Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/302

Poole continued to reject the villany proposed by Jasper; but, in course of the correspondence, he threw out rather incoherently—for his mind began somewhat to wander—a scheme equally flagitious, which Jasper, aided perhaps by Madame Caumartin's yet keener wit, caught up, and quickly reduced to deliberate method. Old Mr. Latham, amongst the bills he discounted, kept those of such more bashful customers as stipulated that their resort to temporary accommodation should be maintained a profound secret in his own safe. Amongst these bills Poole knew that there was one for L1,000 given by a young nobleman of immense estates, but so entailed that he could neither sell nor mortgage, and, therefore, often in need of a few hundreds for pocket money. The nobleman's name stood high. His fortune was universally known; his honour unimpeachable. A bill of his any one would cash at sight. Could Poole but obtain that bill! It had, he believed, only a few weeks yet to run. Jasper or Madame Caumartin might get it discounted even by Lord —--—-'s own banker; and if that were too bold, by any professional bill-broker, and all three be off before a suspicion could arise. But to get at that safe, a false key might be necessary. Poole suggested a waxen impression of the lock. Jasper sent him a readier contrivance,—a queer-looking tool, that looked an instrument of torture. All now necessary was for Poole to recover sufficiently to return to business, and to get rid of Uncle Sam by a promise to run down to the country the moment Poole had conscientiously cleared some necessary arrears of work. While this correspondence went on, Jasper Losely shunned Mrs. Crane, and took his meals and spent his leisure hours with Madame Caumartin. He needed no dressing-gown and slippers to feel himself at home there. Madame Canmartin had really taken a showy house in a genteel street. Her own appearance was eminently what the French call _distingue_; dressed to perfection from head to foot; neat and finished as an epigram; her face in shape like a thoroughbred cobra-capella,—low smooth frontal widening at the summit, chin tapering but jaw strong, teeth marvellously white, small, and with points sharp as those in the maw of the fish called the "Sea Devil;" eyes like dark emeralds, of which the pupils, when she was angry or when she was scheming, retreated upward towards the temples, emitting a luminous green ray that shot through space like the gleam that escapes from a dark-lantern; complexion superlatively feminine (call it not pale but white, as if she lived on blanched almonds, peach-stones, and arsenic); hands