"Am I going to draw a prize or a blank," he muttered. "Am I coming out of this interview with the notes in sight, or failure?"
His interview with the dentist told him.
The dentist himself was left—the last time he was referred to in this chronicle—facing Sawyer and two policemen.
The sight of the policemen caused him to clutch at the door frame for support. He thought the moment of his arrest had come, and his knees seemed to take on a desire to figure as castanets.
The two men touched their caps and did not attempt to enter.
That surprised the dentist. It dawned on him that a salute was not the usual preliminary to an arrest.
One of the men had a note-book in his hand. He spoke:
"Sorry to intrude, sir, but there's a fête on at the Crystal Palace for the police orphanage. Your name's down on the books as subscribing something last year, and we thought we'd just ask if you'd be so kind as to remember the poor orphans again."
What a feeling, what an intense feeling of relief came over him!
Relief! He almost laughed, the tension for a minute had been so great.
"What did I give last year?" he inquired, in as natural a voice as he could assume.
"Five shillings, sir."
"Then here's the same again. That's all right."
The men thanked him and withdrew. The dentist closed the door and almost sobbed.
Then he changed his mind about the registered letter. Opening the door, he entered the outer room, and took it from Sawyer.
"I'll see to this," he said.
That police visit seemed to have roused some courage in him—it was an element in his nature that needed a lot of rousing.
Why should he be afraid of every shadow? Where was the need for it?
Unless he betrayed himself—and then he remembered the visit of the man yesterday, the man who had made an appointment for eleven o'clock that day.
What could that mean? His inquiries, his reference to the American, all this seemed suspicious.
He would wait another half hour and see. Perhaps after all there was no need for fright.
During that half hour Sawyer tapped at and opened the door.
"The gent that came yesterday, sir."
"His name?"
"Mr. Brown, sir."
"Show him in."
The dentist braced himself for the interview. He put the envelope containing the notes in his table drawer, and looked up as his visitor entered.
"Mr. Brown?"
"That's it."
"You were recommended here, I think, by some one whose teeth I attended to."
"Well, I don't think you attended to his teeth only."
"No."
"He was rather cut up by your treatment."
Gerald had his eyes fixed on the dentist, and when he had uttered that double meaning remark, he saw the man's face grow pale as death.
He knew then that his bolt had gone home; knew that he was on the right track at last.
He adopted bold measures. The dentist's appearance warranted them.
"Sit down, Mr. Lennox. You don't mind my turning the key in the door, so we shan't be disturbed, do you? That's it."
He seated himself opposite the dentist, and pulled out his hired-for-a-shilling handcuffs.
The effect of their production was electric. He was more than ever convinced that he was right.
"Of course," he said quietly, "you guess the game's up. That little game you and your brother played with Mr. George Depew when he came to have a tooth out?"
The dentist was incapable of an answer. He sat there as if turned to stone.
Gerald went on:
"I'm of the American detective force—you have perhaps heard of me, Detective Grabbem. I gave the name of Brown to your boy because I didn't want to give the show away."
Still no answer. Then Gerald said suddenly:
"Where are the nineteen thousand pound notes?"
For answer the tongue-tied dentist with trembling hand opened his drawer, and handed Gerald the envelope he had recently given to and taken from Sawyer.
"You intended them for the London police? I'm from New York."
Gerald opened the envelope and his eyes sparkled as he handled the notes.
As a measure of precaution he collated the numbers with the entries in his pocketbook—all were correct.
"I'll take charge of these," he said, as he put the notes in his pocket. "Thanks for saving me trouble."
Then Gerald's anxiety was to get away. He said:
"Out of gratitude for saving me bother, is there anything you would like me to do for you? Want to write to your friends or anything?"
He had got all he wanted, and he decided to leave with it as promptly as possible. The dentist found his tongue, and said:
"I would be grateful for half an hour for—for the purpose of writing to my friends."
"It's yours. There is no back way out of this house, I see. I'll just smoke a pipe outside. No tricks, mind. I'll be back in half an hour."
Gerald went out slowly, lighted a pipe within sight of the dentist's window, sauntered with his hands behind him, after the manner of one waiting, and then when he reached the corner, turned it, and bolted in the direction of Moorgate Street.
There he hailed a hansom and was rapidly driven to his lodgings. He was one of the happiest fares in a London cab that day.
And the dentist? He completed the unfinished work of the morning.
No need now for the subtleties of the sharpening stone—all was known. He might as well use the knife in the quickest possible way, and end it all speedily.
His old cowardice came over him. He loathed himself for it, stamped his foot and strove to attain the courage needed to draw that sharp surgeon's knife under his chin.
He knew its edge was razor-like, that one strong, firm draw and all would be over. But he lacked the nerve.
He almost laughed when he remembered that he had heard it said that a suicide is a coward—he imagined that it required more courage to take one's own life than another's.
He looked at the clock; he had fooled away five minutes. That braced him up—he must avoid the hangman's attention at any cost.
It was not the loss of his life which had deterred him so much as the method of losing it.
Then an idea occurred to him. He had the gas apparatus, why not—no sooner thought than he started to put the idea into execution.
He had a little bench whereat he worked in and about the repairing and making of false teeth.
At each end were small vises. He fastened the surgeon's long knife into it after the manner of a man who would sharpen a saw.
It was firm and rigid.
The gas apparatus he put on the bench itself, and leaned over to it, his neck almost touching the knife.
As he lost consciousness and the power of standing, he knew what would happen; the weight of his whole body would drag his neck on to the keen edge. Long before he could recover consciousness, all would be over.
Then he expelled a deep breath and inhaled the gas.
When Gerald's copy of the Star was brought up to him, a triple head-lined column caught his eye. It was captioned:
and it went on to describe the ghastly details of the find in the dentist's room.
It was put down as a pure accident. The boy's evidence about the sharpening of the knives, the extraordinary position in which the body was found, were chronicled; there was not the breath of a suspicion of suicide.
Perhaps that soul which had taken its flight to another world knew naught of the happenings in this—would never know that the insurance office paid over the policy moneys, and that the wife and child the dead man had thought so much of benefited by the application of a golden salve in their time of grief.
"No need to shave this off now."
Gerald was standing next morning in front of his dressing-glass, and referred to his pointed beard.
He had intended shaving as a disguise in case of any bother with the now dead dentist. He had not seen what could arise—what the dentist would dare to do—but the detective's failure to go back for his prisoner would naturally excite suspicion in the dentist's breast.
Now—well, that breast was cold.
"There is no doubt," thought Gerald, "the doctor and the dentist between them did for Josh Todd. Both are now done for. So far as Josh Todd's murder is concerned, that is avenged. A restoration of the money"—he had the bank notes in front of him as he spoke—"to its rightful owner will end the whole thing.
"And," he thought, with a smile of pleasure playing round his mouth, "it will end up like a story too, with a marriage with Tessie—and, please God, a live happy ever after."
He inserted the notes in an envelope. Then in another, and another, and ultimately in a piece of brown paper, which he tied round with twine.
He went to the head of the stairs, and called out to the landlady, would she lend him a needle and cotton?
The maid of all work came up with it, and Gerald set about using the same.
He took off his coat and waistcoat, and ripped the lining of the latter from the cloth; pushing the envelope of money up, he sewed the lining down again.
"That's on my left side," said Gerald, "over the heart. I put that waistcoat on now"—he did so—"and it shall never leave me till I hand the money over to old Depew. I'll sleep in that waistcoat, and never, night or day, shall it be out of my touch."
He looked up the trains and boat sailings, booked his passage, and arranged to step on board a liner the next day on his way to America—on his way to the girl he loved.
The next day he settled with his landlady. Then he took an omnibus to Euston, sitting on the top of it with his bag on his knees, for his exchequer was running low, and it did not admit of cab hire. By tram he went to the dock, and stepped aboard the vessel which was to bear him to the land of the free.
He had gone to the expense in town of booking both berths in his second class cabin. It left him almost without a pound in his pocket, but he had too much in value about him to run any risk.
He had provided against any tampering with the bolts or locks of his cabin door by purchasing one of the bell door alarms which fix into the floor, and at the slightest pressure of the door rings a loud alarm.
He did not fear for a moment that any attempt to rob him would be made; he simply took no risks.
Traveling second class, no one would suppose him in possession of nineteen thousand pounds, and as he had made up his mind that the package should never leave his breast, he felt quite safe.
On board the boat, after she sailed, he kept very much to his cabin. He did not make many acquaintances. He occasionally chatted and smoked with a poor looking, club-footed old man, who was a fellow-passenger.
He was moved to this by the extreme sensitiveness of the man; indeed, a veiled pity prompted him to take notice of the only creature on the ship who seemed to be without an acquaintance.
He was surprised when he found from conversation what a mine of information he had struck; that his companion was a well-informed, educated, and apparently wealthy man.
"Yes," the other said, "I suppose you are surprised to find me traveling second class. I am extremely sensitive. I know with this hideous deformity, a hump back and a club foot, that people talk of me in pitying tones behind my back.
"I don't want their pity," he continued fiercely; "I only want to be let alone, unnoticed. With you, it is different. You are the only man on this ship who looks at me without conveying an impression that you would like to pat me on the back and say, 'Poor old fellow.' Damn their pity!"
Gerald laughed heartily. The man was speaking the truth, he knew.
His almost toothless gums caused chin and nose to come together in a manner strikingly suggestive of Punch, and he spoke with a squeak.
His nose even was deformed, and a swelling on one side of it below the bridge added to the curious appearance of the face. A bald head, with a fringe round it of snow white hair, completed the grotesqueness.
In the more crowded second class cabin, the man escaped notice better than he would have done in the saloon.
So it came about that during the voyage Gerald and the club-footed hunchback passed many hours together.
Gerald learned much, for there was scarcely a subject on which his companion was not well posted.
The nights were particularly pleasant, for the moon was at the full, and, well wrapped up, they usually spent the after dinner time on deck, while the majority of the passengers were more sociably engaged in the way of games or music.
At one meal the subject of moon blindness had cropped up, and many curious anecdotes were told anent it—anecdotes more or less truthful, after the manner of shipboard stories.
Afterwards, on deck, Gerald's companion continued the conversation. At table he rarely spoke. He said:
"It is quite true. Moon blindness is a terrible thing. The great relief about it is the knowledge that the sight comes back.
"I remember, many years ago, abroad, being foolish enough to insist on sleeping on an open deck. It was, of course, terribly hot weather, or even I—young as I was then—should never have been so foolish. I lay on my back on the deck—on the back is the only comfortable way in which to lie on a hard couch, by the by—and when I woke I could not see my hand before me.
"Fright! God bless me! I believe I went mad."
"Enough to make you."
"The captain reassured me by laughing at me. It seemed a cruel thing to do, but I have since thought it saved me from going mad. I have always feared blindness so—I have always had weak eyes."
"I notice that you are never without colored glasses."
"That is so. I cannot see a yard away without them.
"Well, on this occasion of which I am speaking, there was no ship's doctor aboard. The captain gave me an ointment to use which he told me would restore my sight in five or six days."
"Did it?"
"In that time my sight became as good as ever it was. As to the ointment—well, the captain afterwards told me that was a mere trick. That nothing but time cured moon blindness, and that he had given me the fat as an ointment merely to keep me busy."
"Smart."
"Yes. There was another effect it had on a fellow-passenger—who slept as I had slept. He got up from the deck, felt his way to his berth, and lay there unconscious for nearly a day and a half.
"When he recovered, he had not the faintest recollection of even lying down on the deck, and was amazed to find himself in his clothes in his bunk."
"Curious."
"So I thought. Don't light your pipe—try one of these cigars. They are from a box I have just opened. I want your opinion of them."
"Thanks—want the light?"
"No, I won't smoke any more to-night. I think"—a yawn—"I'll be getting to bed. Good-night."
"Good-night. I shan't turn in just yet; as I've lighted this cigar, I'll smoke it out."
"Give me your opinion of it in the morning. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Gerald sat on in the moonlight smoking, and when in the morning he found himself in his berth with his clothes on, he thought of the story of the moon struck man, thought he had been affected in the same way, and was thankful that he had awakened at his regular hour with nothing worse than a headache.
He determined never to go to sleep on deck again while the moon was shining.
New York. Gerald bade farewell to his companion, who pressed him, if ever he returned to England again, to pay him a visit, and they parted.
Gerald's first act, after fixing on a train at the railway station, was to send a wire to Depew.
Have succeeded in every way. Coming by train, arriving Oakville at six. Let Tessie meet me with trap.
Gerald Danvers.
And Tessie was there to meet him—Tessie, bright, bonnie, and expectant.
Their eyes spoke, but they just shook hands quietly and then drove away.
When they reached the country road, away from people, Gerald took hold of the reins, and pulled the horses up.
"What's that for?"
"Comfort, Tessie. You have just got to give me the biggest kisses you're capable of giving, and I don't like them in a jolting cart."
"That's it. Now another. I can do with another. Greedy, eh? Why, I haven't had a kiss all the time I have been away."
"I should hope not!"
"Little woman, I've come back so full of joy—and I may say of money—that I wonder my feelings aren't too much for me. I wonder I don't burst."
"Is it true, Gerald—all of it? Dad told us when he got your wire."
"What did he say?"
"Well, when he opened it and read it, he said, 'Hallelujah!'"
"That's the old man right enough."
"Then he told us that you had been over for nineteen thousand pounds, and that you said you were bringing them with you."
"That was so."
"And is it true, Gerald? True that you have nineteen thousand pounds about you now?"
"Feel right here, lassie."
"Your heart?"
"No, you can't feel that—you've had it for weeks past."
"Don't be foolish, Gerald."
"Feel there—my vest."
"That's it—wrapped up in more paper—there's nineteen of them, each for a thousand pounds."
"My!"
"Wants some swallowing, doesn't it? That's what I went across the pond for, to get that money for your dad."
"So he said."
"And before I went I bargained how I was to be paid for my work. I made him promise to give me—you."
"So he said."
"'Pears to me he has told you 'most all there is to tell."
"He had never said a word to mother or to me till your wire came. But he was full enough of talk then."
"Trust the old man for that. When he pops the cork out you can hear him."
"He says that if it had not been for you, he never would have seen a dollar of the money."
"That's so. Sounds egotistical, but I don't sorter reckon he would."
"He's mapped out what he's going to do with part of it."
"Hasn't lost any time!"
"He's not going to give you any of it."
"Don't want it. I've got his word that he'll give you to me, and that's enough for me to handle. I am counting on finding you a handful."
"I'm sure!"
"Old man's a man of his word; he won't go away from it. Our two beating hearts are going to be made one, Tessie, just as soon as a parson can tie us up."
"I don't see any reason for hurry!"
"Your sight's bad! We'll have to see to it."
"But you haven't asked what he's doing with the part of the money I referred to."
"Don't want to know. Don't care a mosquito's wing what he does with it. I plank those notes into his hand, and I say, 'Farmer, there's your part of the bargain,' then I step across to you and I say, 'and I think this is mine?' Farmer he agrees, and you and I——"
"But Gerald, darling——"
"That's right; you keep on calling me 'darling.' It sounds real sweet—just like molasses—coming from your lips."
"I wish you would be sensible for a minute."
"Couldn't, Tessie, if I tried. I've earned you, my girl, and you're mine, mine, mine!"
"Gerald, don't scream out like that!"
"Don't care. There's only the dicky birds to hear, and it won't frighten them. Catch up the reins, lassie, steer for the farm, let me unload my cargo, and have the right to claim you for first mate on our voyage through life."
"Gerald! I never saw you so silly."
"Ain't I? I own up. I'm just oozing stupidity at every pore. Gimme a kiss, or I'll stop the horse again."
"How rough you are, Gerald!"
"Ain't I? Gimme another. And another. Hallo! What's the mare stopped for? Gee up! Don't you know you've got a bride and bridegroom behind you? Don't you know the wedding march? Gee up, anyway."
"Gerald! Do be quiet. I want to tell you something."
"Fire away."
"About that money."
"Yes?"
"Dad's going to give me some."
"Well?"
"How much do you think?"
"Dunno—don't care."
"Nine thousand pounds."
"Get away! What are you giving us?"
"Fact. He's not going to give you a cent. He says he promised to give me to you, and he'll settle on me as a wedding portion the odd half."
"He's a thorough, regular, kiln dried brick!"
"Nine thousand pounds, Gerald!"
"Don't seem as if there could be so much money in the world, Tessie, does it? There's a capital for us to start a life partnership on!"
"As the capitalist partner, I shall keep you in order, my boy."
"You will—you will—I feel it looming."
"You may not be in such a hurry about our marriage after that threat."
"Oh, yes. I am in a greater hurry. I want to get over it."
"You wretch!"
"Ain't I? Biggest wretch on the American continent at this moment. Hullo, Tessie! I didn't see the crape round your sleeve. Who's dead?"
"Poor old Susan."
"No!"
"Yes; she died the second week you were away."
"Poor old soul! She nearly sent me to glory, but I bear her no grudge."
"Did you find out, Gerald, whether her husband was really murdered after all?"
"Not only that, Tessie, but I found who were his two murderers."
"They were arrested by the hand of death. No earthly judge and jury will try them. They have to toe the mark before the Judge of All."
"Dead?"
"Yes, and that is all we will say about it. We don't want to talk of death now, Tessie, but of life, the life which is before us, the life which you and I are going to travel in double harness. The life——"
"Take your arm away, Gerald. There's the farm, and mother and father are standing at the door."
"Hip, hip, hooray, farmer!"
"Come right in, lad, come right in. You, Jim, look after the mare."
"Mother-in-law, give me a kiss."
"I'm sure——"
"It's right, farmer, isn't it? She can kiss her future son-in-law in safety, can't she? I bring you home nineteen thousand pounds, and Tessie and I enter into partnership till death doth us part. Isn't that the bond?"
"Every word of it, sonny, every word. But that money, where is it?"
"Here, right here, farmer; on my beating, palpitating, manly bosom. Mother-in-law that is to be, give me your scissors. No, take 'em yourself. Undo the stitches. There. That's it. 'Open sesame' and out she rolls.
"Brown paper parcel tied with twine. Don't look worth nineteen thousand pounds, does it, farmer? Open the packet, and you will see a sight for sore eyes. Nineteen crisp, crackling, rustling Bank of England notes for a thousand pounds each!"
The trembling fingers of the farmer gripped the scissors, and he cut the twine. Then he tore off the brown paper and revealed—a piece of folded newspaper!
For a moment there was a silence, but in that moment a great change came over those present.
All the hilarity left Gerald. He stood looking at the packet with surely the whitest face that ever living man bore. The farmer's clouded to the pitch of blackness, and, bringing his hand down on the table with a force which made the crockery on the dresser ring again, he blurted out:
"What damned fool's game is this, anyhow?"
Gerald never moved, never took his eyes off that packet, never answered.
Then he walked closer to it, picked it up, dropped it, and sank into a chair, still a white faced, speechless man.
The farmer watched him for a whole minute. Then he sneeringly remarked:
"Been robbed of the money, eh?"
Gerald had to moisten his lips before he could ejaculate the word:
"Yes."
Then the farmer laughed, but it was not a pleasant laugh.
He rose to his feet and pointed to the door. He uttered but one word:
"Go!"
"Father!"
"Silence, girl! and stand aside from that lying cheat."
"Cheat!"
Gerald spoke the last word. There was an air of unnatural calm about the farmer, as he answered:
"Cheat! Fraud! Liar! Bunco-steerer; we're a long way from the sheriff, or, by the God that's in the heaven above, I'd lodge you in jail to-night."
"Lodge—me—in—jail!"
"For robbing me of fifty pounds."
"Robbing!"
"Do you think I don't see through your trickery? Do you take me for a hayseed because I'm a farmer? Do you think I believe a word of what you say?
"Tell me—tell me again that you had nineteen thousand pounds in that vest of yours, and that you've been robbed of it."
"I sewed—it—in—myself."
Again the farmer laughed—that unpleasant laugh of his.
Then he walked to the wall and took down a whip—a stock whip with a long thong. He drew the lash through his fingers and said:
"This farmhouse has sheltered a thief long enough. I look on that fifty pounds as lost. I give you two minutes to get the other side of that door. If you're not gone then, I'll write a receipt on your back with this lash. So help me, God!"
"Father!"
"Stand back, girl!—this is no place for you."
"Father——"
"Stand back, I say. You're my flesh and blood—the flesh and blood of honest people; you want no truck with carrion like this."
"Farmer, you think I have robbed you——"
"Thief!"
"You think that I——"
"Thief!"
"I, who wanted to——"
"Thief!"
Gerald walked to the door. Tessie sprang to it, too, and said:
"Gerald!"
"Tessie, I—answer me, lassie; it looks black enough, God knows. Answer me! Do you think I lied when I told you——"
"No, Gerald; I believe in you now as I did then."
"Thank God!"
"My own flesh and blood turnin' agin' me!"
"Farmer, I——"
"Thief!"
"Listen to——"
"Thief!"
"Father!"
"Stand aside, child, and let that thief go out—out before I lash him like the dog he is."
"No, father, you wrong him, you wrong me. He is my promised husband. If he is turned out, I go with him."
And once more the farmer muttered:
"My own flesh and blood turnin' agin' me!"
"Tessie, my little girl."
Gerald had his arms round her waist, and drew her to him as he spoke.
"God bless you for those words. They put heart, life, and courage into me. But this is your home. Stay here, girlie, till I fetch you from it—till I have found the money of which I have been robbed."
"Gerald!"
"My girlie," there was a little tremble in his voice, "the sky looked so clear and bright as we came to the farm, and it looks all drear and black now I am leaving it. But the blackest cloud has a silver lining, and I know that money is in America.
"I've got to find it, Tessie, and I'm going right away now to do it. Right away into New York, and you won't see me back here again until I come with the money; until I come to make your father apologize for calling an honest man a thief, and admit that it doesn't always do to judge by appearances."
"Gerald!"
"Oh, I don't blame him, lass; things look black, cruelly black; and if he knew all, he'd be more full of wonder than unjust rage. I sewed those notes into this vest myself, Tessie, and sleeping or waking, girlie, it has never left my body."
"Where—where, Gerald, can the notes be?"
"That, lass, I am going to New York to find out. A kiss, girlie; just one. You'll see me back; trust me."
"I do, Gerald—trust you with all my heart and soul."
"Mrs. Depew, you don't feel so strong about this matter as the farmer; you don't know quite so much. If he's inclined to be rough on this girl here, remember that I tell you that when she defends me, she defends an honest man.
"You told me once that you knew by my eyes I could never tell a woman a lie. I'm looking you straight in the face now, Mrs. Depew, and I tell you that I sewed that money in my vest myself."
"Why," blurted out the farmer, "why didn't——"
"Hold on, there, farmer—you've said enough. I've taken such words from you to-night as no living man can say he has ever uttered to me before. I don't want to hear you talk now. Later on, I'll listen—listen when you beg my pardon for your injustice; as you shall, by God! Good-night."
And he passed through the doorway, out on to the road, his face towards the capital.
We leave America for England, and turn back in our history a week or so—to Wimbledon and The Elms on the night of Gerald's adventure there.
The police and Gerald are in the passage by the front door, and a haggard faced man is crouched below the steps listening.
He hears all that Gerald says, and his fury rises to white heat as he realizes by his late clerk's reticence that he is not a detective at all!
No policeman would speak as he speaks—concealing the facts from other officers.
The police and Gerald go away. Indelibly printed on the lawyer's memory is his late clerk's address.
Loide breaks into his own house, and sleeps that night on the bed he had left up-stairs.
Early as Gerald leaves Wimbledon next morning, Loide has left it before him.
The lawyer has profited in his former lesson in make up.
He remembers that in the Waterloo Road there are two or three theatrical shops. He waits about till they are open, and then enters one.
"You will be surprised at what I want," he says to the man in the shop, "and perhaps you will not be able to give it to me."
"What is it, sir?"
"I want such a complete disguise that my own son will not know me."
"Your son!"
"Yes. It's a ghastly thing for a father to have to confess, but I suspect my son of having robbed me. I want to find out if it is so. If so, I shall ship him abroad.
"I dare not place the matter in the hands of the police, because, if my suspicions are confirmed, I should have to prosecute—that I cannot do, for his mother's sake alone."
"But how will you manage to——"
"I have thought it all out. We have just discharged our old caretaker at the warehouse. I have given out that I am going abroad, and I propose to be the new caretaker for a week or so."
"For a week! You can't expect make up to last a week."
"You think the disguise is impossible?"
"Well, no——"
"See here, I have false teeth. Now they are out you see what a difference it makes."
"Yes, you're right; pinches in your cheeks, and brings your nose and chin nearer. A good wig——"
"I wear one now. I propose not to wear one at all. I am quite bald at top. Can you color the fringe of hair round?"
"Color wouldn't stand for a week; besides, in daylight it would be seen."
"There is no way, then?"
"Yes; if you don't mind it."
"What is it?"
"Bleach it—won't take five minutes—bleach what you have, and your bushy eyebrows whitened and trimmed will make all the difference in the world."
"Good."
"But, mind, you will have to dye it black again when you want to return to your own color."
"That's all right. Can you suggest anything else?"
"Yes. Your skin is white—'London tint' we call it—that can be stained a darker color—'country tint' our name for it. Complexion is a big factor in a make up."
"If you don't mind a little pain, we can alter your nose. This little thing put up the nostril distends one side, and contracts the other."
"Good."
"Bodily—you don't mind walking lame?"
"Don't mind anything so long as the disguise is effective."
"Elevators in your boots raise you three inches in height, and a club boot will cause you to walk altogether differently."
"I see."
"A hump on your back, and a pair of tinted glasses will complete the thing. It would need a very close observer to detect you."
"The voice is the only thing——"
"Need not trouble you. This little thing fixes like the plate of false teeth in the roof of the mouth. Stage dudes wear them. Speak slowly, and you'll find yourself—unconsciously—lisping and stammering. The nose distender adds a little twangy, nasal sound, and it's your own fault if your voice gives you away."
"All sounds good. Can you take me in hand now?"
"Walk in."
Terms were discussed and settled, and for an hour Loide was under the shopkeeper's hands.
At the expiration of that time he looked in the glass. He started back in amazement.
Truly had he had a son, that son would scarcely have recognized him. He would have been a wise child to know his own father in that disguise.
"The advantage of this, you see," said the make up man, "is that it is what we call a 'daylight get up.' You needn't be afraid of it rubbing off. It'll last. You'll look the same this day week as you look now. It will be more than a week before that stain begins to wear off. Now, try the coat."
Several coats were tried before a fit to suit the shopman was arrived at, and then he gave it out to one of his men with directions.
Meanwhile boots were tried on.
"You will find the height and the club boot strange at first."
"If I look as I feel with these elevators on, I must appear to be a giant."
The shopman laughed.
"It makes a big change. Walk round the shop for five minutes so as to get used to them. Coat ready? Now try this on. That will do, I think. Put on these tinted specs, and you're complete."
Once more Loide looked in the mirror. His bent appearance altered his shape as much as the shopman's art had altered his face—he felt absolutely satisfied.
Having paid the bill, he left the shop, and started walking towards the bridge; but he did not walk far—he would have been lame in reality—he hailed a hansom.
The direction he gave the driver was the main road, in a street off which Gerald was lodging.
Reaching the end of it he alighted, paid his fare, and boldly walked to No. 9—the number Gerald had given to the police.
It was an ordinary lodging house, and the lawyer was pleased to see a bill in the window, bearing the legend, "Bed for Single Gentleman."
He knocked at the door. He was after that bed.
Yes, the landlady was in, said the girl; would he step inside and wait a minute?
He stepped. The landlady came; she quoted her terms for a bedroom for a week.
Would the gentleman like to see it? The gentleman would—and did.
The second floor was devoted to bedrooms. Loide approved of the one shown him.
He commented on the fact that the tenant of the next room slept late, as his boots were still outside his door; and with a darkened brow the landlady replied to the effect that those who stopped out all night usually slept late the next day.
Loide's heart beat quicker—he guessed the boots were Gerald's.
He was sleeping in the next room, sleeping there with nineteen thousand pounds in his possession.
In the next room—there were possibilities. Loide smiled pleasantly, and his heart felt lightened.
He paid a deposit, and said that if the landlady would get him a chop that would be all he would require till supper.
He was left alone.
Turning the key in the lock he carefully felt the walls separating him from the adjoining room—as he suspected, lath and plaster! Presently he heard some one moving in there, heard distinctly through the thin wall. Then the door was opened, and the boots taken in. Gerald was going out.
He went. Ear to crack in the door, the lawyer heard the man he was so anxious about speak to the landlady on the next floor, saying he would return in about two hours' time, and would she get him a steak and potatoes for then.
Two hours! There would be time.
The lawyer stood on his bed and took down from its nail a framed and highly colored statement to the effect that The Way of the Transgressor is Hard.
On that part of the wall the frame had covered he operated with his pocket-knife.
Stripping the paper, he cut away plaster and laths till he could see the back of the paper of the adjoining chamber.
He sighed with satisfaction. His task was over.
He did not care how soon Gerald came back. He would have his eye on him.