CHAPTER III
A Task-master in Goggles
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The next morning the St. Paul arrived at Southampton, but Beaumanoir contrived to secure a seat in the same compartment of the boat-train, and his parting with his new friends was therefore deferred till they reached Waterloo.
He was sorely tempted to enlist the elder lady’s favor by making known his proper style and rank; though, to do her justice, Mrs. Sherman’s fondness for the peerage was largely a humorous fiction on her daughter’s part. The Senator’s wife was really a simple-minded body, with an abiding admiration for the unattainable, and the British aristocracy was naturally included in that category.
But the sight of Mr. Marker’s covert-coat hovering near them on the arrival platform checked the Duke’s intention, which the next moment was rendered unnecessary by Mrs. Sherman herself.
“Come and see us, Mr. Hanbury,” she said, extending the tips of her fingers in farewell. “We are to be the guests of some good friends of ours at 140 Grosvenor Gardens, and we know them well enough to make ourselves at home. The Senator will be over in a week or two, and he’ll be glad to thank you for your politeness.”
“I will pay my respects without fail,” Beaumanoir responded; and a minute later, after a warmer pressure of Leonie’s well-gloved hand, he stood watching their cab with its load of “saratogas” drive down the incline. By the void in his heart he knew that the girl in the coquettish toque, who had just repeated her mother’s invitation with her eyes, was all the world to him.
He turned to look after his scanty baggage with a sigh. How different it would all have been if he had chosen some other route to his Brooklyn boarding-house on the eventful night when the plausible Jevons had waylaid him! All would have been plain sailing, and he could have asked Leonie with a clear conscience to share his new-found honors and wealth. As it was he stood committed to a felonious enterprise which would fill her with contempt and loathing did she know of it; though, if he abandoned it, instinct told him he was a doomed man.
The sight of the insignificant spy Marker lurking behind a pile of luggage reminded him that his peril might commence at any moment if he showed any sign of inconstancy to his pledge. Not that he anticipated trouble from the covert-coated whippersnapper himself; but the mere fact of it having been thought worth while to shadow him across the Atlantic spelled danger, and suggested an organization that would stop at nothing to safeguard itself.
However, he had made up his mind to call on the mysterious Ziegler, and by doing so at once he might prove his fidelity and secure a respite from this unpleasant espionage. Summoning a hansom, he bade the driver take him to the Hotel Cecil, and looking back he saw Marker following in another cab.
In the few minutes that elapsed before he was driven into the courtyard of the palatial hotel he settled a problem that had been vexing him not a little during the voyage. Should he introduce himself to Ziegler as the Duke of Beaumanoir or as plain Charles Hanbury, the name by which he had been “engaged”? If he was for a brief space to be the consort of professional thieves, he would prefer to lead a double life—to perform his misdeeds as a commoner, and to keep his dukedom spotless. So it was that he gave his name as Hanbury to the clerk in the bureau of the hotel.
While waiting the return of the bell-boy who was sent to announce his arrival, Beaumanoir looked about for Marker, but the spy was nowhere visible in or from the entrance-hall. Having shepherded him to the fold, it was evidently no part of his duty to obtrude himself till further orders.
A minute later the neophyte in crime was limping up the grand staircase in wake of the bell-boy, who conducted him to one of the best private suites on the first floor overlooking the Embankment. It was a moment charged with electricity as the Duke of Beaumanoir found himself face to face with the man who had hired him in his poverty, and now held him fetter-bound in his good fortune.
Yet could this be he—this personification of aged helplessness lying among the cushions of an invalid chair, who, in a thin, piping treble, requested his visitor to come closer? Beaumanoir had pictured all sorts of ideals of the master in crime, but Mr. Clinton Ziegler in the flesh resembled none of them. A snowy beard covered the lower half of his face, drooping over his chest, but the puffy cheeks were visible, and their full purple hue betokened some cutaneous affection. The eyes were shaded by blue glasses.
“You are the person sent by Jevons from New York?” he began in his parrot-like tones. “Good! What is your name? For the moment I have forgotten it, and I cannot lay my hand on the cablegram relating to you.”
Encouraged by the feeble senility of one whom he had expected to find a tower of strength—a grim, inscrutable being with an inscrutable manner—the Duke was confirmed in his intention to preserve the secret of his rank.
“My name is Charles Hanbury,” he answered, boldly.
But an awakening, instant and complete, was in store for him. The words were hardly out of his mouth when Mr. Ziegler coughed a signal, and three masked men rushed upon him from the adjoining bedroom, pinioning his arms and stifling his sudden cry of alarm.
“What shall we do with him, sir?” asked one of the men.
“Chloroform him first; then you must dispose of him at leisure,’’ came the monotonous piping treble from the invalid chair.
One of the assailants made immediate preparations for obeying the behest, but just as he was about to saturate a handkerchief Ziegler laughed shrilly:
“Let him alone, boys. He lied to me, and I wanted to give him a lesson—that’s all.”
The men, at a sign from their chief, retired into the bedroom.
“Now, perhaps you will recognize that I am not to be played with, your Grace,” squeaked Mr. Ziegler. “Also that my ears are as long as my arms. I have known for some days that the gentleman whom my good friend Jevons was able to procure has had a sudden change in his fortunes, and I congratulate myself upon it. It doubles your value to us, all the more since your early call upon me after landing shows that you mean to abide by your bargain. But there must be no more petty reservations and concealments like that. If you try them on, rest assured that they will be detected and dealt with.”
The Duke straightened his rumpled collar, and looked, as he felt, a beaten man. The mass of infirmity in the wheel-chair held, without doubt, a power with which he could not cope. On the face of it the notion that a man could be violently made away with in a crowded London hotel might seem melodramatic and improbable, but the experience of the last few minutes had shown him how readily it could be done by a chief as well served as Ziegler appeared to be. And if he was at the man’s mercy in a crowded hostelry like the Cecil, where would he be safe? Yes, if he was to enjoy his dukedom, he would have to go through with his task.
“Well, give me my instructions. What am I to do?” he said, stiffly.
“You have made a very good beginning already,” replied Ziegler, watching him narrowly through the tinted glasses. “A gentleman, acting on behalf of the United States Government, will shortly bring to this country the three million pounds’ worth of Treasury bonds which we mean to have. It will be your task to relieve him of the paper, substituting bonds of our own make, which will be deposited at the Bank of England as security against a shipment of gold.”
“I see,” the Duke murmured, mechanically.
“But,” he added with more animation, “how have I made a beginning already?”
“By making yourself agreeable to Miss Leonie Sherman. It is her father, Senator Sherman, who is bringing the real bonds,” was the answer, which struck a chill to the Duke’s heart and kept him speechless with amazement. This old scoundrel seemed to know everything, to have arranged everything, irrespective of time and space.
“You ought to be grateful for my foresight in smoothing the way for you,” Ziegler croaked, in evident enjoyment of his perplexity. “It was my agent who, by securing the good offices of a steward, had you placed next Miss Sherman at the saloon table on the St. Paul, with the result that he was able to report to me this morning from Southampton by telegraph that you had made use of your opportunity.”
“I see,” was all the Duke could feebly repeat.
“You have been invited to call on the Shermans in London? You know where they are staying, 140 Grosvenor Gardens?”
“Yes,” said Beaumanoir.
“Good! Then your Grace will go on as you have begun. Gain the girl’s confidence, and that of her mother—the latter will be easy under the auspices of your new dignity—and come here again at twelve o’clock on Saturday morning, three days hence. I may then have further instructions for you.”
And Mr. Clinton Ziegler waved a white, well-formed hand in dismissal.