The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ® - Морис Леблан

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from his rogueries, as best within the jurisdiction of the English courts, the matter of the payment for the Castle of Lebenstein—made in London, and through a London banker. “I have a warrant on that ground,” he said. I trembled as he spoke. I felt at once that the episode of the commission, the exposure of which I dreaded so much, must now become public.

      The policeman took the man in charge. Charles still held to him, grimly. As they were leaving the room the prisoner turned to Césarine, and muttered something rapidly under his breath, in German. “Of which tongue,” he said, turning to us blandly, “in spite of my kind present of a dictionary and grammar, you still doubtless remain in your pristine ignorance!”

      Césarine flung herself upon him with wild devotion. “Oh, Paul, darling,” she cried, in English, “I will not, I will not! I will never save myself at your expense. If they send you to prison—Paul, Paul, I will go with you!”

      I remembered as she spoke what Mr. Algernon Coleyard had said to us at the Senator’s. “Even the worst of rogues have always some good in them. I notice they often succeed to the end in retaining the affection and fidelity of women.”

      But the man, his hands still free, unwound her clasping arms with gentle fingers. “My child,” he answered, in a soft tone, “I am sorry to say the law of England will not permit you to go with me. If it did” (his voice was as the voice of the poet we had met), “‘stone walls would not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’” And bending forward, he kissed her forehead tenderly.

      We led him out to the door. The policeman, in obedience to Charles’s orders, held him tight with his hand, but steadily refused, as the prisoner was not violent, to handcuff him. We hailed a passing hansom. “To Bow Street!” Charles cried, unceremoniously pushing in policeman and prisoner. The driver nodded. We called a four-wheeler ourselves, in which my brother-in-law, Dr. Beddersley and myself took our seats. “Follow the hansom!” Charles cried out. “Don’t let him out of your sight. After him, close, to Bow Street!”

      I looked back, and saw Césarine, half fainting, on the front door steps, while Dolly, bathed in tears, stood supporting the lady’s-maid, and trying to comfort her. It was clear she had not anticipated this end to the adventure.

      “Goodness gracious!” Charles screamed out, in a fresh fever of alarm, as we turned the first corner; “where’s that hansom gone to? How do I know the fellow was a policeman at all? We should have taken the man in here. We ought never to have let him get out of our sight. For all we can tell to the contrary, the constable himself—may only be one of Colonel Clay’s confederates!”

      And we drove in trepidation all the way to Bow Street.

      When we reached Bow Street, we were relieved to find that our prisoner, after all, had not evaded us. It was a false alarm. He was there with the policeman, and he kindly allowed us to make the first formal charge against him.

      Of course, on Charles’s sworn declaration and my own, the man was at once remanded, bail being refused, owing both to the serious nature of the charge and the slippery character of the prisoner’s antecedents. We went back to Mayfair—Charles, well satisfied that the man he dreaded was under lock and key; myself, not too well pleased to think that the man I dreaded was no longer at large, and that the trifling little episode of the ten percent commission stood so near discovery.

      Next day the police came round in force, and had a long consultation with Charles and myself. They strongly urged that two other persons at least should be included in the charge—Césarine and the little woman whom we had variously known as Madame Picardet, White Heather, Mrs. David Granton, and Mrs. Elihu Quackenboss. If these accomplices were arrested, they said, we could include conspiracy as one count in the indictment, which gave us an extra chance of conviction. Now they had got Colonel Clay, in fact, they naturally desired to keep him, and also to indict with him as many as possible of his pals and confederates.

      Here, however, a difficulty arose. Charles called me aside with a grave face into the library. “Seymour,” he said, fixing me, “this is a serious business. I will not lightly swear away any woman’s character. Colonel Clay himself—or, rather, Paul Finglemore—is an abandoned rogue, whom I do not desire to screen in any degree. But poor little Madame Picardet—she may be his lawful wife, and she may have acted implicitly under his orders. Besides, I don’t know whether I could swear to her identity. Here’s the photograph the police bring of the woman they believe to be Colonel Clay’s chief female accomplice. Now, I ask you, does it in the least degree resemble that clever and amusing and charming little creature, who has so often deceived us?”

      In spite of Charles’s gibes, I flatter myself I do really understand the whole duty of a secretary. It was clear from his voice he did not wish me to recognise her; which, as it happened, I did not. “Certainly, it doesn’t resemble her, Charles,” I answered, with conviction in my voice. “I should never have known her.” But I did not add that I should no more have known Colonel Clay himself in his character of Paul Finglemore, or of Césarine’s young man, as that remark lay clearly outside my secretarial functions.

      Still, it flitted across my mind at the time that the Seer had made some casual remarks at Nice about a letter in Charles’s pocket, presumably from Madame Picardet; and I reflected further that Madame Picardet in turn might possibly hold certain answers of Charles’s, couched in such terms as he might reasonably desire to conceal from Amelia. Indeed, I must allow that under whatever disguise White Heather appeared to us, Charles was always that disguise’s devoted slave from the first moment he met it. It occurred to me, therefore, that the clever little woman—call her what you will—might be the holder of more than one indiscreet communication.

      “Under these circumstances,” Charles went on, in his austerest voice, “I cannot consent to be a party to the arrest of White Heather. I—I decline to identify her. In point of fact”—he grew more emphatic as he went on—“I don’t think there is an atom of evidence of any sort against her. Not,” he continued, after a pause, “that I wish in any degree to screen the guilty. Césarine, now—Césarine we have liked and trusted. She has betrayed our trust. She has sold us to this fellow. I have no doubt at all that she gave him the diamonds from Amelia’s rivière; that she took us by arrangement to meet him at Schloss Lebenstein; that she opened and sent to him my letter to Lord Craig-Ellachie. Therefore, I say, we ought to arrest Césarine. But not White Heather—not Jessie; not that pretty Mrs. Quackenboss. Let the guilty suffer; why strike at the innocent—or, at worst, the misguided?”

      “Charles,” I exclaimed, with warmth, “your sentiments do you honour. You are a man of feeling. And White Heather, I allow, is pretty enough and clever enough to be forgiven anything. You may rely upon my discretion. I will swear through thick and thin that I do not recognise this woman as Madame Picardet.”

      Charles clasped my hand in silence. “Seymour,” he said, after a pause, with marked emotion, “I felt sure I could rely upon your—er—honour and integrity. I have been rough upon you sometimes. But I ask your forgiveness. I see you understand the whole duties of your position.”

      We went out again, better friends than we had been for months. I hoped, indeed, this pleasant little incident might help to neutralise the possible ill-effects of the ten percent disclosure, should Finglemore take it into his head to betray me to my employer. As we emerged into the drawing-room, Amelia beckoned me aside towards her boudoir for a moment.

      “Seymour,” she said to me, in a distinctly frightened tone, “I have treated you harshly at times, I know, and I am very sorry for it. But I want you to help me in a most painful difficulty. The police are quite right as to the charge of conspiracy; that designing little minx, White Heather, or Mrs. David Granton, or whatever else we’re to call her, ought certainly to be prosecuted—and sent to prison, too—and have her absurd head of hair cut short and combed straight for her. But—and you will help me here, I’m sure, dear Seymour—I cannot allow them to arrest my Césarine. I don’t pretend to say Césarine isn’t guilty; the girl has behaved most ungratefully to me. She has robbed me right and

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