"But, after all, I don't think I should have cared to be in the line; there's not the same glamour about it, is there? You fellows in the cavalry, in a crack regiment like yours, must see the rosy side of life." He heaved a sigh. "And, of course, you've all got pots of money to grease the wheels."
Hugh fidgeted perceptibly. How very vulgar the man was, with an innate vulgarity that nothing would ever eradicate. But his host, absorbed in his own reflections, did not observe the movement.
"Of course, we know all about you, about the great house of Murchison, you are tiled-in all right." He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper: "What about that young chap yonder? I suppose he's rolling in money, too?"
It was growing insufferable. For two pins Hugh would have got up and bidden him goodnight then and there, but he shrank from making a scene. what a fool he had been to come here, to allow his kindly feeling for that susceptible young donkey of a Pomfret to expose him to such an ordeal as this.
"Really, Mr. Burton," he said in a cutting voice, "I do not discuss the private affairs of my friends on such a brief acquaintance. If you are really anxious to know, I believe Mr. Pomfret has considerable expectations from an old aunt who is fairly wealthy. Those expectations depend, I understand, upon his conforming generally to her wishes in all respects."
"Ah, I understand," said the unabashed Burton. "Sorry if my question gave you offence. What really put it in my head was the difference between his position and mine when I was his age."
There was silence for some little time, while the two men applied themselves steadily to their cigars. Then Burton jumped up suddenly.
"This must be a bit slow for you and your friend, and the night is young. What do you say to a game at bridge?"
Yes, Captain Murchison would welcome a game of bridge, anything as a relief to this vulgarian's conversation.
They played for over two hours, Murchison keenly alert from certain suspicions that had been forming in his mind. At present there was no foundation for these vague suspicions. They played for small stakes, but the visitors rose up the winners, not by a great amount, but still winners.
It was a fine night, the two men walked back to their quarters.
"How did you get on with the charmer? I saw you seemed very confidential together," asked the older man.
"Splendidly, old chap. She told me a lot about her history." Pomfret related all he had been told in full. "And how did you get on with the brother?"
"Don't ask me," replied Hugh with a groan. "He's the most insufferable creature I ever came across. I don't really think I can go there again. At the beginning of the evening he started fairly well, but later he reverted to type."
"Well, I may as well tell you straight, I shall. The next time we go I'll take a share of the brother."
When Pomfret spoke in that tone he meant what he said, and Hugh knew he would have his own wilful way.
There was one piece of information which the young subaltern had not imparted to his friend.
It was this—that after much pressing, and more than one refusal, Miss Burton had agreed to meet him to-morrow afternoon at a very sequestered spot about a mile and a half from Blankfield, with the view of pursuing their acquaintance.
From the night of that dinner-party Murchison noted a subtle difference in his young friend's demeanour. Pomfret had always been a harum-scarum sort of young fellow, accustomed to follow erratic and injudicious impulses, not absolutely devoid of brains of a certain order, but of imperfect and ill-balanced mentality.
But in his wildest escapades he had always been frank and above-board. And he was ever the first, when he had overstepped the border-line, to admit that he was in the wrong. And on such occasions, far from justifying his exploits, he had been ready to deplore them.
But his frankness seemed to have departed from that night. He seemed rather to avoid than seek the society of his old friend and mentor. When Hugh brought up the subject of the Burtons, Pomfret seemed anxious to avoid it, to say as little as possible. He seemed to shut himself up within his own soul.
Hugh, of course, was profoundly uneasy. Such a transparent creature as Pomfret would not be likely to retire within his own shell unless there were cogent reasons for the withdrawal. And the reasons were inspired by the attractive personality of the fascinating siren at Rosemount, the charming young woman who explained the presence of an undesirable brother by the narrative of her father's first unfortunate marriage.
Pomfret had invited the brother and sister to a dinner at the principal hotel in the place, and Hugh had been his friend's guest. Ladies, of course, could not be asked to the Mess. It had been a happy solution of a somewhat awkward position. Mr. Burton no doubt understood, but he accepted the situation with alacrity.
From the dinner they had adjourned to Rosemount. Here they had played cards as before, but they left off fairly even. Hugh's suspicions about card-sharping were dissipated as before. At the same time, he was still resolved to keep a watchful eye upon the pair. It was firmly engrained upon his mind, and only, of course, from the purest instinct, that he did not trust either of them.
Much to his surprise, they left without having been asked to a return dinner. It was the turn of the Burtons. And judging from the haste with which Burton had jumped at them on the first visit, the omission was a little noticeable. It could not be that these new isolated dwellers in Blankfield wanted to shelve an acquaintance which must have brightened their dull and unvisited existence.
Another fact presented itself to Murchison's rather acute intelligence. There seemed already established between Pomfret and the attractive Norah a certain kind of freemasonry, a certain sort of easy relations. And once in the course of the evening he was sure that he heard the young man, in the course of a whispered conversation, address her by her Christian name. They had been sitting together on the Chesterfield, and their remarks to each other had been addressed in a very low tone. But Hugh's hearing was wonderfully acute, and he had surprised a sudden expression of rebuke in Miss Burton's eyes when Pomfret made the slip.
And here, for a moment, this story must leave Hugh Murchison with his honest doubts and suspicions, while it follows the fortunes of his young friend and the attractive Norah Burton.
For, truth to tell, at this particular juncture, young Pomfret, for all his apparent guilelessness, was pursuing a double game. Madly, overwhelmingly, in love with Norah, he was meeting her clandestinely, sometimes at her own house, sometimes in sequestered spots in the surrounding neighbourhood. And of these visits and meetings Hugh knew nothing.
Pomfret was not free from a few pangs of self-reproach, from the fact that he was not running quite straight with good old Hugh, to whom he had always, hitherto, confessed all his difficulties and troubles.
But then Hugh, although one of the best, was such a practical old stick. And if he told him the whole truth, there was no knowing what course Hugh might not think it was his duty to take. He might write to his family and bring them down in an avalanche on him, or even to the octogenarian aunt.
Love taught him deep cunning, and what he lacked in this subtle quality was ably supplemented by Miss Burton, this young girl with the rather sad expression, and the candid eyes that always met your gaze unfalteringly.
From the first clandestine meeting, arranged in whispers on the night of the dinner at Rose-mount, Pomfret had made the running very fast. He had given Norah to understand that he thought her the most desirable girl he had ever met, that no other woman had appealed, would or could appeal, to him as she did. There was a good drop of Irish blood in his own veins, and he certainly made a most fervent lover.
Norah listened with a modest bashfulness that enchanted him. He was sure from her demeanour that she had never been made love to before. She seemed so overwhelmed that she could hardly say a word. If one were not so much in love, one might almost have thought she was stupid.
She was not so stupid, however, as not to preserve her wits sufficiently to make another appointment, this time at Rosemount. Pomfret consented gladly, but he made a certain stipulation, which his companion was more than pleased to agree to.
"We mustn't let old Hugh know about this, though, or he'll think he's left out in the cold. You see, it was really through him I knew you. You must tell your brother not to let it out."
Miss Burton promised that, so far as she and her brother were concerned, Captain Murchison would be none the wiser. It only remained for Mr. Pomfret—although entreated to do so, she could not at this early stage address him as "Jack"—to surround his movements with a proper degree of mystery.
When the two parted, and the meeting had been rather a brief one, for it was always a little dangerous lingering long about the environs of Blankfield, in case of unexpected intruders, Miss Burton made a significant remark.
"I am quite sure your friend Captain Murchison does not like me. In fact, I think his real feeling is one of dislike."
Mr. Pomfret was young enough to blush; he did so upon this occasion. He guessed the real truth, that Murchison did not dislike her at all, on the contrary, he rather admired her—but he had a certain distrust of her.
"Fancy on your part, fancy, I'm quite sure," he answered glibly. "I expect he is a little bit sore, you know, about the whole thing, thinks I have cut him out with you."
"Perhaps," assented Norah, easily. But in her own heart she knew it was nothing of the kind. She recognised at once the difference between the two men. Murchison was a thorough gentleman, kind and chivalrous, but he was a man of the world, with a certain hard strain in him, a man who would submit everything to the test of cold, practical reasoning, not to be hoodwinked or led astray.
This poor babbling boy, with his unrestrained impulses, that Celtic leaven in his blood, would fall an easy prey to any woman who was clever enough to cast her spells over him. He would never reason, he would only feel.
After that first meeting, the precursor of many others, the affair progressed briskly. Pomfret made love with great ardour, Norah received his advances with a shy sort of acquiescence that inflamed him the more. He was sure, oh very sure, he was the first who had touched that innocent heart.
From these delightful confidences Murchison was shut out. It would not be wise to ignore him altogether, for such a course of action would have intensified his suspicions. But the invitations to Rosemount from either host or hostess were few and far between.
He was not, however, so easily gulled as the three conspirators thought. Pomfret's preoccupied mood, the air of a man who had much on his mind, his frequent and unexplained absences, gave to his friend much food for thought. He felt certain that the easy-going, irresponsible young man was entangling himself. But in such a state of affairs he felt powerless. Short of invoking the influence of the Colonel, or writing to the elderly aunt, he could do nothing.
It cannot be said that the course of true love was running very smoothly, even from the point of view of the ardent and enamoured suitor himself. In spite of his impulsive temperament, his disinclination to look hard facts squarely in the face, there was in him a slight leaven of common-sense.
Save for the bounty and goodwill of this generous, if somewhat narrow-minded, aunt he was an absolute pauper. There was no hope of marrying without her consent. And he was quite sure that in a case like this her consent would never be given. A fiancée, to be received by her with approval, must present some sort of credentials.
And there was the difficulty. Poor Jack had exhausted all his simple cunning to extract from them some convincing details of their antecedents. But even he, infatuated as he was, had to admit that they had parried inquiries with great adroitness. They maintained a persistent reticence as to names and places. Even he was forced to conclude that, for some reason or another, they did not choose to be frank about their past.
These obvious facts, however, did not lessen his infatuation. To marry her was the one dominating object of his life, in spite of all that his few remaining remnants of common-sense could urge against such a step.
More than once the rash idea occurred to him that he would marry her in secret, and when the marriage was an accomplished fact, throw himself upon his aunt's forgiveness.
He mooted the idea to Norah, to whom, of course, he had already made a frank statement of his position, as befitted the honourable gentleman he was. But she did not receive the suggestion with enthusiasm, although she professed to fully reciprocate his ardent affection.
"If I were a selfish girl, and only thought of my immediate happiness, I should say 'Yes,'" she said with a little tremulous smile, that made her look more desirable than ever in her lover's eyes. "But I could not allow you to run such a terrible risk. Old people are very strange and very touchy when they think they have been slighted. Suppose she cast you off."
"I suppose I could work, as thousands have to do," replied Jack, with a touch of his old doggedness.
She shook her head. "My poor Jack! It is easy to talk of working, but you have got to find an employer. And you have been brought up to an idle life. What could you turn your hand to?" She paused a moment, and then added as an after-thought: "And besides, my brother would never sanction it."
Even to Pomfret's slow revolving mind, the worldly taint in her just peeped forth in those sensible remarks.
"If I am prepared to risk my aunt's displeasure, you can surely afford to risk your brother's?" he queried angrily.
But Norah disarmed him with one of her sweetest smiles.
"Be reasonable, dearest; we must not behave like a pair of silly children. And besides, there is a certain moral obligation on both sides. You owe everything to your aunt. I owe everything to my brother. It would be very base to ignore them."
Jack was touched by the nobility of these last sentiments. "You are much better than I am, Norah, much less selfish."
She caressed his curly head with her hand. "We must have patience, Jack. You have told me as plainly as your dear, kind heart would allow you to tell me that, for reasons which I don't want you to explain, your aunt would never give her consent to your marriage with me. Well, we must wait."
In plain English her meaning was that they must possess their souls in patience till such time as this excellent old lady had departed this life. The suggestion was certainly a coldblooded one, but in his present infatuated mood Jack did not take any notice of that. Norah made a feeble attempt to gloss over the callousness of her remarks by adding that, although it was a very horrible thing to have to wait for the shoes of dead people, a person of Miss Harding's great age must expect to very shortly pay the debt of nature.
Two days later, Jack received a telegram which seemed to give a certain air of prophecy to the young woman's forebodings. It was dispatched to him from his aunt's home in Cheshire by the local doctor, who had attended her for years. It informed him that she was seriously ill and requested his immediate attendance.
He sought the Colonel at once and obtained leave. There was no time to call at Rose-mount, but he scribbled a hasty note to Miss Burton explaining matters. On his arrival, he found his aged relative very bad indeed.
She had had a severe stroke, the second in two years, and Doctor Jephson was very doubtful as to whether her vitality would enable her to recover. He added that she had a marvellous constitution, and in such a case one could not absolutely say there was no hope. Of a feebler woman he would have said at once a few hours would see the end.
Pomfret stayed there as long as the result was in doubt. At the end of three days the brave old lady rallied in the most wonderful way, and was able to hold a little conversation with her beloved nephew. He did not leave till the doctor assured him that she was out of danger.
"It's a wonderful recovery," said Doctor Jephson as he shook hands at parting with the young man. "But it's the beginning of the end. I don't give her very long now, a few months at the most. Well, she has had a wonderful life, hardly an ache or a pain till the last few years, and then nothing very severe. But, of course, the machinery is worn out."
All the way back to Blankfield those words kept repeating themselves in his ears: "I don't give her very long now, a few months at the most."
And then an idea began to form in his mind. He was not so callous that he wanted his poor old aunt to die quickly, but it was obvious the time could not be long delayed when he would find himself possessed of her fortune, the master of his own destinies. Was there any reason why he should not forestall that period by the rather daring expedient of a secret marriage? They were both young. Even if the doctor was wrong, and they had to wait four or five years, it was not a great sacrifice of their youth. At least that was his way of looking at it. Of course he did not know how she would take the suggestion.
She appeared to listen to him with deep interest and attention when he unfolded his plans.
He explained that he had a very handsome allowance, which up to the present he had generally exceeded. Now that could all be altered. He would declare that he was sick of the army, and send in his papers. Through his family influence, he would get some Government appointment which necessitated his living in London. He would take inexpensive chambers for himself, rent a small house for her in some pleasant and not too remote suburb, and spend as much of his time as possible with her.
"You don't think your aunt would reduce your allowance if you left the army?" was the one pertinent question she put to him when he had finished.
"On the contrary, she would be more likely to increase it," was the confident rejoinder. "She would always have preferred that I should go in for something that meant real work. She thinks the army is an idle life."
Miss Burton, no doubt, rapidly calculated the pros and cons of such a daring step. Jack had named a very handsome sum for her maintenance. If she could put up with the clandestine nature of the connection, till such time as a certain event happened, she would be better off than at Rosemount. She begged for time to think it over, and of course she would have to consult her brother before taking such an unusual step.
That was only natural; it was impossible for Jack to insist that she should settle the matter herself without reference to the one person who, whatever his social defects, had behaved to her with unexampled kindness and generosity.
Brother and sister no doubt talked it over very thoroughly, for it was three days before she told her lover that, although George would have preferred a longer period of waiting, he trusted him sufficiently to entrust Norah to his keeping, on the terms proposed.
She did suggest that they should wait till Jack had left the army and settled himself in London. But he fought this idea stubbornly. He was mad to tie her to himself, for fear that somebody else with more immediate prospects might step in and carry her off. A little common-sense, of course, might have told him that if she was as fatally attractive to others as to himself, she would have been carried off before this.
He was so terribly jealous of her, that he had never made the slightest effort to bring any of his brother officers round to Rose-mount. He even kept Hugh away as much as he could.
The lovers worked out their little plot very nicely. Miss Burton would leave Blankfield for a couple of weeks, ostensibly to pay a visit to a relative. Her destination would be London. Jack would take a few days' leave of absence in due course, and procure a special licence. They would return on separate days and resume their normal life, until such time as they perfected their after arrangements.
Miss Burton arrived home on a Monday by a mid-day train; her attentive brother met her at the station. She was one of those girls who look smart and neat under the most trying circumstances. Although it was a long journey, she bore no signs or stains of travel.
"When does Jack arrive, not too soon, I hope?" commented George, as he assisted her into a cab, and sat down beside her.
"He wanted to come down to-night, but I vetoed that," responded the girl. "I told him people might put two and two together. He will get here mid-day to-morrow. I shall meet him casually in the High Street. He is going to bring Murchison along with him. And I shall give them an impromptu invitation to dinner."
"I don't know that I am very keen on having Murchison to dinner," remarked Mr. Burton in rather a growling tone.
Miss Burton shrugged her shoulders. "And, perhaps, of the two, I am less keen than you are. But we have got to play it pretty quiet down here, till the whole lot of us clear out. Better to let Murchison come. He is pretty suspicious, as it is, but if we shut him out, he'll be more suspicious still."
Mr. Burton chuckled in a grim fashion.
"Well, our inquisitive friend, the whole lot of them as a matter of fact, can't do you much harm now. You've got him tight enough. And I'll say this for him, he's a bit soft and all that sort of thing, but he'll always play the game."
The girl did not reply for a moment, then she spoke in a voice that was low and soft:
"Yes, he's a dear little chap, he'll always play the game."
"He can afford to," was the rather ungracious comment. Clearly Mr. Burton was not in one of his best moods to-day.
Mr. Pomfret returned from his short leave on the following day, and at once sought his friend.
"Glad to be back, old man, got fed-up with London," he cried cheerfully. His excuse for his visit was that he had to go up to see his aunt's solicitors, on some pressing affairs which the old lady had entrusted to him, after her temporary recovery from her dangerous illness.
Now Murchison was pretty quick. He already had a shrewd suspicion that Jack had been making a great many surreptitious visits to Rosemount, that Hugh had been asked there now and again as a blind. And when he happened to be present, he had noticed that Jack and Norah had taken very little notice of each other. Jack had cultivated the brother, and left his friend to entertain the attractive young woman. In itself, this rather obvious attitude was suspicious. It confirmed his impression that there was a private understanding between the young people, and that they were throwing dust in his eyes.
He had already put two and two together, with regard to the concurrent absences. Mr. Burton, meeting him in the High Street two days after Norah's departure, had told him his sister was paying a visit to a married relative who lived at Brighton. He would have not believed Mr. Burton on his oath.
And Jack had taken his few days' leave, with the ostensible object of attending to his aunt's affairs.
Hugh was pretty certain that the silly young ass, as he affectionately designated Jack in his own mind, had arranged to meet Miss Burton for a day or two in London, in order to enjoy her society, free from interruption or espionage. Of course, he was far from guessing the truth. He would not have thought Pomfret capable of any such daring action.
Jack had just expressed himself fed-up with London, and yet his demeanour was jubilant and hilarious. Of course, Hugh could not dream his attitude was that of the exultant bridegroom, almost intoxicated with the knowledge of having gained his heart's desire. There had been a couple of lunches, perhaps a couple of dinners with a theatre thrown in. The buoyant Jack was living on these blissful memories.
Later in the day, the two men walked down the High Street, of course in accordance with a pre-arranged plan decided upon by the artful lovers. The first person they met was Miss Burton, sauntering along slowly; Miss Burton, now Mrs. Pomfret, as fast as the ecclesiastical law of England could make her.
She welcomed them with her ready and charming smile. "What strangers we are," she cried gaily. "And how nice to meet my only two friends in Blankfield."
Pomfret did a little finessing on his own. 661 have been away for a few days, too,'' he explained glibly. "Had to go up to London to look after some business of my poor old aunt's; only got back by the mid-day train."
"Did you enjoy your visit?" inquired Hugh of Norah, with that stiffness which he could never quite dissociate from his manner when addressing either brother or sister.
"Yes and No," was the answer. "On the whole, I had quite a good time, but I am not sorry to get back to Rosemount, and my little household gods. Knowing you both has made such a difference to my life here."
She was laying it on a little bit thick, Hugh thought, and he fancied she looked more at Pomfret than himself, as she said it. But he made a suitable and courteous reply.
She was just about to turn away, when a sudden thought seemed to strike her.
"As Mr. Pomfret and I have been such wanderers, would it not be nice to celebrate our return? will you both come to dinner to-night, and we can relate our experiences?"
Pomfret jumped at the invitation, and Hugh had to follow suit. As a matter of fact, he was rather eager to go. They were both playing their parts very well, but he was quite convinced they were playing a part. He was more certain about Jack than about her. Jack had been a bit too glib, had over-acted, as it were. They had met in London, if only for a few hours; he would have bet a thousand pounds on that.
Jack declared that he would walk back to Rosemount with Miss Burton. He did not now care a farthing what members of Blank-field Society he met. Very shortly, the army would know him no more, and he would take up a new life with this fearless girl whom he had married on the sly.
Hugh strolled on, and looked in at the various shops. The High Street happened to be rather empty on this particular afternoon, the élite of Blankfield Society had not yet turned out for its usual promenade.
Turning away from a jeweller's shop window, where he was inspecting some sleeve-links, he was confronted by a tall, sturdily built man of about fifty years of age, who raised his hat.
"I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Captain Murchison?" he inquired politely.
Hugh directed a swift glance at him. He was not exactly a common person, on the other hand he was certainly not a gentleman. There was something military in his bearing; he might have been a retired Sergeant-Major.
"That is my name," answered Hugh a little curtly. "And who are you, please?"
The tall man took a card from his waistcoat pocket and presented it. "Those are my credentials, sir."
Hugh ran his eye over it swiftly. He saw the name, Davidson, a common one enough, and, in the corner, Scotland Yard. Why the deuce should this agent of the police want to accost him? And how did he know his name was Murchison?
"I think you are acquainted with a family of the name of Burton, brother and sister they call themselves, who live at a house a little way out called Rosemount?"
"Of course I know them, that is to say, in a casual sort of way." Needless to say that Murchison had never been more surprised in his life. "Why are you asking these questions?"
Mr. Davidson darted a keen glance up and down the comparatively empty High Street. "This is rather an exposed place in which to talk, but I have something to tell you which I am sure you will be interested to listen to. I am staying at the 'Anchor,' in a side street from this. If you will do me the honour to follow me, I can take you into a private room there, where we shall not be observed nor overheard."
Like a man in a dream, Hugh found himself following Mr. Davidson to the "Anchor," one of the second-class hotels in the town. He was quite sure that this tall, military looking person was going to clear up the mystery of the couple whom Blankfield, in its wisdom, had refused to visit, and whose acquaintance he owed to a random meeting at a tea-shop.
There were only one or two idlers in the entrance-hall of the hotel, which was of what is known as the "Commercial" kind. Murchison was glad to find that he did not seem to attract their observation, as he rapidly crossed over to where his new acquaintance was standing in a rather dark corner.
Davidson piloted him into a little sitting-room which opened out of a long narrow passage. He rang the bell, and ordered refreshments with the manner of a man who was acquainted with the usages of polite society.
It would be quite safe to say that Hugh, the heir to a great fortune, brought up in the lap of luxury, an aristocrat by adoption, if not exactly by birth, had never found himself up till now in such an environment. He could not truthfully declare that it was an experience he wished to repeat.
Still, he could blame nobody but himself, his foolish action in taking up with a couple of persons whom Blankfield, in its superior worldly wisdom, had decided to ignore. As he was in for it, and nothing could undo the past, it was better to go through with it. Let him accommodate himself to the situation, drink his whisky-and-soda in this dingy little parlour of a second-rate hotel, and treat the detective with genial courtesy.
After the first mouthful of his drink, Davidson began to explain.
"Of course, sir, I quite understand this is not the sort of thing or the sort of place to which you are accustomed," he said, waving a deprecatory hand round the shabby little parlour. "But in this particular case, I and my friend—that friend I may say at the moment is elsewhere taking his observations—wanted to lie low. It didn't enter into our scheme to put up at a swagger hotel, and run the risk of gossip. It might have reached the ears of those we are after, and scared them off." Hugh listened attentively. There was something very serious in the wind now, and the dwellers at Rosemount were as yet unaware of what was impending.
His surprise expressed itself in the direct question which he shot at the detective: "I take it you are here to arrest them, then?"
"One of them, the man," corrected Mr. Davidson, quietly; "we know a good deal about the girl, but we have no evidence that implicates her beyond the fact of her association with him, and from our point of view that means nothing in a Court of Law."
"What is his offence?" asked the startled Hugh.
"Forgery," was the laconic answer. "He belongs to a pretty well-known gang, and we have had our suspicions of him for a long time now, but he was devilish clever and cunning. Several of his pals were caught, but it was always difficult to rope him in. We shouldn't have got him now but for the fact of one of his pals peaching. And even now, although the evidence is strong enough for us, I doubt if it is strong enough to get him more than a comparatively light sentence. If he can lay hold of a clever counsel, and there will be some money at the back of him, if not a great deal, he won't come off so badly."
So Mr. Burton was a criminal, and had been living in Blankfield on the proceeds of his nefarious calling. The rich uncle in Australia who had left him a comfortable fortune was a myth.
"I suppose he has been on the 'crook' all his life?" queried Hugh.
"Ever since he has come under our observation," was the reply of the detective. "Before he joined the present gang, a few of whom we have collared from time to time, card-sharping was his lay. Once he rented an expensive flat in Paris, and I believe made a tidy bit out of it. That is where the young lady first appeared upon the scene."
"But how long ago is that? She doesn't look more than twenty."
"I know," said Mr. Davidson. "She looks wonderfully young, that is one of her assets. As a matter of fact I should say she was twenty-four at the least. The Parisian episode occurred about five years ago, making her nineteen at the time. He was there about twelve months, at the end of which time he got an introduction to the forging gang, and chucked the cards in favour of a more remunerative game."
"She acted, I suppose, as a decoy and confederate?"
"So I am given to understand. She very seldom played herself, but used to signal the opponents' cards to him."
"What a precious pair," groaned Hugh. He had long been doubtful of them, but he had never anticipated this.
"Now, Captain Murchison, there is a little question I want to ask you," said the detective briskly, after a brief pause. "My pal and I only arrived here yesterday, but we have not been idle, we have picked up a good deal. We have discovered that nobody in Blankfield visits them, except yourself and another officer, a Mr. Pomfret. That is true, is it not?"
"Quite true," assented Murchison.
"You frequently go to their house together. But perhaps I may be telling you something you don't know when I say that Mr. Pomfret more frequently has gone alone."
"I have had my suspicions some time," was Hugh's answer.
"Now tell me, please; I suppose in the evenings you played cards, or roulette, or some game of chance. I thought so. Did you lose much? Had you any suspicions they were rooking you?"
"On my first visit, a suspicion that they might do so crossed my mind. But nothing of the sort was attempted. I should say that, up to the present, my friend and I stand a bit to the good. Evidently, that was not their object."
"Clearly," assented the shrewd detective, "they had a deeper game than that on. They wanted to catch this young friend of yours for a husband, and failing that, to entrap him, so that they could blackmail him on the threat of a breach of promise case."
"It looks as if that was their object."
"Now, Captain Murchison, may I ask you if your friend is a man likely to fall into the trap? I saw him in the High Street this afternoon with you: and if I may say so without offence, he doesn't give me the impression of a very strong or self-reliant person."
Hugh shook his head. "I fear he is very weak, very impulsive, very emotional, a ready prey for a designing woman."
"Have you any idea how far the thing has gone?"
To this question Hugh could only reply in the negative. His one hope was that the foolish boy had seen her so often that there was no necessity to write incriminating letters.
"Well, Captain Murchison, my object in asking you to grant me an interview was two-fold. In the first place, I wanted to know if there had been any card-sharping. Then, as I am aware you go to the house, I wished to tell you that I and my friend are going to take him to-night. It might happen that you would be going there, and of course, you will not want to be on the stage when we play our little comedy."
"We have promised to go to dinner tonight. She asked us both when we met her this afternoon."
"And of course now, you will not go. I will take him before dinner-time, so you need not send round any excuses."
Poor Hugh felt very miserable. What he especially shirked was having to tell this sordid narrative to Pomfret. He expressed to the detective his shrinking from the unwelcome task.
"I quite understand, sir, but it's got to be done," replied the detective, firmly. For a few seconds after he had spoken, he seemed to be thinking deeply. Then he came out with a startling proposition.
"Look here, Captain Murchison, something has just occurred to me. I am not sure whether you will think it a good plan. Just now I thought it would be better for you not to be there. But if this young gentleman is so gone on the girl, it might make a deeper impression on him, bring home to him more strongly the sense of her unworthiness, if he were actually present at the scene. And it would spare you any painful explanations, beforehand. Afterwards you can tell him or not, as you please, about our interview here."
Hugh made a gesture of disgust. "You propose that we should carry out our original intention of dining there and of sitting at the table of a criminal? I don't think I could bring myself to it."
If Mr. Davidson did not quite agree with the young man's scruples, he was open-minded enough to see the matter from Hugh's point of view.
"I quite understand, sir. But I think I can manage it all right. You say they dine at eight. Get there with your friend a quarter of an hour before. I will be there with my friend at five minutes to, before the dinner is served. You then won't have to sit at his table, you see."
Hugh was still hesitating. Mr. Davidson proceeded to clinch his argument.
"You see, sir, it will be so much better for Mr. Pomfret to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears. When he has seen us clap the darbies on Burton, and listened to what I can tell him about the girl—you can just give me a lead there, if you don't mind—I think he will be cured of his calf-love on the spot. As far as he is concerned, we want to make a swift and sudden cure, to kill his affection at once."
Yes, on the whole, after a little further reflection Murchison was disposed to fall in with this new suggestion. Pomfret, however deep his infatuation, could not resist the evidence of his own senses. He would be much more strongly impressed than by a mere bald narration of the facts as conveyed to his friend by the detective.
So it was settled. Hugh would bring Pomfret to Rosemount at twenty minutes or a quarter to eight. At five minutes to, Davidson and his colleague would present themselves to execute their painful errand.
"Just a word before I go," said the young man as he turned towards the door. "Is the man's name really Burton, or only an alias?"
"That is his real name. Of course he has had aliases. His family, I understand, are respectable people of the lower middle-class. He was the black sheep, born with crooked and criminal instincts."
"And the girl, is she really his sister?"
"On that point, I have no positive information," replied Davidson. "She has passed as such ever since the Paris days. But I should very much doubt it. I am informed that they are very unlike in manners and appearance, that he is a rough sort of fellow, while she would pass anywhere for a lady."
Hugh went back to the barracks, more than rejoiced at the fact that the detective seemed to have appeared on the scene in the very nick of time. If marriage was contemplated as the result of this clandestine wooing, what a terrible tragedy would be averted from the unlucky Pomfret!