“What dreary little streets are those that lead from the Strand towards the Thames! Pinched, frail, semi-genteel, and many-lodgered are the houses, mysteriously indicative of a variously occupied population, and painfully suggesting, by the surging conflict of busy life at one end, and the dark flowing river at the other, an existence maintained between struggle and suicide.” This, most valued reader, if no reflection of mine, but was the thought that occupied the mind of one who, in not the very best of humors, and of a wet and dreary night, knocked, in succession, at half the doors in the street in search after an acquaintance.
“Yes, sir, the second back,” said a sleepy maid-servant at last; “he is just come in.”
“All right,” said the stranger. “Take that carpet-bag and writing-desk upstairs to his room, and say that Captain Davis is coming after them.'”
“You owe me a tip, Captain,” said the cabman, catching the name as he was about to mount his box. “Do you remember the morning I drove you down to Blackwall to catch the Antwerp boat, I went over Mr. Moss, the sheriff's officer, and smashed his ankle, and may I never taste bitters again if I got a farthing for it.”
“I remember,” said Davis, curtly. “Here's a crown. I 'd have made it a sovereign if it had been his neck you 'd gone over.”
“Better luck next time, sir, and thank you,” said the man, as he drove away.
The maid was yet knocking for admission when Grog arrived at the door. “Captain Fisk, sir,—Captain Fisk, there 's a gent as says—”
“That will do,” said Davis, taking the key from her hand and opening the door for himself.
“Old Grog himself, as I'm a living man!” cried a tall, much whiskered and moustached fellow, who was reading a “Bell's Life” at the fire.
“Ay, Master Fisk,—no other,” said Davis, as he shook his friend cordially by the hand. “I 've had precious work to find you out I was up at Duke Street, then they sent me to the Adelphi; after that I tried Ling's, in the Hay-market, and it was a waiter there—”
“Joe,” broke in the other.
“Exactly. Joe told me that I might chance upon you here.”
“Well, I 'm glad to see you, old fellow, and have a chat about long ago,” said Fisk, as he placed a square green bottle and some glasses on the table. How well you 're looking, too; not an hour older than when I saw you four years ago!”
“Ain't I, though!” muttered Grog. “Ay, and like the racers, I 've got weight for age, besides. I'm a stone and a half heavier than I ought to be, and there's nothing worse than that to a fellow that wants to work with his head and sleep with one eye open.”
“You can't complain much on that score, Kit; you never made so grand a stroke in your life as that last one,—the marriage, I mean.”
“It was n't bad,” said Davis, as he mixed his liquor; “nor was it, exactly, the kind of hazard that every man could make. Beecher was a troublesome one,—a rare troublesome one; nobody could ever say when he 'd run straight.”
“I always thought him rotten,” said the other, angrily.
“Well, he is and he isn't,” said Grog, deliberately.
“He has got no pluck,” said Fisk, indignantly.
“He has quite enough.”
“Enough—enough for what?”
“Enough for a lord. Look here, Master Fisk, so long as you have not to gain your living by anything, it is quite sufficient if you can do it moderately well. Many a first-rate amateur there is, who wouldn't be thought a tenth-rate artist.”
“I 'd like to know where you had been to-day if it was n't for your pluck,” said Fisk, doggedly.
“In a merchant's office in the City, belike, on a hundred and twenty pounds a year; a land steward down in Dorsetshire, at half the salary; skipper of a collier from North Shields, or an overseer in Jamaica. These are the high prizes for such as you and me; and the droll part of the matter is, they will talk of us as 'such lucky dogs,' whenever we attain to one of these brilliant successes. Gazette my son-in-law as Ambassador to Moscow, and nobody thinks it strange; announce, in the same paper, that Kit Davis has been made a gauger, and five hundred open mouths exclaim, 'How did he obtain that? Who the deuce got it for him? Does n't he fall on his legs!' and so on.”
“I suppose we shall have our turn one of these days,” muttered the other, sulkily.
“Things as they are! And why so, I 'd wish to ask?”
“Look at it this way, Tom Fisk,” said Grog, squaring his arms on the table and talking with slow deliberation; “if you were going to cut into a round game, wouldn't you rather take a hand where the players were all soft ones, with plenty of cash, or would you prefer sitting down with a set of downy coves, all up to every dodge, and not a copper farthing in the company? Well, that's exactly what the world would be if the Manchester fellows had their way; that's exactly what it is, this very hour we 're sitting here, in America. There's nobody on the square there. President, judges, editors, Congressmen, governors, are all rogues; and they've come to that pass, that any fellow with a dash of spirit about him must come over to Europe to gain his livelihood. I have it from their own lips what I 'm telling you, for I was a-thinking about going over there myself; but they said, 'Don't go, sir,'—they always say 'sir,'—'don't go, sir. Our Western fellows are very wide awake; for every trump you 'd have up your sleeve, they 'd have two in their boots!'”
“For my own part,” said Fisk, “I 'd not go live amongst them if you 'd make me Minister at Washington, and so I told Simmy Hankes this morning, when he came in such high feather about his appointment as consul—I forget where to.”
“Hankes—Hankes! The same fellow that used to be with Robins?”
“Just so; and for some years back Davenport Dunn managing man.”
Grog gave a very slight start, and then asked, carelessly, why he was leaving Dunn's employment.
“Dunn's going to shut up shop. Dunn is to be a peer, next week, and retires from business. He is to be in Tuesday's 'Gazette,' so Hankes tells me.”
“He has done the thing well, I suppose?” said Davis, coolly.
“Hankes says something like two millions sterling. Pretty well for a fellow that started without a sixpence.”
“I wonder he could n't have done something better for Hankes than that paltry place.”
“So he might, and so he would; but you see, Simmy did n't like waiting. He's a close fellow, and one can't get much out of him; but I can perceive that he was anxious to get off the coach.”
“Did n't like the pace,—didn't trust the tackle overmuch,” said Grog, carelessly.
“Something of that kind, I 've no doubt,” rejoined Fisk.
“Have you any pull over this same Hankes, Tom?” said Grog, confidentially.
“Well, I can't say I have. We were pals together long ago; we did a little in the racing line,—in a very small way, of course. Then he used to have a roulette-table at Doncaster; but somehow there was no 'go' in him: he was over-cautious, and always saying, 'I 'd rather take to “business;”' and as I hated business, we separated.”
“It's odd enough that I can't remember the fellow. I thought I knew every one that was on the 'lay' these five-and-thirty years.”
“He wasn't Hankes at the time I speak of; he was a Jew at that period, and went by the name of Simeon.”
“Simeon, Simeon,—not the fellow that used to come down to Windsor, with the Hexquite Habannar cigars?”
And Grog mimicked not alone the voice, but the face of the individual alluded to, till Fisk burst into a roar of laughter.
“That's Simmy,—that's the man,” cried Fisk, as he dried his eyes.
“Don't I know him! I had a class at that time,—young fellows in the Blues. I used to give them lessons in billiards; and Simmy, as you call him, discounted for the mess on a sliding scale,—ten per cent for the Major, and sixty for cornets the first year they joined. He was good fun, Simmy; he fancied he would have been a first-rate actor, and used to give scenes out of 'Othello,' in Kean's manner: that was the only soft thing about him, and many a fellow got a bill done by applauding 'Now is the winter of our discontent'!” And Grog gave a low growling sort of a laugh at his reminiscences.
“You 'll see him to-morrow; he's to breakfast here,” said Fisk, rather amused at the prospect of a recognition between such men.
“He would never play 'Shylock,'” continued Grog, following out his reminiscences, “though we all told him he 'd make a great hit in the part. The Jew, you see,—the Jew couldn't stand that. And so Mr. Simmy Hankes is no other than Simeon! It was an old theory of mine, whenever I saw a fellow doing wonderfully well in the world, without any help from friends or family, to fancy that one time or other he must have belonged to what they are so fond of calling 'the Hebrew persuasion'!”
“I wouldn't rake up old memories with him, Grog, if I were you,” said Fisk, coaxingly.
“It ain't my way, Tom Fisk,” said Davis, curtly.
“He 'll be at his ease at once when he perceives that you don't intend to rip up old scores; and he 'll be just as delicate with you.”
“Delicate with me?” cried Grog, bursting out into a fit of immoderate laughter. “Well, if that ain't a good one! I wonder what he is! Do you imagine Fitzroy Kelly is ashamed of being thought a lawyer, or Brodie of being a surgeon? You must be precious soft, my worthy friend, if you suppose that I don't know what the world thinks and says of me. No, no, there's no need of what you call delicacy at all. You used to be made of other stuff than this, Tom Fisk. It's keeping company with them snobs of half-pay officers, clerks in the Treasury, and Press reporters-has spoiled you; the demi-gents of the 'Garottaman Club' have ruined hundreds.”
“The Garottaman is one of the first clubs in town,” broke in Fisk.
“You 're too much like sailors on a raft for my fancy,” said Grog, dryly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just that you are hungry and have got nothing to eat,—you 're eternally casting lots who is to be devoured next! But we 'll not fall out about that. I 've been turning over in my head about this Simmy Hankes, and I 'd like to have an hour in his company, all alone. Could you manage to be out of the way to-morrow morning and leave me to entertain him at breakfast?”
“It will suit my book to a trivet, for I want to go over to Barnes to look after a yearling I 've got there, and you can tell Hankes that the colt was taken suddenly ill.”
“He 'll not be very curious about the cause of your absence,” said Grog, dryly. “The pleasure of seeing me so unexpectedly will put everything else out of his head.” A grim smile showed the spirit in which he spoke these words.
It was now very late, and Davis threw himself on a sofa, with his great-coat over him, and, wishing his friend a goodnight, was soon sound asleep; nor did he awake till aroused by the maid-servant getting the room into readiness and arranging the table for breakfast. Then, indeed, Grog arose and made his toilet for the day,—not a very elaborate nor a very elegant one, but still a disguise such as the most practised detective could not have penetrated, and yet removable in a moment, so that he might, by merely taking off eyebrows and moustaches, become himself at once.
Having given orders that the gentleman he expected should be shown in on his arrival, Grog solaced himself at the fire with a morning paper, in all the ease of slippers and an arm-chair. Almost the first thing that struck his eye was a paragraph informing the world that the marriage of a distinguished individual—whose approaching elevation to the peerage had been already announced—with one of the most beautiful daughters of the aristocracy would take place early in the ensuing week. And then, like a codicil to a will, followed a brilliant description of the gold dressing-case ordered by Mr. Davenport Dunn, at Storr's, for his bride. He was yet occupied with the paragraph when Mr. Hankes entered the room.
“I am afraid I have made a mistake,” said that bland gentleman. “I thought this was Captain Fisk's apartment.”
“You're all right,” said Grog, leisurely surveying the visitor, whose “get up” was really splendid. Amethyst studs glittered on his shirt; his ample chest seemed a shrine in its display of amulets and charmed offerings, while a massive chain crossed and recrossed him so frequently that he appeared to be held together by its coils. Fur and velvet, too, abounded in his costume; and even to the immense “gland” that depended from his cane, there was an amount of costliness that bespoke affluence.
“I regret, sir,” began Hankes, pompously, “that I have not the honor—”
“Yes, yes; you have the honor,” broke in Grog. “You've had it this many a year. Sit down here. I don't wear exactly so well as you, but you 'll remember me presently. I 'm Kit Davis, man. You don't require me to say who you are.”
“Davis,—Grog Davis,” muttered Hankes to himself, while an ashy paleness spread over his face.
“You don't look overjoyed to meet with an old friend,” said Grog, with a peculiar grin; “but you ought, man. There's no friendships like early ones. The fellows who knew us in our first scrapes are always more lenient to our last wickednesses.”
“Captain Davis,—Captain Davis!” stammered out Hankes, “this is indeed an unexpected pleasure!”
“So much so that you can hardly get accustomed to it,” said Grog, with another grin. “Fisk received a hasty message that called him away to the country this morning, and left me to fill his place; and I, as you may guess, was little loath to have a cosey chat with an old friend that I have not seen—how many years is it?”
“It must be nigh ten, or even twelve!”
“Say, seven or eight and twenty, man, and you 'll be nigher the mark. Let me see,” said he, trying to remember, “the last time I saw you was at Exeter. You were waiting for your trial about those bills of George Colborne. Don't look so frightened; there's no one to hear us here. It was as narrow an escape there as ever man had. It was after that, I suppose, you took the name of Hankes?”
“Yes,” said the other, in a faint whisper.
“Well, I must say Christianity does n't seem to have disagreed with you. You 're in capital case,—a little pluffy for work, but in rare health, and sleek as a beaver.”
“Always the same. He will have his joke,” muttered Hankes, as though addressing some third party to the colloquy.
“I can't say that I have committed any excesses in that line of late,” said Grog, dryly. “I 've had rather a tough fight with the world!”
“But you've fought it well, and successfully,” Davis said the other, with confidence. “Have n't you married your daughter to a Viscount?”
“Who told you that? Who knows it here?” cried Grog, hurriedly.
“I heard it from Fordyce's people a fortnight ago. It was I myself brought the first news of it to Davenport Dunn.”
“And what did he say?”
“Well, he didn't say much; he wondered a little how it came about; hinted that you must be an uncommon clever fellow, for it was a great stroke, if all should come right.”
“You mean about the disputed claim to the title?”
“Yes.”
“He has his doubts about that, then, has he?”
“He has n't much doubt on the subject, for it lies with himself to decide the matter either way. If he likes to produce certain papers, Conway's claim is as good as established. You are aware that they have already gained two of their actions on ejectment; but Dunn could save them a world of time and labor, and that's why he's coming up to-morrow. Fordyce is to meet him at Calvert's Hotel, and they 're to go into the entire question.”
“What are his terms? How much does he ask?” said Grog, bluntly.
“I can't possibly say; I can only suspect.”
“What do you suspect, then?”
“Well,” said Hankes, drawing a long breath, “my impression is that if he decide for the present Viscount, he 'll insist upon an assignment of the whole Irish property in his favor.”
“Two thousand a year, landed property!” exclaimed Grog.
“Two thousand eight hundred, and well paid,” said Hankes, coolly; “but that is not all.”
“Not all! what do you mean?”
“Why, there's another hitch. But what am I saying?” cried he, in terror. “I don't believe that I'd speak of these things on my death-bed.”
“Be frank and open with me, Simeon. I am a true pal to the man that trusts me, and the very devil to him that plays me false.”
“I know it,” said the other, gloomily.
“Well, now for that other hitch, as you called it What is it?”
“It's about an estate that was sold under the 'Encumbered Court,' and bought by the late Lord Lackington—at least in his name—and then resold at a profit—” Here he stopped, and seemed as though he had already gone too far.
“I understand,” broke in Grog; “the purchase-money was never placed to the Viscount's credit, and your friend Dunn wants an acquittance in full of the claim.”
“You've hit it!”
“What's the figure,—how much?”
“Thirty-seven thousand six hundred pounds.”
“He 's no retail-dealer, this same Davenport Dunn,” said Grog, with a grin; “that much I will say of him.”
“He has a wonderful head,” said Hankes, admiringly.
“I 'll agree with you, if it save his neck!” said Davis-, and then added, after a moment, “He's bringing up all these documents and papers with him, you said?”
“Yes; he intends to make some settlement or other of the matter before he marries. After that he bids farewell to business forever.”
“He'll go abroad, I suppose?” said Davis, not attaching any strong signification to his remark; but suddenly perceiving an expression of anxiety in Hankes's face, he said, “Mayhap it were all as well; he'd be out of the way for a year or so!”
The other nodded an assent.
“He has 'realized' largely, I take it?”
Another nod.
“Foreign funds and railways, eh?”
“Not railways,—no, scrip!” said Hankes, curtly.
“Won't there be a Jolly smash!” said Davis, with a bitter laugh. “I take it there's not been any one has 'done the trick' these fifty years like this fellow.”
“I suspect you 're right there,” murmured Hankes.
“I have never seen him but once, and then only for a few minutes, but I read him like a printed book. He had put on the grand integrity and British-mercantile-honesty frown to scowl me down, to remind Davis, 'the leg,' that he was in the presence of Dunn, the Unimpeachable, but I put one eye a little aslant, this way, and I just said, 'Round the corner, old fellow,—round the corner!' Oh, didn't he look what the Yankees call 'mean ugly'!”
“He 'll never forget it to you, that's certain.”
“If he did, I 'd try and brush up his memory a bit,” said Davis, curtly. “He must be a rare sharp one,” added he, after a pause.
“The cleverest man in England, I don't care who the other is,” cried Hankes, with enthusiasm. “When the crash comes,—it will be in less than a month from this day,—the world will discover that they're done to the tune of between three and four millions sterling, and I defy the best accountant that ever stepped to trace out where the frauds originated,—whether it was the Railways smashed the Mines, the Mines that ruined the Great Ossory, the Great Ossory that dipped the Drainage, or the Drainage that swamped the Glengariff, not to speak of all the incidental confusion about estates never paid for, and sums advanced on mock mortgage, together, with cancelled scrip reissued, preference shares circulated before the current ones, and dock warrants for goods that never existed. And that ain't all” continued Hankes, to whom the attentive eagerness of Grog's manner vouched for the interest his narrative excited,—“that ain't all; but there isn't a class nor condition in life, from the peer to the poorest laboring-man, that he has n't in some way involved in his rogueries, and made him almost a partner in the success. Each speculation being dependent for its solvency on the ruin of some other, Ossory will hate Glengariff, Drainage detest Mines, Railways curse Patent Fuel, and so on. I 'll give the Equity Court and the Bankrupt Commissioners fifty years and they'll not wind up the concern.”
Grog rubbed his hands gleefully, and laughed aloud.
“Then all the people that will be compromised!” said Hankes; “Glumthal himself is not too clean-handed; lords and fine ladies that lent their names to this or that company, chairmen of committees in the House that did n't disdain to accept five hundred or a thousand shares as a mark of grateful recognition for pushing a bill through its second reading; ay, and great mercantile houses that discounted freely on forged acceptances, owning that they thought the best of all security was the sight of a convict-hulk and a felon's jacket, and that no man was such prompt pay as he that took a loan of a friend's signature. What a knockdown blow for all that lath-and-plaster edifice we dignify by the name of Credit, when the world sees that it is a loaf the rogue can take a slice out of as well as the honest man!”
“Won't we have stunning leaders in the 'Times' about it!” cried Grog. “It will go deuced hard with the Ministry that have made this fellow a peer.”
“Yes, they'll have to go out,” said Hanked, gravely; “a cabinet may defend a bad measure,—they 'll never fight for a bad man.”
“And they can't hang this fellow?” said Grog, after a pause.
“Hang! I should think not, indeed.”
“Nor even transport him?”
“No, not touch a hair of his head. He'll have to live abroad for a year or two,—in Paris or Rome,—no great hardship if it were Naples; he 'll make a surrender of his property,—an old house somewhere and some brick-fields, a mine of Daryamon coal, and a flax-mill on a river that has scarcely any water, together with a sheaf of bad bills and Guatemala bonds. They 'll want to examine him before the Court, and he'll send them a sick-certificate, showing how agitation and his recent losses have almost made him imbecile; and even Mr. Linklater will talk feelingly about his great reverse of condition.”
“It's as good as a play to hear about this,” said Grog; “it beats Newmarket all to sticks.”
“If it's a play, it won't be a benefit to a good many folk,” said Hankes, grinning.
“Well, he is a clever fellow,—far and away cleverer than I ever thought him,” said Grog. “Any man—I don't care who he is—can do the world to a short extent, but to go in at them on this scale a fellow must be a genius.”
“He is a genius,” said Hankes, in a tone of decision. “Just think for a moment what a head it must have been that kept all that machinery at work for years back without a flaw or a crack to be detected, started companies, opened banks, worked mines, railroads, and telegraphs, built refuge harbors, drained whole counties, brought vast tracts of waste land into cultivation, equalizing the chances of all enterprises by making the success of this come to the aid of the failure of that: the grand secret of the whole being the dexterous application of what is called 'Credit.'”
“All that wouldn't do at Doncaster,” said Grog; “puff your horse as much as you like, back him up how you will in the betting-ring, if he has n't the speed in him it won't do. It's only on 'Change you can 'brag out of a bad hand.' Dunn would never cut any figure on the turf.”
“There you are all wrong; there never yet was the place, or the station, where that man would n't have distinguished himself. Why, it was that marvellous power of his kept me with him for years back. I knew all that was going on. I knew that we hadn't—so to say—coals for one boiler while we had forty engines in full stroke; but I could n't get away. It was a sort of fascination; and when he 'd strike out a new scheme, and say carelessly, 'Call the capital one million, Hankes,' he spoke like a man that had only to put his hand in a bag and produce the money. Nothing daunted, nothing deterred him. He'd smash a rival company as coolly as you 'd crush a shell under your heel, and he 'd turn out a Government with the same indifference he 'd discharge a footman.”
“Well,” grumbled out Grog, at last, for he was getting irritable at the exaggerated estimate Hankes formed of his chief, “what has it all come to? Ain't he smashed at last?”
“He smashed!” cried Hankes, in derision. “He smashed! You are smashed! I am smashed! any one else you like is smashed, but he is not! Mind my words, Davis, Davenport Dunn will be back here, in London, before two years are over, with the grandest house and the finest retinue in town. His dinners will be the best, and his balls the most splendid of the season. No club will rival his cook, no equipage beat his in the Park. When he rises in the Lords,—which he 'll do only seldom,—there will be a most courteous attention to his words; and, above all, you'll never read one disparaging word about him in the papers. I give him two years, but it's just as likely he 'll do it in less.”
“It may be all as you say,” said Grog, sullenly, “though I won't say I believe it myself; but, at all events, it does n't help me on my way to my own business with him. I want these papers of Lackington's out of his hands! He may 'walk into' the whole world, for all that I care: but I want to secure my daughter as the Viscountess,—that's how it stands.”
“How much ready money can you command? What sum can you lay your hand on?”
Grog drew his much-worn pocket-book from his breast, and, opening the leaves, began to count to himself.
“Something like fifty-seven pounds odd shillings,” said he, with a grin.
“If you could have said twelve or fourteen thousand down, it might be nearer the mark. Conway's people are ready with about ten thousand.”
“How do you know?” asked Grog, savagely.
“Dunn told me as much. But he does n't like to treat with them, because the difficulty about the Irish estate would still remain unsettled.”
“Then what am I to do? How shall I act?” asked Grog.
“It's not an easy matter to advise upon,” said Hankes, thoughtfully, “for Dunn holds to one maxim with invariable tenacity, which is never to open any negotiation with a stranger which cannot be completed in one interview. If you couldn't begin by showing the bank-notes, he'd not discuss the question at all.”
Grog arose and walked the room with hasty steps: he tried to seem calm, but in the impatient gesture with which he threw his cigar into the fire might be read the agitation he could not conquer nor conceal.
“What could you yourself do with him, Hankes?” said he, at last.
“Nothing,—absolutely nothing,” said the other. “He never in his life permitted a subordinate to treat, except on his own behalf; that was a fixed law with him.”
“Curse the fellow!” burst out Davis, “he made rules and laws as if the world was all his own.”
“Well, he managed to have it pretty much his own way, it must be confessed,” said Hankes, with a half-smile.
“He is to be in town to-morrow, you said,” muttered Grog, half aloud. “Where does he stop?”
“This time it will be at Calvert's, Upper Brook Street. His house in Piccadilly is ready, but he 'll not go there at present.”
“He makes a mystery of everything, so far as I can see,” said Grog, angrily. “He comes up by the express-train, does n't he?” grumbled he, after a pause.
“If he has n't a special engine,” said Hankes. “He always, however, has his own coupé furnished and fitted up for himself and never, by any chance, given to any one else. There 's a capital bed in it, and a desk, where he writes generally the whole night through, and a small cooking-apparatus, where he makes his coffee, so that no servant ever interrupts him at his work. Indeed, except from some interruption, or accident on the line, the guard would not dare to open his door. Of course his orders are very strictly obeyed. I remember one night Lord Jedburg sent in his name, and Dunn returned for answer, 'I can't see him.'”
“And did the Prime Minister put up with that?” asked Davis.
“What could he do?” said the other, with a shrug of the shoulder.
“If I were Lord Jedburg, I'd have unkennelled him, I promise you that, Simmy. But here, it's nigh twelve o'clock, and I have a mass of things to do. I say, Hankes, could you contrive to look in here to-morrow evening, after nightfall? I may have something to tell you.”
“We were strictly confidential,—all on honor, this morning, Kit,” said the other, whispering.
“I think you know me, Mister Simmy,” was all Grog's reply. “I don't think my worst enemy could say that I ever 'split' on the fellow that trusted me.”
A hearty shake-hands followed, and they parted.
The up-train from Holyhead was a few minutes behind time at Chester, and the travellers who awaited its arrival manifested that mixture of impatience and anxiety which in our railroad age is inseparable from all delay. One stranger, however, displayed a more than ordinary eagerness for its coming, and compared the time of his watch repeatedly with the clock of the station.
At length from the far-away distance the wild scream of the engine was heard, and with many a cranking clash and many a heavy sob the vast machine swept smoothly in beneath the vaulted roof. As the stranger moved forward to take his place, he stopped to hear a few words that met his ear. It was a railroad official said: “Mr. Davenport Dunn delayed us about a quarter of an hour; he wanted to give a look at the new pier, but we have nearly made it up already.” “All right!” replied the station-master. The stranger now moved on till he came in front of a coupé carriage, whose window-blinds rigidly drawn down excluded all view from without. For an instant he seemed to fumble at the door, in an endeavor to open it, but was speedily interrupted by a guard calling out, “Not there, sir,—that's a private carriage;” and thus warned, the traveller entered another lower down the line. There were two other travellers in the same compartment, apparently strangers to each other. As the stranger with whom we are immediately concerned took his place, he slipped into his pocket a small latch-key, of which, in the very brief attempt to try the door of the private carriage, he had successfully proved the utility, and, drawing his rug across his knees, lay calmly back.
“Here we are, detained again,” grumbled out one of the travellers. “I say, guard, what is it now?”
“Waiting for a telegram for Mr. Davenport Dunn, sir. There it comes! all right” A low bell rings out, a wild screech following, and with many a clank and shock the dusky monster sets out once more.
“Public convenience should scarcely be sacrificed in this manner,” grumbled out the former speaker. “What is this Mr. Dunn to you or to me that we should be delayed for his good pleasure?”
“I am afraid, sir,” replied the other, whose dress and manner bespoke a clergyman, “that we live in an age when wealth is all-powerful, and its possessors dictate the law to all poorer than themselves.”
“And can you tell me of any age when it was otherwise?” broke in the last arrival, with a half-rude chuckle. “It's all very fine to lay the whole blame of this, that, and t' other to the peculiar degeneracy of our own time; but my notion is, the world grows neither worse nor better.” There was that amount of defiance in the tone of the speaker that seemed to warn his companions, for they each of them maintained a strict silence. Not so with him; he talked away glibly about the influence of money, pretty plainly intimating that, as nobody ever met the man who was indifferent to its possession, the abuse showered upon riches was nothing but cant and humbug. “Look at the parsons,” said he; “they tell you it is all dross and rubbish, and yet they make it the test of your sincerity whenever they preach a charity sermon. Look at the lawyers, and they own that it is the only measure they know by which to recompense an injury; then take the doctors, and you 'll see that their humanity has its price, and the good Samaritan charges a guinea a visit.”
The individuals to whom these words were addressed made no reply; indeed, there was a tone of confident assumption in the speaker that was far from inviting converse, and now a silence ensued on all sides.
“Do either of you gentlemen object to tobacco?” said the last speaker, after a pause of some duration; and at the same time, without waiting for the reply, he produced a cigar-case from his pocket, and began deliberately to strike a light.
“I am sorry to say, sir,” responded the clergyman, “that smoking disagrees with me, and I cannot accustom myself to endure the smell of tobacco.”
“All habit,” rejoined the other, as he lighted his cigar. “I was that way myself for years, and might have remained so, too, but that I saw the distress and inconvenience I occasioned to many jolly fellows who loved their pipe; and so I overcame my foolish prejudices, and even took to the weed myself.”
The other travellers muttered some low words of dissatisfaction; and the clergyman, opening the window, looked out, apparently in search of the guard.
“It's only a cheroot, and a prime one,” said the smoker, coolly; “and as you object, I 'll not light another.”
“A vast condescension on your part, sir, seeing that we have already signified our dislike to tobacco,” said the lay traveller.
“I did not remark that you gave any opinion at all,” said the smoker; “and my vast condescension, as you term it, is entirely in favor of this gentleman.”
There was no mistaking the provocation of this speech, rendered actually insulting by the mode in which it was delivered; and the traveller to whom it was addressed, enveloping himself in his cloak, sat moodily back, without a word. The train soon halted for a few seconds; and, brief as was the interval, this traveller employed it to spring from his place and seek a refuge elsewhere,—a dexterous manouvre which seemed to excite the envy of the parson, now left alone with his uncongenial companion. The man of peace, however, made the best of it, and, drawing his travelling-cap over his eyes, resolved himself to sleep. For a considerable while the other sat still, calmly watching him; and at last, when perfectly assured that the slumber was not counterfeited, he gently arose, and drew the curtain across the lamp in the roof of the carriage. A dim, half-lurid light succeeded, and by this uncertain glare the stranger proceeded to make various changes in his appearance. A large bushy wig of black hair was first discarded, with heavy eyebrows, and whiskers to match; an immense overcoat was taken off, so heavily padded and stuffed that when denuded of it the wearer seemed half his size; large heels were unscrewed from his boots, reducing his height by full a couple of inches; till, at length, in place of a large, unwieldy-looking man of sixty, lumbering and beetle-browed, there came forth a short, thick-set figure, with red hair and beard, twinkling eyes of a fierce gray, and a mouth the very type of unflinching resolution. Producing a small looking-glass, he combed and arranged his whiskers carefully, re-tied his cravat, and bestowed a most minute scrutiny on his appearance, muttering, as he finished, to himself, “Ay, Kit, you 're more like yourself now!” It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say this speech was addressed to our acquaintance Grog Davis, nor was it altogether what is called a “French compliment;” he did look terribly like himself. There was in his hard, stern face, his pinched-up eyes, and his puckered mouth, an amount of resolute vigor that showed he was on the eve of some hazardous enterprise. His toilet completed, he felt in his breastpocket, to assure himself that something there was not missing; and then, taking out his watch, he consulted the time. He had scarcely time to replace it in his pocket, when the train entered a deep cutting between two high banks of clay. It was, apparently, the spot he had waited for; and in an instant he had unfastened the door by his latch-key, and stood on the ledge outside. One more look within to assure himself that the other was still asleep, and he closed the door, and locked it.
The night was dark as pitch, and a thin soft rain was falling, as Davis, with a rapidity that showed this was no first essay in such a walk, glided along from carriage to carriage, till he reached a heavy luggage van, immediately beyond which was the coupé of Mr. Davenport Dunn.
The brief prayer that good men utter ere they rush upon an enterprise of deadly peril must have its representative in some shape or other with those whose hearts are callous. Nature will have her due; and in that short interval—the bridge between two worlds—the worst must surely experience intense emotion. Whatever those of Davis, they were of the briefest. In another second he was at the door of Dunn's carriage, his eyes glaring beneath the drawn-down blind, where, by a narrow slip of light, he could detect a figure busily employed in writing. So bent was he on mastering every portion and detail of the arrangement within, that he actually crept around till he reached the front windows, and could plainly see the whole coupé lighted up brilliantly with wax candles.
Surrounded with papers and letters and despatch-boxes, the man of business labored away as though in his office, every appliance for refreshment beside him. These Davis noted well, remarking the pistols that hung between the windows, and a bell-pull quite close to the writing-table. This latter passed through the roof of the carriage, and was evidently intended to signalize the guard when wanted. Before another minute had elapsed Davis had cut off this communication, and, knotting the string outside, still suffered it to hang down within as before.
All that precaution could demand was now done; the remainder must be decided by action. Noiselessly introducing the latch-key, Davis turned the lock, and, opening the door, stepped inside. Dunn started as the door banged, and there beheld him. To ring and summon the guard was the quick impulse of his ready wit; but when the bell-rope came down as he pulled it, the whole truth flashed across him that all had been concerted and plotted carefully.
“Never mind your pistols. I'm armed too,” said Davis, coolly. “If it was your life I wanted, I could have taken it easily enough at any minute during the last ten or twelve.”
“What do you mean, then, sir, by this violence? By what right do you dare to enter here?” cried Dunn, passionately.
“There has been no great violence up to this,” said Davis, with a grin. “As to my right to be here, we'll talk about that presently. You know me, I believe?”
“I want to know why you are here,” cried Dunn, again.
“And so you shall; but, first of all, no treachery. Deal fairly, and a very few minutes will settle all business between us.”
“There is no business to be settled between us,” said Dunn, haughtily, “except the insolence of your intrusion here, and for that you shall pay dearly.”
“Don't try bluster with me, man,” said Grog, contemptuously. “If you just stood as high in integrity as I know you to stand low in knavery, it would n't serve you. I've braved pluckier fellows than ever you were.”
With a sudden jerk Dunn let down the window; but Grog's iron grip held him down in his place, as he said sternly, “I 'll not stand nonsense. I have come here for a purpose, and I 'll not leave it till it's accomplished. You know me.”
“I do know you,” said Dunn, with an insolent irony.
“And I know you. Hankes—Simmy Hankes—has told me a thing or two; but the world will soon be as wise as either of us.”
Dunn's face became deadly pale, and, in a voice broken And faint, he said, “What do you mean? What has Hankes said?”
“All,—everything. Why, bless your heart, man, it was no secret to me that you were cheating, the only mystery was how you did the trick; now Hankes has shown me that. I know it all now. You had n't so many trumps in your hand, but you played them twice over,—that was the way you won the game. But that's no affair of mine. 'Rook' them all round,—only don't 'try it on' with Kit Davis! What brought me here is this: my daughter is married to Annesley Beecher that was, the now Viscount Lackington; there's another fellow about to contest the title and the estates. You know all about his claim and his chances, and you can, they tell me, make it all 'snag' to either party. Now, I 'm here to treat with you. How much shall it be? There's no use in going about the bush,—how much shall it be?”
“I can be of no use to you in this business,” said Dunn, hesitatingly; “the papers are not in my keeping. Conway's suit is in the hands of the first men at the bar—”
“I know all that, and I know, besides, you have an appointment with Fordyce at Calvert's Hotel, to arrange the whole matter; so go in at once, and be on the square with me. Who has these papers? Where are they?”
Dunn started at the sudden tone of the question, and then his eyes turned as quickly towards a brass-bound despatch-box at the bottom of the carriage. If the glance was of the speediest, it yet had not escaped the intense watchfulness of Davis, who now reiterated his question of “Where are they?”
“If you 'd come to me after my interview with Fordyce,” said Dunn, with a slow deliberation, as though giving the matter a full reflection, “I think we might hit upon something together.”
“To be sure, we might,” said Grog, laughing; “there 's only one obstacle to that pleasant arrangement,—that I should find an inspector and two constables of the police ready waiting for my visit. No, Master Dunn, what we 're to do we 'll do here and now.”
“You appear to measure all men by your own standard, sir,” said Dunn, indignantly; “and let me tell you that in point of honor it is a scant one.”
“We're neither of us fit for a grenadier-company of integrity, that's a fact, Dunn; but, upon my solemn oath, I believe I 'm the best man of the two. But what's the use of this 'chaff'? I have heard from Hankes how it stands about that Irish estate you pretended to buy for the late Lord, and never paid for. Now you want to stand all square upon that, naturally enough; it is a pot of money,—seven-and-thirty thousand pounds. Don't you see, old fellow, I have the whole story all correct and clear; so once more, do be business-like, and say what's your figure,—how much?”
Again did Dunn's eyes revert to the box at his feet, but it was difficult to say whether intentionally or not Davis, however, never ceased to watch their gaze; and when Dunn, becoming suddenly conscious of the scrutiny, grew slightly red, Grog chuckled to himself and muttered, “You're no match for Kit Davis, deep as you are.”
“Until we learn to repose some trust in each other, sir,” said Dunn, whose confusion still continued, “all dealing together is useless.”
“Well, if you mean by that,” retorted Davis, “that you and I are going to start for a ten years' friendship, I declare off, and say it's no match. I told you what brought me here, and now I want you to say how I 'm to go back again. Where are these same papers?—answer me that.”
“Some are in the hands of Conway's lawyers; some are in the Crimea, carded away surreptitiously by a person who was once in my confidence; some are, I suspect, in the keeping of Conway's mother, in Wales—”
“And some are locked up in that red box there,” said Grog, with a defiant look.
“Not one. I can swear by all that is most solemn and awful there's not a document there that concerns the cause.” As Dunn spoke these words, his voice trembled with intense agitation, and he grew sickly pale.
“What if I wouldn't believe you on your oath?” broke in Grog, whose keen eyes seemed actually to pierce the other's secret thoughts. “It was n't to-day, or yesterday, that you and I learned how to dodge an oath. Open that box there; I 'll have a look through it for myself.”
“That you never shall,” said Dunn, fiercely, as he grasped the bundle of keys that lay before him and placed them in his breast-pocket.
“Come, I like your pluck, Dunn, though it won't serve your turn this time. I 'll either see that box opened before me now, or I'll carry it off with me,—which shall it be?”
“Neither, by Heaven!” cried Dunn, whose passion was now roused effectually.
“We 'll, first of all, get these out of the way; they're ugly playthings,” said Davis, as with a spring he seized the pistols and hurled them through the open window; in doing so, however, he necessarily leaned forward, and partly turned his back towards Dunn. With a gesture quick as lightning, Dunn drew a loaded pistol from his breast, and, placing the muzzle almost close to the other's head, drew the trigger. A quick motion of the neck made the ball glance from the bone of the skull, and passing down amongst the muscles of the neck, settle above the shoulder. Terrible as the wound was, Davis sprang upon him with the ferocity of a tiger. Not a word nor a cry escaped his lips, as, in all the agony of his suffering, he seized Dunn by the throat with one hand, while, drawing from his breast a heavy life-preserver, he struck him on the head with the other. A wild scream,—a cry for help, half smothered in the groan that followed, rang out, and Dunn reeled from his seat and fell dead on the floor! Two fearful fractures had rent the skull open, and life was extinguished at once. Davis bent down, and gazed long and eagerly at the ghastly wounds; but it was not till he had laid his hand over the heart that he knew them to be fatal. A short shudder, more like the sense of sudden cold than any sentiment of horror, passed over him as he stood for a few seconds motionless; then, opening the dead man's coat, he drew forth his keys and searched for that one which pertained to the red box. He carefully placed the box upon the table and unlocked it The contents were title-deeds of the Glengariff family, but all in duplicate, and so artfully imitated that it would have been scarcely possible to distinguish original from copy. Of the Lackingtons there was nothing but a release of all claims against Davenport Dunn, purporting to have been the act of the late Lord, but of which the signature was only indicated in pencil.
“The discovery was n't worth the price,” muttered Davis, as he turned a half-sickly look upon the lifeless mass at his feet. “I 'm not the first who found out that the swag did n't pay for the smash; not,” added he, after a moment, “that I was to blame here: it was he began it!”
With some strange mysterious blending of reverence for the dead, with a vague sense of how the sight would strike the first beholders, Davis raised the corpse from the floor and placed it on the seat He then wiped the clotted gore from the forehead, and dried the hair. It was a gruesome sight, and even he was not insensible to its terrors; for, as he turned away, he heaved a short, thick sigh. How long he stood thus, half stunned and bewildered, he knew not; but he was, at length, recalled to thought and activity by the loud whistle that announced the train was approaching a station. The next minute they glided softly in beside a platform, densely crowded with travellers. Davis did not wait for the guard, but opened the door himself, and slowly, for he was in pain, descended from the carriage.
“Call the station-master here,” said he to the first official he met “Let some one, too, fetch a doctor, for I am badly wounded, and a policeman, for I want to surrender myself.” He then added, after a pause, “There's a dead man in that carriage yonder!”
The terrible tidings soon spread abroad, and crowds pressed eagerly forward to gaze upon the horrible spectacle. No sooner was it announced that the murdered man was the celebrated Davenport Dunn, than the interest increased tenfold, and, with that marvellous ingenuity falsehood would seem ever to have at her disposal, a dozen artfully conceived versions of the late event were already in circulation. It was the act of a maniac,—a poor creature driven mad by injustice and persecution. It was the vengeance of a man whose fortune had been ruined by Dunn. It was the father of a girl he had seduced and abandoned. It was a beggared speculator,—a ruined trustee,—and so on; each narrative, strangely enough, inferring that the fatal catastrophe was an expiation! How ready is the world to accept this explanation of the sad reverses that befall those it once has stooped to adulate,—how greedily does it seek to repay itself for its own degrading homage, by maligning the idol of its former worship! Up to this hour no man had ever dared to whisper a suspicion of Dunn's integrity; and now, ere his lifeless clay was cold, many were floundering away in this pseudo-morality about the little benefit all his wealth was to him, and wondering if his fate would not be a lesson! And so the train went on its way, the coupé with the dead body detached and left for the inspection of the inquest, And Davis on a sick-bed and in custody of the police.
His wound was far more serious than at first was apprehended; the direction the ball had taken could not be ascertained, and the pain was intense. Grog, however, would not condescend to speak of his suffering, but addressed himself vigorously to all the cares of his situation.
“Let me have some strong cavendish tobacco and a pint of British gin, pen, ink, and paper, and no visitors.”
The remonstrances of the doctor he treated with scorn.
“I'm not one of your West-end swells,” said he, “that's afraid of a little pain, nor one of your Guy's Hospital wretches that's frightened by the surgeon's tools; only no tinkering, no probing. If you leave me alone, I have a constitution that will soon pull me through.”
His first care was to dictate a telegraphic despatch to a well-known lawyer, whose skill in criminal cases had made him a wide celebrity. He requested him to come down at once and confer with him. His next was to write to his daughter, and in this latter task he passed nearly half the night. Written as it was in great bodily pain and no small suffering of mind, the letter was marvellously indicative of the man who penned it. He narrated the whole incident to its fatal termination exactly as it occurred; not the slightest effort did he make at exculpation for his own share in it; and he only deplored the misfortune in its effect upon the object he had in view.
“If Dunn,” said he, “hadn't been so ready with his pistol, I believe we might have come to terms; but there's no guarding against accidents. As matters stand, Annesley must make his own fight, for, of course, I can be of little use to him or to any one else till the assizes are over. So far as I can see, the case is a bad one, and Conway most likely to succeed; but there's yet time for a compromise. I wish you 'd take the whole affair into your own hands.”
To enable her to enter clearly upon a question of such complication, he gave a full narrative, so far as he could, of the contested claim, showing each step he had himself taken in defence, and with what object he had despatched Paul Classon to the Crimea. Three entire pages were filled with this theme; of himself, and his own precarious fortunes, he said very little indeed.
“Don't be alarmed, Lizzy,” wrote he; “if the coroner's inquest should find a verdict of 'Wilful Murder' against me, such a decision does not signify a rush; and as I mean to reserve all my defence for the trial, such a verdict is likely enough. There will be, besides this, the regular hue and cry people get up against the gambler, the leg, and who knows what else they 'll call me. Don't mind that, either, girl. Let the moralists wag their charitable tongues; we can afford to make a waiting race, and, if I don't mistake much, before the trial comes off, Davenport Dunn himself will be more ill thought of than Kit Davis. Above all, however, don't show in public; get away from Rome, and stay for a month or two in some quiet, out-of-the-way place, where people cannot make remarks upon your manner, and either say, 'See how this disgraceful affair has cut her up,' or, 'Did you ever see any one so brazen under an open shame?'
“I have sent for Ewin Jones, the lawyer, and expect him by the down train; if he should say anything worth repeating to you, I 'll add it ere I seal this.”
A little lower down the page were scrawled, half illegibly, the following few words:—
“Another search for the ball, and no better luck; it has got down amongst some nerves, where they 're afraid to follow it,—a sort of Chancery Court Jones is here, and thinks 'we 'll do,' particularly if 'the Press' blackguards Dunn well in the mean time. Remember me to A. B., and keep him from talking nonsense about the business,—for a while, at least,—that is, if you can, and
“Believe me, yours, as ever,
“C. Davis.”