
part of the business. The watcher employed by Erne
had been thrown off. Erne could only trust to the prob-
ability of the man's returning to the "Parsonage at
least once more. Otherwise, the clue was lost; they
would be out of contact with him. "I shall have richly
deserved failure," continued Vincent Erne; "instead of
closing upon what was in my grasp, nothing would suit.
me but to keep off, until I could make my extra-clever
capture! Let this man but come back to the Parsonage
to-night."
"Are you still at sea as to the confederate ? "
"Still there were two men; I myself saw them leave
the Parsonage, not many minutes after, as it proved, the
committal of the murder. But as to the other, I am still
#
21
300
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
at fault. What puzzles me is, why-if it has been so easy
for the second to vanish-the first should not have
"vanished" along with him."
"The one you cannot trace may be dead."
"Removed by the first, I know. If so, where is the
body? Hidden, perhaps. Very well; but who is the
correspondent, then,—the individual writing to the news-
room?"
","
Co
"What!" ejaculated Mr. Vowcher,, significantly,
you have not been able to ascertain ?'
""
(C
*
Something, but not all. The two letters which came
under my immediate observation were written by a per-
son who evidently intended that contents, postmark, and
handwriting should tell nothing, in case of accidents. It
was the same person, adopting a handwriting differently
disguised; and the postmarks would have led me to
extreme points of the suburbs. Oh, I ascertained' all
that!"
1.
Mantener d
"Unfortunate," muttered Mr. Vowcher, -"very unfor-
tunate for you, if your man has cleared out of the Par-
sonage to-day, for good and all. Did he suspect that
you were watching, think you?"
"Not latterly."
"You have cut the thing too fine, you see.
"They were alone in Mr. Vowcher's private room, and
Mr. Vowcher was extremely busy. Just then Freeling's
arrival was announced from the outer office. "Freeling
would be the man for you, if he could be spared," con-
tinued his employer, "but I put him on a rather urgent
matter only this morning, and he seems to want to report
at once. He can't be spared. Besides, good heavens!
-if your man has slipped out of your sight, what can
we do?"
"Look at this," exclaimed Vincent Erne, plunging his
hand again into his breast-pocket. He brought forth an
object loosely wrapped in cloth. It was a species of dirk,
""
·
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULȚ.
301
fitted with a curved handle. "When I go out with this,
I can leave my own knife at home.
It's the weapon
which served on the night of the 3d. I got it stolen from.
my man. Do you see the direction of the curve in this
handle, as compared with the side upon which is the
edge? That's a dagger which a left-handed man would'
prefer and a tremendous grip he'd get, too, with this
curve!" The speaker made a rapid pass from his right
to his left, in illustration of his meaning.
"And my man,
No. 1, as I call him, is left-handed. You remember the
later of the two cases, the murder of the cabman, Quilter,
in the by-street at Poplar? There were blood-stains on
the cushions of the cab; the instrument used had been
first wiped backwards and forwards along the surface of
the cushion, and then brought sharply down the edge.
Well, the former marks gave us approximately the
length of the blade, and the other, with the slight notch
in the material, exactly the breadth; this is the weapon,
Vowcher. David Quilter was suppressed, because he
would have been a positive witness. When I was called
into the house that night by Parson, and saw the smears
along the wall of the passage, I thought that one of the
strangers who had just escaped had sustained some
injury to his left hand. What I afterwards concluded was
that the fingers of that hand had been smeared in the rush
of blood from the wound inflicted upon the deceased
himself, the assailant being left-handed."
"If there is aid which we can give you it shall be
given," said Mr. Vowcher, in a tone of heartiness," but
I don't see what we are to do."
î
"Well,-let me at any rate understand that I can, if need
be, count upon confidential assistance here, Vowcher.
The fact is, I have still some faith in the attraction exer-
cised by Brand. I believe that the assailants will come
back to him; I believe that a fresh attempt will be made
upon his life.”
302
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
:
!
"Why?"
"It is clear that he may know something as to his
brother's past life, which, whether he suspects the fact or
not, may possibly incriminate particular individuals. He
knew, for instance, that his brother had been married.
Albert Lionel Brand had been married in America; and
the only letter which I showed to the younger brother,
out of those I seized, and kept, before the case was taken
from me, was a letter of taunts, written to the deceased
by his wife, whilst they were both in America. They
were both in America," repeated Vincent Erne, after a
pause,—“for the deceased had even treasured up the en-
velope; but they were in different parts of the country,
-and by the wife's act for she had eloped with some-
one else!
""
(C
'Ah, indeed? and why should you have selected that
particular epistle for the edification of the surviving
brother?"
By reason of the nature of the taunts, was the reply.
That "particular epistle" had taught Mr. Lester Brand,
on the night of the 4th, a secret by which he had been
utterly astounded and overwhelmed: the name he bore
had not descended to him through the tie of marriage.
Aaron Vowcher, listening with no very profound interest,
remembered the unfinished note discovered in fragments,
by his own assistant, visiting the residence of Lester
Brand, on the 5th. The sentences pieced together by his
assistant, and produced before the partners during his
conference with them on the 5th ult. at Gresham Street,
sufficiently revealed the writer's distraction of mind be-
neath an unexpected calamity. In the completed mis-
sive, the missive for the dispatch of which he had no
doubt gone out again, late on the evening of the 4th,
Lester Brand might have confessed his misfortune to the
recipient.
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
303
And who was the recipient? Miss Chard, -Sir Sydney's
niece, Ida.
The pressure of other details, Erne continued, had pre-
vented him from questioning Lester Brand upon the sub-
ject of his brother's marriage while they were together at
the Parsonage, on the evening of the 4th. Then had
ensued the murderous attack which had removed the
younger brother from the immediate scope of the in-
quiry.
"And the photograph you secured? you never showed
it to me," commented Mr. Vowcher, occupying himself
hastily, as he spoke, with memoranda relative to other
business.
I have it here, with the letters."
"Quite a museum, that pocket of yours!"
"Well, I have such a morbid fear that these few things
may fall into the possession of somebody else, or may
be destroyed by fire-lost-stolen-what not,—that I
never part with them, their bulk is nothing, and they are
safest with me. But I declare to you, Vowcher," added
Vincent Erne, reflectively, "I believe I am losing my
nerve. I have placed so much store by this case that I
have grown quite morbid about it. I dread improbable
accident; I suspect,—well, never mind all that !—you are
busy, and I won't weary you with my hypochondria.”
"Nonsense, my dear fellow !" returned Mr. Vowcher,
hard at work. "If we can help you, you shall have
Freeling."
'Do you care to look at any of these things,—the con-
tents of the museum?”
1
Mr. Vowcher noticed the reluctance of the gesture
which accompanied the words. "Not just now, if you
don't mind,” said he; “to-morrow." Then, as Freeling
made his entrance by the inner door, and Erne rose, in
order to leave them together, Aaron Vowcher detained
the detective with a repetition of his customary jest as to
304
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
the latter's punctilious scruple in business. "Freeling
will tell us in two words how his own case stands," he
ran on,- 'and if he can let things go for a day or two,
Be honored by the privilege; an
you shall take him.
S
invaluable man!"
Freeling bowed solemnly, and professed himself de-
lighted at the prospect of serving Mr. Erne's interests.
His own case might probably stand over for at least a
couple of days. The party had "gone down the line,"-
not alone; with another party.
"You can speak out," said Mr. Vowcher. "In two
words, what is there since morning."
There was a room to let in the house itself," replied
Freeling promptly,-"but, unfortunately, no apartments in
any of the houses opposite. I therefore took the room,
although-another disadvantage-it was at back of prem-
ises, not front. Impressed on housekeeper, however, the
essential importance of respectability to person like myself
connected with new mission-work in the district; terms
we shouldn't quarrel about, but respectability must be
guaranteed got conversation accordingly on to other
occupants of house.
"Yes, yes,” urged Mr. Vowcher, impatiently.
"Nothing to be learnt. Party had been staying with
friends for some time past. Retiring and studious. Pro-
fessor had been once or twice, to give lessons; professor,
a foreigner."
(C
Professor of what?" Mr. Vowcher put aside his
memoranda. Possible disclosures that might compro-
mise the future Lady Chard" were assuredly deserving
of his attention undivided.
""
..
Freeling regretted that upon this point he could throw
no light. But the professor had arrived while he was in
the house. The
The "party" herself had, first of all, unex-
pectedly returned from her visit to her friends; later, the
client upon whose behalf the party had more than once
THE NIGHT OF THE 3₫ ULT.
305
called at Burleigh Street during the past week, had
driven up to the premises and inquired for party; and
hardly had the one domestic informant whom Freeling
had secured by means of secret disbursements apprised
him of this fact, when the foreign. professor put in an ap-
pearance. The inconvenient situation of his own lodging
in the house had impelled Mr. Freeling "to do a little
watching from the outside," especially as the domestic in
question informed him that a four-wheeled cab had been
left in waiting by the professor.
"Did you get a view of this professor-man?" asked
Mr. Vowcher.
"Certainly," was the response; "and a very good
view-as he and the party had come out of the house
afterwards, had entered the cab, and had driven off.
Freeling followed them. From Sloane Street they went
straight to Cannon Street, the city terminus."
"Should you know him again?"
"Unless made-up,' undoubtedly," pronounced Free-
ling; and in the next breath he launched into a personal
description which, at any rate proved that he could well
improve his opportunities.
Then," demanded Vincent Erne, rebuking himself
mentally for the persistence of his fixed idea; this case of
his, this failure, was monopolizing his whole thoughts;
the description which he had just heard he had imme-
diately found applicable to Burini,-"if I should wish to
see you at a moment's notice, Mr. Freeling, I must
address to you in Sloane Street?"
}
"Or here," responded Mr. Vowcher-"here during
the next two or three days. Until those individuals in
question had returned from "down the line," the Sloane
Street engagement might be left by Freeling in abeyance
perhaps; although, the inquiry being in especial as to
character, it might be as well, too, that Freeling should
run down the line, in pursuit. How far had they gone?
20
306
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
The destination named by Freeling was a minor junc-
tion upon one of the southern lines to the coast. He had
followed close upon their heels to the booking office, he
explained, and he had been next them when they had
received their tickets. There was no mistake, and as the
matter did not press-
"Oh, well, we have plenty of time," said Mr. Vow-
cher again, impatiently. It was not his project neces-
sarily to obstruct the plans of the "future Lady Chard";
what he aimed at was to profit by them.
As the matter did not press, resumed Freeling, he had
refrained from going on; and, to avoid suspicion, he
had vociferated an inquiry at the booking-office with
respect to a different line.
""
"After all, I may have exaggerated the danger to my
own case, observed Vincent Erne. ((
Perhaps I have
come round to you in a bit of a panic. All may go
well." His faith in the "attraction exercised by Brand"
was reviving his courage. "But as Mr. Freeling will be
domiciled for a time in Sloane Street, and as my regular
occupations have hampered me hitherto, chiefly in the
evening, I should be glad to know the precise address in
case of emergency. Whatever Mr. Freeling does for me,
shall be properly remunerated, of course."
"If successful," interposed Aaron Vowcher, good-
naturedly; "not otherwise."
Attend
Freeling gave the number of the house.
For a moment Erne fancied that his own hearing was
at fault. Freeling noted the address upon a slip of
paper.
It was the same-it was the same!
The description had tallied with the appearance of
Burini, and this was the very house in Sloane Street to
which Burini had been tracked for him, but a day or two
ago. In his overmastering joy he could have divulged
his triumph. Was he to deserve credit for punctilious
[
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
307
scruple, and yet now hold his peace? A moment's reflec-
tion decided him. He could not trust these men,-not
even Vowcher, despite his continued friendliness.
"Do as you like," concurred Aaron Vowcher, with a
smile, and half-divining this fresh outbreak of mistrust;
but give me a call to-morrow, if you can.”
Two days afterwards they knew in the Vowcher office,
Burleigh Street, that the dead body of Detective-Sergeant
Vincent Erne had been discovered at a town on the south
coast, one of the points directly connected by fixed
steam-packet service with the continent. The body was
found lying near the beach at no great distance from the
harbor. It was concluded that he had walked out thither
late on the previous evening, and that he had fallen a
victim to a sudden attack committed by probably more
than a single individual.
In the course of the local inquiry which ensued, it was
proved that the detective had arrived by train early in the
day, and had installed himself at a private hotel not, as a
rule, frequented by chancé travellers. None of the local wit-
nesses had been acquainted with him in his political capac-
ity. A plain-clothes man, however, who had perceived
Vincent Erne enter the booking-office of the Cannon Street
Terminus on the evening prior to his arrival at the hotel
in question, testified that the deceased had booked, not
through to the coast, but to a station intermediate. On
reaching this place, a junction, it seemed that Erne had
at once inquired for travellers, a lady and gentleman, who
had preceded him from London. He could give no de-
scription of the lady, but the account he was enabled to
furnish of her companion had sufficed for their identifica-
tion by the ticket-collectors. The passengers had quitted
the station, had returned, and had re-booked, leaving by
the next train. By the time these particulars had been
gleaned by Detective Erne, the last train on for the same
308
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
A
destination had departed.
He had accordingly remained
upon the spot until the next morning, and had then left
for the place to which the travellers concerned in his
inquiries had themselves booked, and where, within
twenty-four hours, his dead body was found, as recorded.
Of the travellers thus followed by the detective to the
coast, there were no further indications. The chief con-
stable of the town explained that the continuous influx
of visitors at that season of the year rendered it compara-
tively easy for new-comers to escape notice. Amongst
those whose arrivals and departures would have roughly.
tallied with the dates were a couple of gentlemen
bound for a short holiday trip upon the continent; but,
although in the columns of a district newspaper an "Old
Resident" urged repeatedly that masculine garments
might have been donned for the purpose of disguise, or
vice versa-the "lady" pursued from the metropolis by
Detective Erne, being, perhaps, "no lady at all"-the
chief constable decided that the local circumstances of
the case afforded no clue.
As for the Criminal Investigation Department, they
were unable to explain even the absence of their officer
from London. Latterly, none but the most commonplace
duty, circumscribing him within a particular locality of
the metropolis, had been assigned to Detective Erne.
The one feature in the case which attracted notice con-
sisted of the similarity observed between the injuries caus-
ing death, and those which had been inflicted upon the
victims of the 3d ult., this fact, coupled with Erne's
undoubted personal share in the "Parsonage" investi-
gation, at its earliest stage. But nothing could be done.
Mr. Ewart Parson, for instance, who probably formed
surmises of his own, kept his own surmises rigorously to
himself. Burini had gone away; what of that? Other
tenants of the lodging-house had gone away, too; paying
for their nightly accommodation in advance, the "extras,”
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
309
"casuals," or "dossers,"
dossers," came as they went, if they
chose, without notice. The disappearance of Burini from
the lodging-house in Paradise Row had preceded by a
couple of days the murder of Detective Erne, but it was
not for Mr. Parson to do aught that might set people once
more talking about his establishment. Already, somewhat
greater than was, on the whole, good for the establishment,
had been the publicity enjoyed by the Parsonage since.
the night of the 3d ult.
In obedience to Mr. Vowcher's instruction, Freeling
remained at his post in the Sloane Street apartments for a
fortnight subsequent to the death of Detective Erne. But
Adrienne St. Maur never returned. No doubt the coinci-
dence of Erne's departure for the very destination which
had been indicated by himself, struck Mr. Freeling no less
forcibly than it would have impressed his employer. To
this incident, however, was absolutely limited Freeling's.
whole knowledge of the affair.
The chief in person would have been impressed by the
coincidence quite as forcibly as Freeling, had not the
midday post brought him on the morrow of his last talk.
with Vincent Erne a missive which the latter had dis-
patched to him from the country, late on the previous
night. In that epistle, Erne unreservedly acknowledged
that to the report by Freeling, in his presence, he had
owed the prompt recovery of his lost clue.
The man
seen by Freeling to arrive at the address in Sloane Street,
and to quit that address in company with the person as to
whom Freeling had reported, was indubitably the ex-
tenant of the Parsonage. He had been watched to the
same house, for the first time, only a day or two pre-
viously. The watcher, whom Erne had enlisted from a
district not contiguous to that of Paradise Row itself, had
naturally been kept in ignorance as to the precise import
of his task; he had been retained as watcher, and as
nothing else. Hampered by 'his duty, Erne had not been
310
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
པ།།།
able during the short interval to push on the inquiry at
once requisite, of course, in Sloane Street,—an inquiry,
indeed, which, whether it elicited any fact relevant or
irrelevant, would have demanded the exercise of the
utmost caution. When his watcher had come to him
with the avowal of having been thrown off, wrote Erne,
the single hope surviving in his mind was that, if the
man in question should have decamped from the lodging-
house, in sudden alarm, Sloane Street might place them
in touch with him once more.
'Had I hastened thither
directly," concluded Erne,-"I must have reached the
house too late "-he did not know that he would have
thereby saved his life-"I paid my visit to yourself, and
chance threw me in the right way. This place I leave
early to-morrow; my man has re-booked to the coast, but,
from what I can gather, he seems to be in no hurry. If
he intends to go on to the Continent, he will probably
wait for a night-boat, and I can intercept him-or go on,
too. I want to catch the accomplice, and perhaps this
means a rendezvous on the other side of the Channel; at
the same time, it may mean merely a pleasure-trip to the
sea-side. Who is the woman? As you are concerned
with her for business of your own, perhaps you can tell
me whether she is likely to know anything of this man's
recent life, or former history? Perhaps she might even
guide us to the confederate of whom I have never found
a trace."
The note-book headed, "The Night of the 3d ult."
neither came into the hands of Mr. Vowcher, nor was
found in the possession of the deceased. The murderers
of Detective Erne had rifled his pockets. A ring of con-
siderable value which he had been in the habit of wearing
had been left undisturbed, together with his watch and
chain; but his pockets had been emptied, both of what-
ever money they might have contained and of everything
in the nature of memoranda. Mr. Vowcher learnt, in
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
311
answer to cautious inquiries, that not a single letter, to
say nothing of photographs and note-books, had been
found upon the deceased. One further question which
he put was answered in the negative: no dirk, knife, or
similar weapon of self-defense had been discovered in
Erne's possession.
At the earliest practicable moment during the progress
of his recovery, Lester Brand was afforded a conclusive
opportunity for detailing his movements throughout
the evening of the 3d. M'Kagherty & Co., long after-
wards deplored the loss of their lamented colleague, Erne,
whose acquaintance with the case at its earliest stage,
they said, might have provided them with another clue.
As matters had turned out, they had failed.
Aaron Vowcher elicited indirectly from the same
source facts which carried him a point beyond the evidence
pieced together by Detective Erne. As the head of the
Inquiry Office through whose means the real authorship
of the frauds upon the Gresham Street house had become
established, it should have been easy for him to approach
Mr. Lester Brand, apart from the necessity of communi-
cating with the latter on the subject of his inheritance. He
found the young man silent and moody under the recol-
lection which the more and more oppressed him as his
strength gradually revived, --the recollection of the stigma
always to rest upon him through life, the stigma learnt
for the first time on the evening of his attendance at the
lodging-house for the identification of his brother. To
the circumstances of his parentage, as he now saw,
everything inexplicable to him in the solitary and friend-
less condition of his boyhood, had been due. Until the
death of his mother, when, he knew not why, Sir Sydney,
a stranger, suddenly created for him an altogether
changed existence, he had seemed to live on in a poor
corner of the world, hidden. His brother had left them,
knowing what he himself had only known upon his
W
312
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
brother's death. Mr. Vowcher explained that shortly after
his return to England, Lionel had written to the testator
for some pecuniary assistance; the assistance had not
been rendered, but, later on, the testator had executed the
will under which Lionel would have inherited the very
considerable property at present passing to, his brother.
The testator had lost sight of them all, and, but for
Lionel's letter might have ended by forgetting them all.
The letter had been couched in the bitterest phraseology,
said Mr. Vowcher, adding that these particulars had
reached him piecemeal from the country solicitors by
whom he had been instructed.
"Have you yourself any suspicions," inquired Mr.
Vowcher," as to the identity of your brother's mur-
derers."
"None."
"Can you account in any way for the attempt upon
your own life?"
"Not at all. I can only assume that, in my case, the
object was robbery."
"What do you know about your brother's career pre-
viously to his return to England."
((
Hardly anything.
He would not speak. Except for
a few vague details relating to his unfortunate marriage,
I may say that I know nothing of my brother's life.
"
Their talk occurred in the hospital ward, the invalid-
manifestly preoccupied--responding with the utmost
brevity. From those responses, however, Mr. Vowcher
gathered a very fair notion of the "unfortunate mar-
riage." Lionel Brand had espoused a young English
girl of great beauty, a professional gymnast, travelling
with a circus. She had been taken to America as a "child
artiste,” and at the moment of her meeting with Lionel
Brand was in mourning for the death of her reputed
parent, a gentleman whom nothing had ever induced to
set foot again upon British territory, where British law
1
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
313
lay in wait. Lionel had presumably acquainted her with
his family circumstances at the time of the marriage.
Almost from the outset, however, the girl had deceived
him. When the greater portion of his means had been
squandered, his wife quitted him for a life of adventure
with a ruffianly paramour, a fellow-gymnast,-of English
nationality, too, it seemed. Lionel Brand could have
borne evidence against them both in an accusation which
might have deprived them of their freedom to the end of
their days; broken in health and spirit, and utterly im-
poverished, he preferred to leave the country, accepting
cynically or helplessly, as the price of his silence, the
pittance which they had for some time forwarded to him
periodically, and which had, during such time, enabled
him to subsist. The woman herself might be alive now,
remarked Mr. Lester Brand, or she might be dead, or she
might be in prison: he personally knew nothing of her
whatsoever. He had never seen her portrait, his brother
had never even described her to him,--beyond this, that
a professional specialty of hers had lain in the assump-
tion of a, now masculine, now feminine character, upon
certain of her tours.
"Your brother did apprehend possible danger to his
own life, I believe," pursued Aaron Vowcher; "do you
think he feared an attempt by this woman or her as-
sociate ?"
Why should he have feared any attempt upon their
part? was the reply. He was never likely to molest or
to denounce them. He was glad enough to forget them;
he had been glad enough to escape. Those expressions
of his which had been recalled were merely incidental to
his condition of health; his nerve was completely gone;
his own frame was shattered. Besides, what could the
woman's motive be in seeking to remove him? Not to re-
gain her liberty, as, for instance, in re-marriage. A worth-
less creature of that description placed herself outside all
314
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
honor, sanction and legality. But, to concede the point,
where was the sufficient motive for removal; when, in
the States of America, divorce could be obtained with
ease?
Mr. Vowcher acquiesced, so far as re-marriage in
America might be concerned; but what of a contem-
plated re-marriage here?
"Did your
The conversation came to a standstill.
brother know of your position in Sir Sydney's house?"
presently resumed Mr. Vowcher, on whom a light had
broken.
"Yes,--through my letters.
He seldom answered
them, but it had been my mother's dread that we should
drift apart, and I used to write to him regularly enough.
I think I kept him fairly well informed."
Recollections flooded in upon Mr. Vowcher's mind. He
fell somewhat in his own esteem. Swinging his black-
rimmed eyeglass by its black ribbon, he continued
slowly,-"This woman, then, your brother's wife, would
perhaps be equally well acquainted with your position in
Sir Sydney's house. She must have heard at one time,
through your correspondence, a good deal of Sir Sydney
Chard.'
""
Mr. Lester Brand raised himself upon his elbow, and
regarded his visitor with a startled expression, as if
struck by a new thought. His likeness to his elder
brother, notwithstanding the difference in their ages,
might have been remarked by anyone who had seen the
portraits of the murdered man nicknamed by his fellow-
lodgers at the Parsonage, "H. R. H."
'What was the maiden name of your brother's wife?"
"I do not know."
"Well,
her professional name, -any of her names?"
'I never heard. You must remember that I seldom
saw my brother. He would not allow me to go to him
at the lodging he had chosen, and he chose that place
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
315
partly because he could live there on the slenderest
possible allowance, and partly because he had a terror
of being alone. If he had quitted those premises, he
would have moved into similar quarters elsewhere.
I seldom saw him. He was extremely reticent, and
much enfeebled in health; and I never questioned him."
"There is one individual who has moved," observed
Mr. Vowcher, sardonically; "I thought I was clever, but
it seems that I am not-I thought she was to have been
Lady Chard, but I don't imagine she will return to be
married."
The other sank back upon his pillow. "We must keep
this from Sir Sydney," he murmured.
"She has moved to Texas, I daresay, to study there
with her professor.
"We must keep this from Sir Sydney."
"From everyone," concurred Mr. Vowcher, with a
mental reservation. He was doubtless reflecting that
Aaron Vowcher, of Burleigh Street, had not infrequently
succeeded where others had failed.
""
I
""
At about the same time, and whilst the date of June 3d.
might still be referred to as "the 3d. ultimo," a gentle-
man from New York was chatting in a Swiss hotel with
two very worthy and simple travellers from England, who,
after their limited excursion to the Continent, intended to
see Central America, they said. The gentleman's name
figured candidly upon the hotel register; he had also been
recognized by several of his compatriots, touching at the
town as they "passed through." He was chatting to
these honest English people upon the subject of superior-
ities, and he soon succeeded in impressing them with
the superiority of American thieves and murderers, the
superiority of the American police, and the pre-eminent
superiority, among chiefs upon the official detective system
316
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
in the United States, of himself. The period of his holiday
had just expired, and he was about to return from Europe;
and his new acquaintances, alarmed by his account of the
risks attendant on Transatlantic travel, modified their
route in order to cross the ocean in his company. Admir-
ing English ladies hugely, the gentleman was even eager
to escort them a considerable distance overland, when
they should all have arrived in safety at the other side;
With him, of course they would be perfectly safe; no one
would dream of molesting companion-travellers-might
he say, friends?-of his! and so, these simple English
folks agreed to profit for a little way, upon the other side,
by his courteous escort and his attentions. On their re-
arrival at New York, afterwards, they were to call upon
him; little plans were laid out for their brief sojourn at
New York, afterwards. The prospect was extremely
interesting, for he should show them, he explained, the
superiority of American institutions over those of their own
country. In the matter of detective organization, for
example, the superior efficiency of the means at his own
command, as well as the superior calibre of the mind that
directed them, would have enabled him to solve every
problem of mysterious crime which in recent years had
baffled Scotland Yard. The assassination of actually a
detective officer-one Detective-Sergeant Erne-had oc-
curred to crown the failures by his English colleagues.
He did not know whether Great Scotland Yard was or
was not hampered by Whitehall, but his English col-
leagues would be most likely working the telegraph and
the cable, as to the case of Detective Erne, whilst the
guilty parties might be laughing at them under their very
noses, as it were. Ah !-in America they did things
differently!
This gentleman and his new acquaintances embarked
upon their voyage excellent friends. The husband-a dull
and rustic sort of personage, built like a powerful chim-
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
317
panzee, his stubby beard, the color of his short red hair—
he appeared to rate lightly. Towards the lady, however,
strikingly handsome as she was, and singularly ignorant
of the world, his attentions were most assiduous and
respectful, and might have betokened a friendship of some
She had the
years. The lady was extremely handsome.
complexion and the blue eyes of a blonde, but her hair,
which she wore cut quite short and parted at the side, was
dark, and her eyebrows matched her hair. The purity of
her accent in the English language she had acquired from
American friends, he understood, and indeed at times it
almost resembled the purity of his own New Jersey accent.
Her unsophisticated charm was irressitible; he won some
money from her husband, and agreed to stay with them in
Dorsetshire some day. Arrived-upon the "other side,” he
escorted them safely through all dangers. They never
came back to call upon him, however, in New York.
·
Long before his complete convalescence, Lester Brand
received the visit of Urwen, senior, to whose amende
honorable, as he termed the primary object of his mission,
the young man paid little heed. Sir Sydney Chard had
undoubtedly been prejudiced against the young man by
Raymond's premature communication, but both he and
his eldest son, declared Mr. Urwen repeatedly, had acted
with absolute good faith. The blow had been all the
greater to them when they had at length comprehended
the reasons for Vowcher's patient reticence. It was to be
hoped that in his new environment Julian would redeem
the past. "You called at my house on the evening of the
4th, at the very moment of a consultation with Vowcher,"
continued the junior partner in Chard Urwen," why,
-do you remember?" Under the influence of the shock
then freshly inflicted upon him, replied Mr. Lester Brand,
he had desired to explain at once a probable absence of
some days from Gresham Street. "I ask, because, from
318
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
identification by one of Vowcher's men, on that evening,"
pursued Urwen, senior, with some hesitation,-"it ap-
peared that Julian must have seen you?" "Yes. Your
servant told me that you were at home; your son told me
that you were not at home. Of course the second answer
was final." On behalf of his interlocutor's eldest son, the
speaker interceded with the plea of good intentions, backed
up by the argument of Raymond's prospective interest in
the house. The same plea had been used by Mr. Lester
Brand in correspondence with Sir Sydney himself, a private.
notification being added of his own withdrawal at a date
to be determined by the partners. The few lines which
reached him from Sir Sydney's hand sufficiently revealed
the grave nature of the crisis through which his old friend
and benefactor had passed. The labored lines were the
pathetic effort of enfeeblement after collapse, an effort in
which, as well as pathos, there was peril. It was presently
Miss Ida who perforce took up the pen. They wrote
from Matlock, and expected him to join them there.
When, simply, and with no veiled endeavor to extort
from the young girl the appeal for which he longed, and
which would have swept away his brooding humiliation,
but, as he tortured himself by repeating, at the expense
of her womanly reserve, Lester traced the sentences that
freed her from her pledge, he felt assuredly the full bitter-
ness of shame bequeathed. There were methods in
romance which often at the right moment saved our
susceptibilities; life was held up to us in the mirror of
poetical justice; therein the criminal must suffer always
for his crime, and unmerited shame must delicately be
averted from the innocent: so pondered the young man,
sadly, sighing at the frequent contrast of what might be,
or what should be, and what is. That which had been
was unchangeable. How bear this burden of his to
the last of his days? It would have been better to
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
319
succumb; it would have been better to pass onward to
the grave.
At an
But the appeal he dared not hope for, came.
angel's touch, his burden fell from him. Those timid
phrases, breathing the noblest dignity and sweet com-
passion, forced him upon his knees in silent thankfulness
to heaven. Before the close of the same day, they met.
"We are to think of nothing that has gone by, you
know, Lester," said Sir Sydney, with a strange upward
look, and a smile that seemed hardly of this world..
"There is the future for you, and for Ida; and, if you
leave me, I pray God-"
"Dearest uncle," implored the young girl, trem-
ulously," may we not say that we can never part from
you!"
"My child here would have me forever her dependent
and her pensioner, like the rest," returned Sir Sydney,
with the same slow utterance and illumining smile;
"well, well, we shall see,
we shall see, we shall see! But the
doctors tell their foolish old patient, who believes them,
that his strength will all come back again, -all come
back." He paused, and neither of his listeners could
speak. "Ah,-there was a certain Miss Ida, once," he
resumed, closing his eyes as he leant back in his chair,
"who said that for wrongs done by women, women
should atone, and who”
Repla
The young girl bent over him impulsively, checking
his speech and concealing her own crimsoned face.
"No, Ida,-let me hear," whispered their visitor.
"And who said, then, that, with herself, she should be
proud to give her name. Such was her wish."
"Yesterday, at this hour," began Mr. Lester Brand,
incoherently,-"to-day, even,-not many hours ago-I
thought it would have been better to have died-
""
"Her wish was as I tell you, Lester," pronounced Sir
Sydney, again, gently and in measured tones.
"Where-
320
THE NIGHT OF THE 3d ULT.
as, I said, on my part, that the name was yours already,
-if you will accept it from myself."
"My dearest and kindest friend!" exclaimed the young
man, lost in wonder at this treasure of affection vouch-
safed to him by the two beings whom he himself loved
above all in the whole world.
"And so, Miss Ida shall be my daughter-in-law,-and
yet have her wish."
"It was an angel's wish!" murmured the adopted son;
and mortal lips imprinted on the angel's hand a seal of
adoration that belonged to both the worlds.
THE END.
•
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AUTHORS' CATALOGUE.
[When ordering by mail please order by numbers.]
Works by the author of “Addie's
Husband.”
388 Addie's Husband; or, Through
Clouds to Sunshine..
504 My Poor Wife...
1046 Jessie..
246 A Fatal Dower..
872 Phyllis' Probation.
461 His Wedded Wife.
839 The Actor's Ward.
Works by the author of “A Fatal
Dower."
•
***
► •
•
• ··
•
•
•
•
•
✔
Works by the author of “A Great
Mistake.”
244 A Great Mistake...
588 Cherry*.
20
10
2d half.
1040 Clarissa's Ordeal. 1st half... 20
1040 Clarissa's Ordeal.
1187 Prince Charming.
1187 Suzanne..
Grant Allen's Works.
712 For Maimie's Sake.
1221 "The Tents of Shem".
•
+
822 A Woman's Love-Story..
677 Griselda...
•
10
10
20
…………
•• •
20
10
20
20
QAAARR
20
Works by the author of “A
Woman's Love-Story."
20
20
1
.. 10
20
Mrs. Alexander's Works.
5 The Admiral's Ward.
17 The Wooing O't..
62 The Executor.
••
20
20 1054 Mona's Choice.
1057 A Life Interest.
1189 A Crooked Path.
1199 A False Scent.
189 Valerie's Fate.
229 Maid, Wife, or Widow?.
236 Which Shall it Be?…..
20
339 Mrs. Vereker's Courier Maid.. 10
20
• •
490 A Second Life…….
564 At Bay.
794 Beaton's Bargain.
797 Look Before You Leap..
805 The Freres. 1st half.
805 The Freres. 2d half……
806 Her Dearest Foe. 1st half.... 20
806 Her Dearest Foe. 2d half.
·
•
·
•
814 The Heritage of Langdale
815 Ralph Wilton's Weird..
·
•
•
•
•
• •
• •
900 By Woman's Wit……
997 Forging the Fetters, and The
Australian Aunt..
··
·
•
•
• ..
20
20
20
•
====ARRAAAAA ARARA
··
20
20
20
Alison's Works.
194 “So Near, and Yet So Far!”…. 10
278 For Life and Love....
10
481 The House That Jack Built... 10
i
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59 Vice Versa
225 The Giant's Robe..
··
508 The Tinted Venus. A Farcical
!
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··
819 A Fallen Idol..
R. M. Ballantyne's Works.
89 The Red Eric..
95 The Fire Brigade.
96 Erling the Bold…….
772 Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood
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Honore De Balzac's Works.
776 Père Goriot..
1128 Cousin Pons...
• • •
S. Baring-Gould's Works.
787 Court Royal...
878 Little Tu'penny.
1122 Eve..
1201 Mehalah: A Story of the Salt
Marshes..
986 The Great Hesper..
1188 A Recoiling Vengeance..
1245 Fettered for Life..
Frank Barrett's Works.
..
188 Idonea..
199 The Fisher Village.
Anne Beale's Works.
❤
97 All in a Garden Fair….
137 Uncle Jack………
•
A
D •
Walter Besant's Works.
··
· ·· •
• •
·· D
··
• •
•
•
230 Dorothy Forster..
324 In Luck at Last.
541 Uncle Jack.
651 "Self or Bearer "
•
882 Children of Gibeon.
904 The Holy Rose....
•
906 The World Went Very Well
• • •
F
22 22
20
•
20
Then..
980 To Call Her Mine....
1055 Katharine Regina..
··
1065 Herr Paulus: His Rise, His
Greatness, and His Fall..
1143 The Inner House.
1151 For Faith and Freedom.
1240 The Bell of St. Paul's.
1247 The Lament of Dives.
10
20
+
10
10
10
20
220
202 2
10
140 A Glorious Fortune.
146 Love Finds the Way,and Other
Stories. By Besant and Rice 10
20
2220
28220
20
10
RAA ARAA989 222 RARRA
20
....
898 Romeo and Juliet: A Tale of
Two Young Fools……..
962 Sabina Zembra. 1st half.
962 Sabina Zembra. 2d half..
20 1096 The Strange Adventures of a
House-Boat...
10
20
10
1182 In Far Lochaber..
Basil's Works.
1227 The Penance of John Logan.. 20
344"The Wearing of the Green". 20 1259 Nanciebel: A Tale of Stratford-
547 A Coquette's Conquest..
585 A Dra vn Game…….
}
on-Avon...
20
20
20
M. Betham-Edwards's Works.
278 Love and Mirage; or, The Wait-
ing on an Island..
579 The Flower of Doom,and Other
Stories...
594 Doctor Jacob
1028 Next of Kin-Wanted
William Black's Works.
1 Yolande.
18 Shandon Bells..
21 Sunrise: A Story of These
Times....
23 A Princess of Thule.
39 In Silk Attire.
10
10
44 Macleod of Dare.
49 That Beautiful Wretch.
2220
50 The Strange Adventures of a
Phaeton...…….
...
70 White Wings: A Yachting Ro-
.mance.
78 Madcap Violet.
81 A Daughter of Heth.
124 Three Feathers.......
•
• •
...
636 Alice Lorraine.
636 Alice Lorraine.
926 Springhaven. 1st half.
926 Springhaven. 2d half.
1267 Kit and Kitty. 1st half..
1267 Kit and Kitty. 2d half.
1st half.
2d half.
•
125 The Monarch of Mincing Lane 20
126 Kilmeny.
138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly 20
265 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love
Affairs and Other Adventures 20
472 The Wise Women of Inverness 10
627 White Heather...
··
•
•
·
·
•
•
•
•
•
·
...
.
22 22222 & PRARRAR 208 228 282 28
20
.
R. D. Blackmore's Works.
67 Lorna Doone. 1st half……
67 Lorna Doone. 2d half.
427 The Remarkable History of Sir
Thomas Upmore, Bart., M. P. 20
615 Mary Anerley.
20
• ………….
625 Erema; or, My Father's Sin.. 20
629 Cripps, the Carrier...
20
630 Cradock Nowell. 1st half……….. 20
630 Cradock Nowell.
2d half…………. 20
631 Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale 20
632 Clara Vaughan...
633 The Maid of Sker. 1st half. 20
633 The Maid of Sker. 2d half.... 20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
315 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ-
mas, 1884. Edited by Miss M.
E. Braddon..
434 Wyllard's Weird.
ה
10
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
Miss M. E. Braddon's Works.
35 Lady Audley's Secret..
56 Phantom Fortune..
74 Aurora Floyd.
110 Under the Red Flag.
158 The Golden Calf.
204 Vixen.....
22 2222AAAQRARARRAR
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
RARERRARA
20
20
20
20
211 The Octoroon.
10
234 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery. 20
263 An Ishmaelite....
20
10
20
20
20
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
CD
478 Diavola; or, Nobody's Daugh-
ter. Part I.
478 Diavola; or, Nobody's Daugh-
ter. Part II...
480 Married in Haste.
Miss M. E. Braddon..
··
497 The Lady's Mile.
498 Only a Clod….
499 The Cloven Foot.
511 A Strange World.
515 Sir Jasper's Tenant.
524 Strangers and Pilgrims.
529 The Doctor's Wife.
•
...
487 Put to the Test. Edited by Miss
M. E. Braddon...
20
488 Joshua Haggard's Daughter... 20
489 Rupert Godwin.
20
495 Mount Royal..
20
496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss
M. E. Braddon.
• • •
• • •
••
•
Edited by
• **
542 Fenton's Quest...
544 Cut by the County; or, Grace
Darnel
-
Penalty of Fate.
881 Mohawks. 1st half.
•
A
..
•
549 Dudley Carleon; or, The Broth-
er's Secret, and George Caul-
field's Journey.
• •
•
•
•
•
•
D 4
•
548 A Fatal Marriage, and The
Shadow in the Corner..
10
..
··
881 Mohawks. 2d half.
890 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ-
mas, 1886. Edited by Miss M.
E. Braddon.
552 Hostages to Fortune.
553 Birds of Prey.
554 Charlotte's Inheritance. (Se-
quel to "Birds of Prey ") 20
557 To the Bitter End..
559 Taken at the Flood..
560 Asphodel..
20
561 Just as I am; or, A Living Lie 20
567 Dead Men's Shoes.
20
20
570 John Marchmont's Legacy..
618 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ-
mas, 1885. Edited by Miss M.
E. Braddon...
840 One Thing Needful; or, The
....
•
""
....
943 Weavers and Weft; or, "Love
that Hath Us in His Net
947 Publicans and Sinners; or,
Lucius Davoren. 1st half..
947 Publicans and Sinners; or,
Lucius Davoren. 2d half.
1036 Like and Unlike.
1098 The Fatal Three.
• •
1211 The Day Will Come.
••
2 2 2 2RAR ARRARARAR
20
...
20
20
•••
20
20
20
20
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2 2 2 2222 • 22202 2 2
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Works by Charlotte M. Braeme,
Author of "Dora Thorne."
19 Her Mother's Sin.
51 Dora Thorne.
54 A Broken Wedding-Ring
U • • * •
68 A Queen Amongst Women....
69 Madolin's Lover
73 Redeemed by Love; or, Love's
Victory....
...
76 Wife in Name Only; or, A
Broken Heart..
20
20
10
20 296 A Rose in Thorns.
20
79 Wedded and Parted…….
92 Lord Lynne's Choice…..
148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. 20
190 Romance of a Black Veil...
220 Which Loved Him Best?
237 Repented at Leisure. (Large
type edition).
10
20
...
254 The Wife's Secret, and Fair
but False...
283 The Sin of a Lifetime; or, Viv-
ien's Atonement……….
..
287 At War With Herself.
923 At War With Herself. (Large
type edition)..
288 From Gloom to Sunlight; or,
From Out the Gloom..
967 Repented at Leisure..
249"Prince Charlie's Daughter;"
or, The Cost of Her Love..... 20
250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Di-
ana's Discipline..
... ·
• •
•
··
••
295 A Woman's War.
952 A Woman's War. (Large type
edition).
•
•
297 Hilary's Folly; cr, Her Mar-
riage Vow...
953 Hilary's Folly; or, Her Mar-
riage Vow. (Large type edi-
tion).
299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride
from the Sea..
•
····
300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of
Love...
303 Ingledew House, and More Bit-
ter than Death……
Love...
308 Beyond Pardon..
322 A Woman's Love-Story
20 323 A Willful Maid.
955 From Gloom to Sunlight; or,
From Out the Gloom." (Large
type edition)..
291 Love's Warfare..
292 A Golden Heart.
20
20
20***
10
293 The Shadow of a Sin……..
948 The Shadow of a Sin. (Large
type edition)..
20
10
294 The False Vow; or, Hilda; or,
Lady Hutton's Ward.....
928 The False Vow; or, Hilda; or,
Lady Hutton's Ward. (Large
type edition).
294 Lady Hutton's Ward; or, Hilda;
or, The False Vow..
928 Lady Hutton's Ward; or, Hilda;
or, The False Vow.
type edition)………….
(Large
...
294 Hilda; or, The False Vow; or,
Lady Hutton's Ward...
928 Hilda; or, The False Vow; or,
Lady Hutton's Ward. (Large
type edition)..
···
4
304 In Cupid's Net.
•
305 A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwen-
doline's Dream.
306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for
a Day...
307 Two Kisses, and Like no Other
+4
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THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
1
411 A Bitter Atonement.....
433 My Sister Kate.
459 A Woman's Temptation
(Large type edition)..
951 A Woman's Temptation.
460 Under a Shadow..
465 The Earl's Atonement.
466 Between Two Loves.
467 A Struggle for a Ring
469 Lady Damer's Secret.
470 Evelyn's Folly..
471 Thrown on the World…….
476 Between Two Sins; or, Married
in Haste.
516 Put Asunder; or, Lady Castle-
maine's Divorce..
•
………….
","aff
••• •
•
821 The World Between Them.
832 A Passion Flower..
•
J
.. ·
·
•
•
576 Her Martyrdom.
626 A Fair Mystery; or, The Perils
of Beauty.
………
741 The Heiress of Hilldrop; or,
The Romance of a Young Girl 20
745 For Another's Sin; or, A Strug-
gle for Love..
792 Set in Diamonds.
·
•
•
•
...
••
·· ·
··
►
853 A True Magdalen..
854 A Woman's Error..
922 Marjorie.
•
924 "Twixt Smile and Tear.
927 Sweet Cymbeline.
...
929 The Belle of Lynn; or, The
Miller's Daughter..
931 Lady Diana's Pride....
949 Claribel's Love Story; or, Love's
Hidden Depths.
958 A Haunted Life; or, Her Terri-
ble Sin...
•
969 The Mystery of Colde Fell; or,
Not Proven
•
• •
•
978 The Squire's Darling.
• ••
975 A Dark Marriage Mörn..
978 Her Second Love..
982 The Duke's Secret.
986 On Her Wedding Morn, and
The Mystery of the Holly-Tree
988 The Shattered Idol, and Letty
Leigh...
990 The Earl's Error, and Arnold's
Promise...
· · •
...
•
1179 Beauty's Marriage.
1185 A Fiery Ordeal…….
1195 Dumaresq's Temptation..
1285 Jenny..
1291 The Star of Love.
··
•••
995 An Unnatural Bondage, and
That Beautiful Lady.
1006 His Wife's Judgment.
1008 A Thorn in Her Heart.
1010 Golden Gates..
1012 A Nameless Sin.
..
1014 A Mad Love.
1081 Irene's Vow..
1052 Signa's Sweetheart..
1091 A Modern Cinderella.
1134 Lord Elesmere's Wife.
❤
• •
.
•
• • Co •
•
• *
A
•
1155 Lured Away; or, The Story of
a Wedding Ring, and The
Heiress of Arne..
•
•
•
•
29 2-222RAAR - A2 2 2 22AAAAAAA 22 2 2 22222 2 2 2 2AR22222-2
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•
10
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
Charlotte Bronte's Works.
15 Jane Eyre...
57 Shirley.
944 The Professor....
Rhoda Broughton's Works.
......
86 Belinda...
101 Second Thoughts..
227 Nancy.
645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains...
758 "Good-bye, Sweetheart!".
765 Not Wisely, But Too Well.
767 Joan...
768 Red as a Rose is She
769 Cometh Up as a Flower.
862 Betty's Visions..
894 Doctor Cupid....
Robert Buchanan's Works.
145 "Storm-Beaten :" God and The
Man....
154 Annan Water..
181 The New Abelard.
398 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan….. 10
646 The Master of the Mine
20
·
892 That Winter Night; or, Love's
Victory
1074 Stormy Waters.
•
1104 The Heir of Linne....
898282
1234 The Deemster..
1255 The Bondman..
Mrs.
..
•
··
Love..
20 1070 A Life's Mistake
D
•
• • • ·
• ··
...
D
20 1204 The Lodge by the Sea.
20 1205 A Lost Wife..
...
•
•
...
10 1230 Her Father's Daughter.
20 1261 Wild George's Daughter....
1290 The Cost of a Lie...
1292 Bosky Dell…….
..
...
**
595 A North Country Maid.
796 In a Grass Country..
891 Vera Nevill; or, Poor Wisdom's
Chance.
•
•••
•
20
912 Pure Gold..
20
963 Worth Winning
20 1025 Daisy's Dilemma.
• ..
20 1028 A Devout Lover; or, A Wasted
•
··
Captain Fred Burnaby's Works.
375 A Ride to Khiva.
384 On Horseback Through Asia
Minor...
E. Fairfax Byrrne's Works.
521 Entangled..
538 A Fair Country Maid.........
...
•
•
Hall Caine's Works.
20
445 The Shadow of a Crime.....
520 She's All the World to Me…………. 10
20
20
20
20
20
•
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H. Lovett Cameron's Works.
··
20
20
20
•
10%
20
20
20
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20
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22 2222 QARAGARR
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10
Rosa Nouchette Carey's Works,
20 215 Not Like Other Girls..
20 396 Robert Ord's Atonement.
20
20
20
20
551 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. 1st
half..
20
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
5'
551 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. 2d
half..
1st half.
2d balf
608 For Lilias.
608 For Lilias.
980 Uncle Max.
930 Uncle Max.
982 Queenie's Whim. 1st half.
982 Queenie's Whim. 2d half.
934 Wooed and Married. 1st half. 20
2d half. 20
1st half... 20
2d half... 20
20
1st half.
2d half.
..
• •
52 The New Magdalen..
102 The Moonstone....
167 Heart and Science..
•
934 Wooed and Married.
936 Nellie's Memories.
936 Nellie's Memories.
061 Wee Wife…………
1083 Esther: A Story for Girls..... 20
1064 Only the Governess.
1185 Aunt Diana..
Wilkie Collins's Works.
•
• •
··
168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens
and Collins...
175 Love's Random
Other Stories…..
··
·
·· a
1194 The Search for Basil Lyndhurst 30
1208 Merle's Crusade...
20
233 "I Say No;" or, The Love-Let-
ter Answered..
508 The Girl at the Gate..
591 The Queen of Hearts.
613 The Ghost's Touch, and Percy
wis Carroll's Works.
462 Alice's Adventures in Wonder-
land. Illustrated by John
Tenniel.
789 Through the Looking-Glass,
and What Alice Found There.
Illustrated by John Tenniel.. 20
J. Maclaren Cobban's Works.
485 Tinted Vapours....
1279 Master of His Fate….
..
Shot, and
··
1st half.
2d half..
+
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.
20
20
•
20
•
20
20
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20
20
AROAR
20
20
10
20
988 A A RAR AAS
and the Prophet..
623 My Lady's Money
20
20
701 The Woman in White. 1st half 20
701 The Woman in White. 2d half 20
702 Man and Wife.
702 Man and Wife.
764 The Evil Genius..
806 The Guilty River.
946 The Dead Secret.
977 The Haunted Hotel.
1029 Armadale.
20
20
20
20
1st half.
20
2d half.
20
20
1029 Armadale.
1095 The Legacy of Cain.
1119 No Name. 1st half..
1119 No Name. 2d half.
1269 Blind Love..
20
20
20
10
20
20
10
10
20
10
20
10
10
Mabel Collins's Works.
749 Lord Vanecourt's Daughter... 20
828 The Prettiest Woman in Warsaw 20
Hugh Conway's Works.
240 Called Back.
251 The Daughter of the Stars, and
Other Tales..
301 Dark Days…..
10
10
10
302 The Blatchford Bequest...... 10
502 Carriston's Gift..
10
525 Paul Vargas, and Other Stories 10
543 A Family Affair.
20
601 Slings and Arrows, and Other
Stories..
711 A Cardinal Sin.
804 Living or Dead.
830 Bound by a Spell..
.....
310 The Prairie...
318 The Pioneers; or, The Sources
of the Susquehanna..
349 The Two Admirals..
359 The Water-Witch..
361 The Red Rover.
373 Wing and Wing
378 Homeward Bound; or, The
Chase..
•
1170 The Pilot..
•
J. Fenimore Cooper's Works.
60 The Last of the Mohicans..... 20
63 The Spy...
309 The Pathfinder.
•
•
··
...
379 Home as Found. (Sequel to
Homeward Bound”).
66
380 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted
Knoll ....
385 The Headsman; or, The Ab-
baye des Vignerons
394 The Bravo………….
397 Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leag-
uer of Boston.
..
...
•
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...
W
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••
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431 The Monikins.
1062 The Deerslayer; or, The First
War-Path. 1st half.
··
1062 The Deerslayer; or, The First
War-Path. 2d half.
APAR ARRR
Marie Corelli's Works.
1068 Vendetta! or, The Story of One
Forgotten...
10
20
400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish.. 20
413 Afloat and Ashore..
414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to
"Afloat and Ashore ").
415 The Ways of the Hour.
416 Jack Tier; or. The Florida Reef 20
419 The Chainbearer; or, The Lit-
tle-page Manuscripts..
420 Satanstoe; or, The Littlepage
Manuscripts..
421 The Redskins; or, Indian and
Injin.
Being the conclusion
of the Littlepage Manuscripts 20
422 Precaution....
20
423 The Sea Lions; or, The 'Lost
Sealers
•
4
424 Mercedes of Castile; or, The
Voyage to Cathay.
425 The Oak Openings; or, The
Bee-Hunter.
20
20
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20
20
20
20
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20
22 2 2 22 2 22
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1181 Thelma. 1st half.
1131 Thelma. 2d half..
Georgiana M. Craik's Works.
450 Godfrey Helstone..
606 Mrs. Hollyer....
20
22280
22222220
6
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
B. M. Croker's Works.
207 Pretty Miss Neville....
260 Proper Pride…….
412 Some One Else……
1124 Diana Barrington………….
Alphonse Daudet's Works.
534 Jack..
574 The Nabob: A Story of Parisiar
Life and Manners.....………….
77 A Tale of Two Cities..
84 Hard Times..
May Crommelin's Works.
452 In the West Countrie……
20
619 Joy; or, The Light of Cold- .
Home Ford....
20
647 Goblin Gold.
10
··
Charles Dickens's Works.
10 The Old Curiosity Shop.... 20
22 David Copperfield. Vol. I.... 20
22 David Copperfield. Vol. II... 20
24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. I...... 20
24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. II…………. 20
37 Nicholas Nickleby. 1st half.. 20
37 Nicholas Nickleby. 2d half... 20
41 Oliver Twist....
• • · •
...
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91 Barnaby Rudge. 1st half.
91 Barnaby Rudge. 2d half.
94 Little Dorrit. 1st half..
94 Little Dorrit. 2d half.
106 Bleak House. 1st half.
106 Bleak House. 2d half.
107 Dombey and Son. 1st half... 20
107 Dombey and Son. 2d half………. 20
108 The Cricket on the Hearth, and
Doctor Marigold..
·
...
20
10
Sarah Doudney's Works.
338 The Family Difficulty.
679 Where Two Ways Meet
•
20
20
+
··
2020
10
131 Our Mutual Friend. 1st half. 20°
131 Our Mutual Friend. 2d half.. 20
132 Master Humphrey's Clock.... 10
152 The Uncommercial Traveler.. 20
168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens
and Collins...
•
169 The Haunted Man.
437 Life and Adventures of Martin
Chuzzlewit. 1st half.
437 Life and Adventures of Martin
Chuzzlewit. 2d half..
439 Great Expectations.
440 Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings.
447 American Notes...
...
448 Pictures From Italy, and The
Mudfog Papers, &c..
454 The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 20
456 Sketches by Boz. Illustrative
of Every-day Life and Every-
day People..
20
20
453 The Lottery Ticket.
475 The Prima Donna's Husband. 20
522 Zig-Zag, the Clown; or, The
Steel Gauntlets....
20
523 The Consequences of a Duel. A
Parisian Romance.
20
648 The Angel of the Bells.
20
697 The Pretty Jailer. 1st half. 20
697 The Pretty Jailer. 2d half………. 20
699 The Sculptor's Daughter. 1st
half
699 The Sculptor's Daughter. 2d
half....
20
2d half.
20
782 The Closed Door. 1st half.
782 The Closed Door.
851 The Cry of Blood. 1st half. 20
851 The Cry of Blood. 2d half………
918 The Red Band. 1st half..
918 The Red Band. 2d half
942 Cash on Delivery...
20
20
20
20
1076 The Mystery of an Omnibus.. 20
1080 Bertha's Secret. 1st half..... 20
1080 Bertha's Secret. 2d half.
10
20
1082 The Severed Hand. 1st half.. 20
1082 The Severed Hand. 2d half.. 20
20 1085 The Matapan Affair. 1st half 20
20 1085 The Matapan Affair. 2d half 20
20 1088 The Old Age of Monsieur Le-
coq. 1st half.
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676 A Child's History of England. 20
20
20
20
20
10
10
F. Du Boisgobey's Works.
82 Sealed Lips...
104 The Coral Pin. 1st half.
104 The Coral Pin. 2d half……………….
204 Piédouche, a French Detective 10
2229
20
20
328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner.
First half.
20
...
328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner.
Second half..
2 Molly Bawn.
6 Portia
•
•
•••
•
•
···
1
►
…….
...
1088 The Old Age of Monsieur Le-
coq. 2d half……….
"The Duchess's” Works.
...
·
•⇓
•
•
14 Airy Fairy Lilian.
16 Phyllis...
25 Mrs. Geoffrey: (Large type
edition).
950 Mrs. Geoffrey
·
29 Beauty's Daughters.
30 Faith and Unfaith.
•
...
體
​2 222 2 2222 2 222222RRARARAR2 2 2
•
20
20
Eve..
390 Mildred Trevanion..
404 In Durance Vile, and Other
Stories....
20
486 Dick's Sweetheart:
494 A Maiden All Forlorn, and Bar.
bara....
20
20
20
118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and
Eric Dering..
10
119 Monica, and A. Rose Distill'd.. 10
123 Sweet is True Love..
2888 AAAR AAAA A 20 A A A OR
20
20
20
20
... 10
129 Rossmoyne………
10
134 The Witching Hour, and Other
Stories..
136 "That Last Rehearsal," and
Other Stories.
10
10
20
10
166 Moonshine and Marguerites... 10
171 Fortune's Wheel, and Other
Stories...
10.
284 Doris ...
.. 20
312 A Week's Amusement; or, A
Week in Killarney.
....
342 The Baby, and One New Year's
10
10
10
20
10
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
517 A Passive Crime, and Other
Stories
541 As It Fell Upon a Day.
733. Lady Branksmere.
771 A Mental Struggle..
785 The Haunted Chamber
862 Ugly Barrington..
10
10
875 Lady Valworth's Diamonds... 20
1009 In an Evil Hour, and Other
Stories..
...
66
1
• •
• •
• ·
...
...
·
That Night in
June."-A Wrong Turning.-
Irish Love and Marriage.
1209 A Troublesome Girl..
1249 A Life's Remorse.
• •
1016 A Modern Circe.
1035 The Duchess..
1047 Marvel.....
1103 The Honorable Mrs. Vereker.. 20
1123 Under-Currents...
1197 "Jerry.
20
11
•
>
•
• ••
1112 Only a Word
1114 The Sisters...
1198 Gred of Nuremberg.
• · •
Alexander Dumas's Works.
55 The Three Guardsmen..
75 Twenty Years After...
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo.
Part I...
··
•
■
•
262 The Count of Monte Cristo.
Part II.....
717 Beau Tancrede; or, The Mar-
riage Verdict.
...
1058 Masaniello; or, The Fisherman
of Naples....
..
.....
....
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mance of the Fifteenth Cent-
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10
•
20
20
20
20
20
10
20
20
George Ebers's Works.
474 Serapis. An Historical Novel 20
983 Uarda..
22 2 2 2 2
20
1056 The Bride of the Nile.
1056 The Bride of the Nile.
1994 Homo Sum..
1097 The Burgomaster's Wife.
1101 An Egyptian Princess. Vol. I. 20
1101 An Egyptian Princess. Vol. II. 20
1106 The Emperor.
1st half 20
2d half 20
20
20
··
20
20
30
30
20
20
222
20
20
ury...
20
1266 Joshua: A Biblical Picture.... 20
20
Maria Edgeworth's Works.
708 Ormond……….
788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 20
20
•
Mrs. Annie Edwards's Works.
644 A Girton Girl.....
834 A Ballroom Repentance...
835 Vivian the Beauty.
836 A Point of Honor.
20
20
20
20
837 A Vagabond Heroine.
10
838 Ought We to Visit Her?……... 20
839 Leah: A Woman of Fashion.. 20
841 Jet: Her Face or Her Fortune? 10
842 A Blue-Stocking.
843 Archie Lovell,
844 Susan Fielding..
10
20
20
...
845 Philip Earnscliffe ;
or, The
Morals of May Fair.
20
846 Steven Lawrence. 1st half……. 20
846 Steven Lawrence. 2d half.
850 A Playwright's Daughter..
20
10
George Eliot's Works.
3. The Mill on the Floss..
31 Middlemarch. 1st half..
31 Middlemarch. 2d half.
34 Daniel Deronda. 1st half.
2d half.
36 Adam Bede. 1st half.
36 Adam Bede. 2d half..
42 Romola...
34 Daniel Deronda.
179 Little Make-Believe.
573 Love's Harvest.
607 Self-Doomed.
616 The Sacred Nugget.
657 Christinas Angel.
907 The Bright Star of Life.
909 The Nine of Hearts
693 Felix Holt, the Radical.
707 Silas Marner: The Weaver of
Raveloe..
728 Janet's Repentance..
762 Impressions of Theophrastus
Such..
B. L. Farjeon's Works.
··
• Y
••
•
...
··
•
736 Roy and Viola.
740 Rhona.
·
•
•
··
D •
729 Mignon...
732 From Olympus to Hades.
734 Viva...
# •
*
…….
G, Manville, Fenn's Works,
193 The Rosery Folk..
558 Poverty Corner.
587 The Parson o' Dumford……..
609 The Dark House...
1169 Commodore Junk..
1276 The Mynns' Mystery.
1293 In Jeopardy.
20
1302 The Master of the Ceremonies 20
1313 Eve at the Wheel...
20
Octave Feuillet's Works.
Mrs. Forrester's Works.
•
66 The Romance of a Poor Young
Man..
386 Led Astray; or, "La Petite
Comtesse "
•
.. 20
•
•
80 June..
280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So-
ciety..
484 Although He Was a Lord, and
Other Tales...
715 I Have Lived and Loved.
721 Dolores.
• D •
724 My Lord and My Lady
726 My Hero…………
727 Fair Women..
•
282292822 AA A
20
... 20
20
10
744 Diana Carew; or, For a Wom-
an's Sake………..
883 Once Again....
ARARARR
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10
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20
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د
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
Jessie Fothergill's Works.
314 Peril.......
572 Healey.
935 Borderland.
•
1099 The Lasses of Leverhouse.
1275 A March in the Ranks…..
R. E. Francillon's Works.
135 A Great Heiress: A Fortune
in Seven Checks..
*
319 Face to Face: A Fact in Seven
Fables...
360 Ropes of Sand
•••
656 The Golden Flood. By R. E.
Francillon and Wm. Šenior..
911 Golden Bells...
ignolles.
1167 Captain Cortanceau..
•
•
■■
• ··
··
222 The Sun-Maid..
555 Cara Roma...
...
Charles Gibbon's Works,
614 No. 99....
080 Fast and Loose.
Miss Grant's Works.
.....
Emile Gaboriau's Works.
7 File No. 113..
20
12 Other People's Money
20
Vol. II..... 20 | 1309 Desperate Remedies..
20
20 Within an Inch of His Life... 20
26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol I..
Vol I....... 20
26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol. II..
33 The Clique of Gold……….
38 The Widow Lerouge...
43 The Mystery of Orcival.
143 One False, Both Fair.
144 Promises of Marriage.
358 Within the Clasp...
979 The Count's Secret. Part I..
Part I... 201307 The Lady Egeria.
979 The Count's Secret. Part II.. 20
1002 Marriage at a Venture........ 20
1015 A Thousand Francs Reward.. 20
1045 The 13th Hussars....
20
1078 The Slaves of Paris.-Black-
mail. 1st half…….
1078 The Slaves of Paris.
64 A Maiden Fair….
317 By Mead and Stream.'
1277 Was Ever Woman in this Hu-
mor Wooed?…….
•
•
22222
20
20
………
The
Champdoce Secret. 2d half.. 20
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1105 Maiwa's Revenge,
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408 Lester's Secret...
678 Dorothy's Venture
716 Victor and Vanquished..
849 A Wicked Girl..
987 Brenda Yorke..
1026 A Dark Inheritance.
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120 Tom Brown's Sehool Days at
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20 1139 Tom Brown at Oxford. Vol. I. 20
201 1139 Tom Brown at Oxford. Vol. II. 20
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