Rogues & Company/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
"Fancy there having been a robbery on our train!" said the Countess Theodora looking up from "The Bunmouth Daily Chronicle." "How strange! Didn't you know anything about it, Louis?"
"Nothing at all," said the Count de Beaulieu intent on his breakfast and very red in the face. George, resplendent in a cast-off suit, was temporarily taking the place of the hotel-waiter whom he had ignominiously ejected from the Count's suite, and his manner of serving the ham and eggs was stoically self-possessed and correct. The Count glared at him out of the corners of his eye, mutely admiring. Certainly the talent for impersonating superior people ran in the family.
"Really, there appears to have been quite a commotion," the Countess Theodora went on. "Just listen—'Mrs. Pagot-Chump, the well-known American millionairess who is at present honouring Bunmouth with a long visit—'"
"What!"
The Countess Theodora looked across the table in grave surprise. The exclamation had come like a pistol-shot. Her husband's face was colourless and his eyeglass had dropped with a click into his plate.
"Is there anything the matter, Louis?" she asked. "Aren't you feeling well?"
"Well?" He caught George's eye and recovered himself, though not very effectually. "Of course—perfectly well. I was only shocked—surprised, I should say, that a person like Mrs. Pagot-Chump should come to—well—to a place like this—you know—"
"Do you you know her then?"
"Certainly not—that is to say—I have heard of her."
"You seem to be very well acquainted with her tastes."
"My dear Theo," in tones of mild superiority, "American millionairesses are the same all the world over."
"Do you generally shout like that when you hear one mentioned?"
"I do not," with increasing asperity. "If a man takes a mouthful of hot coffee—"
"You are drinking tea, are you not?"
"The point is immaterial."
"Oh!"
The Countess Theodora returned to "The Bunmouth Daily Chronicle," but she did not proffer any more extracts from its contents and the subsequent silence was glacial. Count Louis de Beaulieu took a third helping of ham and eggs out of pure panic and the entry of the waiter with that morning's post completed his confusion. The waiter was Bunmouth's pet prodigy and the Count's nightmare. Rumour or local pride had it that he could speak every known tongue, and he certainly flavoured his conversation with a sufficiently large quantity of foreign exclamations—more or less profane—to justify the assertion. The Count was a legitimate prey.
"Deux lettres pour Monsieur le Comte."
"Merci bieng."
"Et une pour Madame la Comtesse."
Madame la Comtesse said nothing at all, but snatched her letter from the tray and Monsieur le Comte realised with a sinking heart that his manners were not as Continental as they should have been. Evidently in France one does not say "merci bieng"—one merely snatches. Chastened and uneasy, he opened the long, legal looking envelope and hurried over the contents. At the end he draw a quick sigh of relief. Messrs. Billington & Boles begged to inform him that the matter of his inheritance was now satisfactorily settled. The executors had expressed themselves convinced by the proofs of his identity, and the sum of £40,000 had been duly paid into the Bank of England to his credit. Messrs. Billington & Boles added that they hoped to have the honour of attending to the Count de Beaulieu's affairs in the future.
"£40,000!" said the Count under his breath. He glanced involuntarily across the table. For one very beautiful and illusionary moment the true state of affairs was forgotten. He was the Count de Beaulieu with £40,000 in cash, an estate in Norfolk and a lovely wife. Fortune smiled upon him, and he too smiled, indifferent to the extreme dubiousness of his claim to these various possessions.
As though aware that he was looking at her, the Countess lifted her eyes. Her face was flushed, and all the laughter and mockery had disappeared. It seemed to him indeed that the tears were very near the surface, and suddenly he remembered that she too had received a letter. From whom? From her parents? A reconciliation, perhaps? In that case his part was played out. Chivalry would no longer require him to offer his protection—he would be perfectly free to bolt with the £40,000 and anything else pertaining to the missing Count that he could lay hands on. Nothing could be more propitious. He was nothing to her and she was nothing to him. It was curious that the fact left him unenthusiastic. On the contrary, he felt dully miserable.
"From France?" he enquired at last with assumed indifference.
"No."
"Oh?" He wished she was not so curt. After all, he had a right to know. He was her husband in spite of everything. He intended to assert his authority. "Might I enquire from whom your letter is then?" he said.
"You may."
"Theodora—I expect an answer."
"Do you?" In spite of her obvious trouble she smiled, baffling, and truculent. "Well, as it happens I have no objection to answering. This letter is from a friend—a Mr. Cecil Saunders."
"Indeed?"
"And he is coming down to see me."
"Oh—does it not occur to you that I might object?"
"No, it does not. The idea, under the circumstances would be highly ridiculous."
"Indeed?"
She got up, still smiling, though now with a touch of exasperation.
"Your repartee is a trifle monotonous, Louis," she said. "You should endeavour to cultivate a greater variety and a little less pomposity. And now for the present—au revoir. I am going out in the grounds for some fresh air."
Louis stifled a third "indeed?" and was left staring angrily at his third and untouched helping of ham and eggs. He wondered whether all French women were so provoking—in which case he thanked Heaven that he was a true-born Englishman even though a bad one. And yet—and yet! He rose and pushed his chair viciously under the table. One thing was clear in his mind—he was not going to beat a retreat before this Mr. Cecil Saunders. He could stick to his guns and his wife even though all Scotland Yard were after him. After all—there was no proof as yet. And then he caught sight of George and the whole precariousness of his situation revealed itself in that grinning, unalterably amicable countenance.
"George!" he said curtly.
George put down his tray and with it his respectful bearing and a good percentage of aspirants.
"Well, Bill, dear!" he returned cheerfully. "Wot's your call, old blighter?"
"Come here—and for pity's sake don't shout like that. Look here—things can't go on like this."
George agreed with a jerk of the bullet head.
"Now you're a-talkin' sense, my cough-drop," he said. "Wot concerns yours truly the joke's gettin' too stale. Carryin' round plates and brushin' me own brother's togs is a very pleasant sort of rest cure but a bit wearin'. If there was any 'opes of makin' a good 'awl I wouldn't mind hobligin' you a bit longer, but outside my dear old friend Mrs. Pagot-Chump there ain't a soul in the blessed place wot's got so much as a genuine twinkler and I'm a 'ard workin' man, I am—"
"Well, then, George, I've got a job for you."
"Lawks, you don't say?"
"It's true. I want you to steal that—that infernal necklace."
"Wot—me wedding-gift—from 'er 'Ighness, me own sister-in-law? You don't mean it, Bill?"
"I do—I'm in deadly earnest."
"Bill, me feelin's are that 'urt—"
"I can't help it—you must get those pearls back." The Count began to pace restlessly about the room whilst George watched him in grieving sympathy. "You must get them back," the Count went on. "I'm willing to make any sacrifice and run any risk, but those pearls must be given back to their rightful owner."
"Bill, you've lost a slate—"
"Yes, yes, I know. Something's wrong with me. I'm not the man I was. That blow on the head seems to have spoilt everything. But there the fact is—I can't go on nationalising property, as you gracefully express it. I'm using another man's money and—and deceiving a trusting woman. That's bad enough for me—I'm not going any further. The real Count may be dead and in that case I shall endeavour—I feel it my duty to endeavour to lead an honest life. And you've got to help me, George."
George drew himself up to his full height.
"'Ave I sunk this low?" he appealed pathetically.
"Don't trifle—I've said that I am in deadly earnest. Get me those pearls and I'll give them back to their owner. I don't know what I shall say to her—any lie will do, and she'll be glad enough to swallow anything. After that I'm going to keep straight."
"Yes, that's all very fine, but wot abaut yours truly?"
"You?" The Count de Beaulieu stopped his restless wandering and confronted his relative with a grave but softened countenance. "Get me that necklace and I'll square you with £500," he said. "Afterwards—well, you're my brother and I'll start you in anything you like. I'll buy you a business and I'll keep you on your legs—so long as you keep straight." His voice rang with a new enthusiasm. He saw before him the vista of a new life full of a noble generosity, and honest atonement for the murky past. But George drew out a handkerchief of doubtful antecedents and mopped his eyes.
"You're beautiful, Bill," he said in accents of stifled emotion, "—too beautiful, we've never 'ad anythink so beautiful in the family before. You'll die young—I knows you will, my poor misguided brother."
"Don't jeer—I'm not mad—I'm in deadly earnest."
George looked up and put his finger vulgarly to his nose.
"You ain't mad," he said, "and you ain't in deadly earnest. It's worse than all that. When a man with your talents starts bein' honest I knows wot's wrong with 'im—'e's in love, that's wot 'e is—and that's wot you are, me amatoor sky-pilot!"
The Count's eyeglass and his jaw dropped simultaneously, but no answer occurred to him, and by the time he had begun to digest the full purport of the accusation the accuser had crept with professional stealth into the Countess' bed-room.