"If it is to be a blue pill, instead of a whisky punch, I can
accommodate you with a brace of barkers, good as can be got in Boulogne.
You haven't told me what your quarrel's about; but from what I know of
you, Ryecroft, I take it you're in the right, and you can count on me as
a second. Lucky it's my left wing that's clipped. With the right I can
shoot straight as ever--should there be need for making it a
four-cornered affair."
"Thanks, Mahon! You're just the man I'd have asked such a favour from."
"The gentleman's inside the dhrawin-room, surr."
This from the ex-Royal Irish, who has again presented himself, saluting.
"Don't yield the _Sassenach_ an inch?" counsels the Major, a little of
the old Celtic hostility stirring within him. "If he demand
explanations, hand him over to me. I'll give them to his satisfaction.
So, old fellow, be firm!"
"Never fear!" returns Ryecroft, as he steps out to receive the
unexpected visitor, whose business with him he fully believes to have
reference to Gwendoline Wynn.
And so has it. But not in the sense he anticipates, nor about the scene
on which his thoughts have dwelt. George Shenstone is not there to call
him to account for angry words, or rudeness of behaviour. Something
more serious; since it was the baronet's son who left Llangorren Court
in company with the plain clothes policeman. The latter is still along
with him; though not inside the house. He is standing upon the street
at a convenient distance; though not with any expectation of being
called in, or required for any farther service now, professionally.
Holding no writ, nor the right to serve such if he had it, his action
hitherto has been simply to assist Mr Shenstone in finding the man
suspected of either abduction or murder. But as neither crime is yet
proved to have been committed, much less brought home to him, the
English policeman has no further errand in Boulogne--while the English
gentleman now feels that his is almost as idle and aimless. The impulse
which carried him thither, though honourable and gallant, was begot in
the heat of blind passion. Gwen Wynn having no brother, he determined
to take the place of one, his father not saying nay. And so resolved he
had set out to seek the supposed criminal, "interview" him, and then act
according to the circumstances, as they should develop themselves.
In the finding of his man he has experienced no difficulty. Luggage
labelled "Langham Hotel, London," gave him hot scent, as far as the
grand _caravanserai_ at the bottom of Portland Place. Beyond it was
equally fresh, and lifted with like ease. The traveller's traps
re-directed at the Langham "Paris _via_ Folkestone and Boulogne"--the
new address there noted by porters and traffic manager--was indication
sufficient to guide George Shenstone across the Channel; and cross it he
did by the next day's packet for Boulogne.
Arrived in the French seaport, he would have gone straight on to Paris--
had he been alone. But accompanied by the policeman the result was
different. This--an old dog of the detective breed--soon as setting
foot on French soil, went sniffing about among _serjents de ville_ and
_douaniers_, the upshot of his investigations being to bring the chase
to an abrupt termination--he finding that the game had gone no further.
In short, from information received at the Custom House, Captain
Ryecroft was run to earth in the Rue Tintelleries, under the roof of
Major Mahon.
And now that George Shenstone is himself under it, having sent in his
card, and been ushered into the drawing-room, he does not feel at his
ease; instead greatly embarrassed. Not from any personal fear; he has
too much "pluck" for that. It is a sense of delicacy, consequent upon
some dread of wrong doing. What, after all, if his suspicions prove
groundless, and it turn out that Captain Ryecroft is entirely innocent?
His heart, torn by sorrow, exasperated with anger, starting away from
Herefordshire he did not thus interrogate. Then he supposed himself in
pursuit of an abductor, who, when overtaken, would be found in the
company of the abducted.
But, meanwhile, both his suspicions and sentiments have undergone a
change. How could they otherwise? He pursued, has been travelling
openly and without any disguise, leaving traces at every turn and
deflection of his route, plain as fingerposts! A man guilty of aught
illegal--much more one who has committed a capital crime--would not be
acting thus? Besides, Captain Ryecroft has been journeying alone,
unaccompanied by man or woman; no one seen with him until meeting his
friend, Major Mahon, on the packet landing at Boulogne!
No wonder that Mr Shenstone, now _au fait_ to all this--easily
ascertained along the route of travel--feels that his errand is an
awkward one. Embarrassed when ringing Major Mahon's door bell, he is
still more so inside that room, while awaiting the man to whom his card
has been taken. For he has intruded himself into the house of a
gentleman a perfect stranger to himself--to call his guest to account!
The act is inexcusable, rude almost to grotesqueness!
But there are other circumstances attendant, of themselves unpleasant
enough. The thing he has been tracking up is no timid hare, or cowardly
fox; but a man, a soldier, gentleman as himself, who, like a tiger of
the jungles, may turn upon and tear him.
It is no thought of this, no craven fear which makes him pace Major
Mahon's drawing-room floor so excitedly. His agitation is due to a
different and nobler cause--the sensibility of the gentleman, with the
dread of shame, should he find himself mistaken. But he has a consoling
thought. Prompted by honour and affection, he embarked in the affair,
and still urged by them he will carry it to the conclusion _coute que
coute_.
Volume Two, Chapter XXIII.