The Duke Decides/Chapter 18

by Headon Hill

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CHAPTER XVIII

The Senator and the Securities

On the hurricane-deck of the Campania, as the leviathan liner thrust her huge bulk towards the landing-stage through the lesser fry of the teeming Mersey traffic, a big man, wearing a light-gray frock-coat and a broad-brimmed soft white hat, stood talking to the purser. Senator Leonidas Sherman was accounted the handsomest man at Washington, and in his broad, well-chiseled, clean-shaven face was reflected that honesty and shrewd alertness which had caused his selection for his present trust.

“I don’t want the box out before the last moment, Mr. Seaton, and if you can conveniently keep the bullion-room locked till you hand it over I should be obliged,” the Senator was saying.

The brass-buttoned official gave a ready assent to the distinguished passenger’s request.

“I’d rather you had your job than me, sir,” he added, seriously. The equivalent of three million sterling in a little leather thing like that, and to have to cart it up to London all by your lone self—why, it’s enough to make one shudder.”

“It doesn’t me,” the Senator replied simply, with an unconscious gesture to his hip-pocket. “I have a bit of a reputation to live up to, you know. If it’s to be shooting, my early training has taught me to draw first; and if it’s to be confidence-men—well, it’s some years since I was born.”

The purser nodded and went about his duties while Sherman leaned over the forward rail and watched the shore, looming larger now every moment. The Senator was no backwoods “hayseed.” A man of culture and much travel, he possessed far more than a guidebook knowledge of every European capital, and did not make the mistake of underestimating London as a hatching-ground for crime. Till his precious charge was deposited in the Bank of England and he had fingered the receipt he was prepared for emergencies. The gold shipment which his Government had negotiated against the bonds he was bringing had been buzzed about in Wall Street for two months and more—ample time for the maturing of predatory schemes.

Aided by the company’s tug, the great steamer sidled up to the landing-stage, and as soon as the gangways were opened the usual stream of passengers’ friends began to push their way on board. The hurricane-deck towered high above the level of the quay, and Senator Sherman, not expecting anyone to meet him, retained his post of vantage at the rail, looking down with amused interest at the embracings and hand-shakings. He had no need to hurry, for it was too late to catch a train to London in time to reach the Bank before it closed for the day, and he preferred to let the ship clear before he claimed the box of bonds from the purser.

Suddenly he heard his name spoken inquiringly at his elbow, and wheeling smartly round he found himself looking into the harassed eyes of a well-dressed man whom he had seen, a few minutes before, pass on board from the landing-stage. He had specially noticed him from a limp which impeded his progress across the crowded gangway.

“Yes, my name is Sherman, but I haven’t the pleasure of knowing yours,” said the Senator shortly. There was a diffident air about this tired-looking individual—a something that might be shyness or might be guile—that put him on his guard. Could it be that one of the “confidence-men,” about whom he had just spoken so lightly, was going to practise on him ere even the securities were out of the purser’s custody? He wondered what tale would be unfolded for his entrapment.

“I am the Duke of Beaumanoir,” the stranger replied, after a nervous glance round. “I don’t suppose you ever heard of me. There wouldn’t have been time for a letter from your people to reach you from this side before you sailed.”

“You know my wife and daughter?” the Senator asked, sharply. The “tale” was developing on the grand scale, he told himself.

“I have the privilege of knowing Mrs. and Miss Sherman,” replied the Duke, flushing under the keen scrutiny to which he was being subjected. “I have also the honor of being their host. They are staying, together with their friends the Sadgroves, at my place in Hertfordshire. I—I came down to meet you in the hope of inducing you to join them there.”

“Very good of you. May I ask how you came to make their acquaintance?” asked the Senator, in an arid tone.

“I traveled in the same ship with them from New York, and General Sadgrove, with whom they stayed on arrival, happened to be the uncle of my friend and secretary, Alec Forsyth,” Beaumanoir made answer.

An amused twinkle flashed into the Senator’s clear eyes. He was quite certain now that the man was an impostor with designs on the three millions. The only spice of truth in the fellow’s story, he told himself, probably was that he had sailed in the St. Paul, which would have given him the opportunity of gathering from his wife or Leonie the particulars he was now working on. The Senator had no doubt that if he accompanied this rather poor specimen of a criminal decoy an attempt would be made to relieve him of the bonds—possibly to murder him. It was all a little too thin—especially the dangling of an exalted title as a bait to catch an American. This part of the scheme really annoyed him, as casting on a foible of his fellow-countrymen a reflection which he felt to be not wholly undeserved. The Senator became dangerous.

“Very well, your Grace; if my family is under your roof, it is the right place for me,” he said more affably. “I accept your invitation in the spirit in which it is given. I have a matter of three million sterling in securities to get from the bullion-room, and then I’m your man. Kindly wait here.”

A grim smile played round the Senator’s firm lips when, after going through the needful formalities with the purser, he quitted the steamer’s stronghold, carrying the leather despatch-box. He would lead the rascal on, making his mouth water, gently titillate his expectations, and then, having got him fairly on the hooks, hand him over to the police. Delighted with the prospect of thwarting a rogue, he sought his state-room to collect his personal baggage and have it conveyed ashore. The first thing that met his eye on entering the state-room was a letter in his wife’s handwriting that had just been delivered.

It bore date of the previous day, and informed him that the writer and Leonie were staying as the guests of the Duke of Beaumanoir at his country seat, Prior’s Tarrant. Mrs. Sherman went on to explain the circumstances, so far as she was aware of them, of the invitation, and she wound up with the hope that the Senator would join them immediately on landing. The Duke, who was the embodiment of affability, had cordially expressed that wish, she wrote; without, however, mentioning the Duke’s intention of going to Liverpool to meet the Campania.

Senator Sherman read the letter twice, assured himself of the authenticity of the handwriting, examined the postmark, and—made a wry face. It looked as if he had been too hasty in jumping to a conclusion about the young man waiting for him on the hurricane-deck, and he began to regret the curt demeanor he had assumed. He was not quite convinced, however, owing to the absence of any allusion to the Duke meeting him—in itself an extraordinary proceeding. Good republican as he was, the Senator fully appreciated the cleavage of English class distinctions, and he was aware that great nobles do not, as a rule, wait at seaport towns to welcome perfect strangers. It was possible that the depressed individual on deck might, after all, be a criminal who had discovered Mrs. Sherman’s visit to the Duke of Beaumanoir and was turning his knowledge to evil account. Still, though caution was called for, his wife’s letter invested the man’s story with a credibility which it had wholly lacked, and when he rejoined him the Senator’s manner was altered accordingly. The Duke having telegraphed for the carriage to meet them at Tarrant Road, they took a cab together to Lime Street station, and were fortunate enough to find a train on the point of starting. It was a corridor express, made up entirely of vestibule cars, and the fact caused the Duke an annoyance which partially revived the Senator’s suspicions.

“I don’t like this,” Beaumanoir said, glancing with what looked very like dismay up and down the well-filled car as they took their seats. “I should have preferred an ordinary first-class compartment that we could have had reserved.”

“Ah! I suppose a duke is bound to be a bit exclusive,” said the Senator, guardedly.

Beaumanoir, who a month before had regarded a ride in a Bowery street-car as an unattainable luxury, was betrayed into disclaiming any such snobbery.

“It isn’t that———” he was beginning hotly, when he pulled up short and feebly subsided, without explaining why he should have desired a tête-à-tête journey.

With the starting of the train a sustained and confidential conversation became impracticable, nor did either of the fellow travelers seem inclined for one; but as they sped southward the Senator found plenty of food for reflection in his companion’s behavior. To the experienced American eye the outline of a pistol was plainly apparent in the breast-pocket of the Duke, whose fingers never strayed far from that receptacle—an attitude which was always more distinctly marked during the infrequent stoppages. Except when it was distracted into a swift and nervous glance round by a movement of one of the other passengers, the Duke’s gaze was always focused on the precious box which the Senator carried on his lap.

“Either he means to rob me himself, or he is scared lest someone else will,” was the Senator’s conclusion.

But the journey came to an end without either of these consummations being arrived at or even attempted, and the sight of the coroneted carriage and the ducal liveries at Tarrant Road station removed the Senatov’s last lingering doubt as to the Duke’s identity. And, twenty minutes later, when, still hugging his despatch-box, he found his wife and daughter waiting to welcome him under the portico at Prior’s Tarrant, he was ready to laugh at himself; and what the Senator was ready to do he usually did promptly—as now.

“Ah, Jem!” he cried, as General Sadgrove came forward to greet him. “You’ll never believe what an ass I’ve been making of myself. Something in the British soil, I guess. It’s only this minute that I’ve been able to clear my silly brain of a lurking suspicion that his Grace’s kindness in coming to meet me covered a design on this little box. Took him for a sort of bunco-steerer.”

The General passed over the remark as a careless jest without pursuing it, but shook hands with his old friend warmly. The veteran was looking careworn and aged, the Senator thought, and he wondered, too, at the queer searching glance which the General cast upon their mutual host as the latter limped from the brougham into the hall. The Duke was engaged in making light of the thanks and reproaches showered upon him for going to Liverpool, wherefrom the Senator guessed that that singular proceeding had been unknown beforehand to the house-party.

They all went into the tapestry-room, where Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, now happily recovered from her headache of three days ago, was chatting to Sybil Hanbury and Alec Forsyth. The necessary introductions were effected by Beaumanoir, whose spirits had wonderfully revived with his entry into the house—to such an extent, indeed, that Leonie put it down to a few hours in the company of her breezy father, little thinking that they had traveled two hundred miles together without exchanging half as many words. Yet if there was nothing forced about the Duke’s sudden gaiety it certainly suggested unnatural excitement, and everyone present was impressed by his changed demeanor. Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was so affected by it that in narrowly observing her host she failed to notice that for some minutes after the introduction she herself was the object of observation, not to say a pretty sharp scrutiny, on the part of Senator Sherman.

“Say, your Grace,” exclaimed the Senator, recovering from his abstraction and turning with some abruptness to the Duke, “I can’t enjoy your hospitality with a whole heart till I’ve got this treasure under lock and key. Have you got any place where I can deposit the box with tolerable confidence of finding it when I want to take it to the Bank of England to-morrow? It’s a just retribution, I guess, to have to make you its custodian after suspecting you of wanting to lift it.”

Beaumanoir, it seemed, was quite equal to the occasion.

“I can guarantee the impregnability of the fire-proof safe in my muniment room,” he replied with alacrity. “If you will come with me, we will lock it up at once.”

Sturdily disregarding the badinage of his wife and Leonie for thinking robbery possible at Prior’s Tarrant, the Senator followed the Duke, and was conducted by him along many corridors to a stone-floored chamber lined with shelves full of dusty archives, and furnished only with a carved oak table and a few worm-eaten chairs. But, what was more to the purpose, a brand-new safe, resplendent in green and gold, the very latest patent of the most eminent manufacturers, occupied an imposing position at the far end. Producing a key, the Duke unlocked the safe, with no result till a touch on a hidden spring caused the heavy steel door to roll slowly outwards. The interior was nearly filled with parchment-bound volumes exactly like those on the shelves, but there was plenty of room for the box.

The Senator promptly placed his precious charge in the vacant space, and heaved a sigh of relief.

“It ought to be all right there,” he said.

“It ought to be,” Beaumanoir echoed, as he set the mechanism in motion. And when the heavy door had slid noiselessly back into position, he turned the key and pocketed it with an air of achievement. “Come, Mr. Sherman,” he said lightly, “let us go and rejoin the ladies. Now that we have got that safely housed we shall both feel much—er—more comfortable, shan’t we?”