THE MAN IN CONVICT’S CLOTHES
Alphonse Lambaire was a man of many interests.
In his forty-two years of life he had collected them as another man
might collect old prints. That he started forth at the outset, and of
perversity chose the shadier walks of life, is a supposition which need
not seriously be entertained, for it is not in accordance with the rule
of things that a man should deliberately set himself in opposition to
the laws of civilization.
All that Amber had said of him was true, and more.
He was a coiner in the sense that, with the notorious Señor Villitissi,
and the no less notorious companions of that sometime senator, he had
to do with the alarming increase in the silver coinage from which the
markets of the world suffered.
It is a known fact that one “batch” of coins which was distributed in
Spain brought the rate of exchange from twenty-eight pesetas ten to
thirty-one pesetas in a month.
There was nothing about him which suggested the strutting villain of
melodrama, yet he was a well-defined type of criminal.
Whitey--Cornelius Josiah White, to give him the only name which ever
appeared to have a resemblance to a real name employed by him--was
a lesser man in point of originality, greater when measured by the
standards of daring and crude villainy.
Whitey said as much one afternoon, about a week after the interview.
“What you want, Lambaire, is Dash,” he said. “When the least little bit
of trouble comes along, instead of Swelling up to it, you get Shrunk.”
Lambaire grunted something.
He was in no mood for psychology.
They were on their way to Warwick Gardens for a final interview with
Sutton and his sister.
“After Amber’s ‘give away,’” Whitey went on, “you’d have chucked the
whole business; you would, Lambaire! You’d have chucked it for a hook
like Amber ... your big schemes too, Imperial I call ’em ... along
comes a feller fresh from gaol, a swell thief, and you start looking
round for Exits-in-case-of-Emergency.”
“I was afraid Sutton would turn me down.”
“Bosh!” said Whitey unsympathetically, “he couldn’t turn you down
without turning down himself: don’t you know that chaps of his age will
do anything to prove they are right?”
“Well, the girl isn’t convinced,” objected Lambaire.
“And never will be,” said Whitey, “you’re the Devil to her.” Lambaire’s
face went unaccountably black at this frank expression, and Whitey,
who had forgotten more about human nature than Lambaire was ever likely
to learn, was wise enough to leave the subject unpursued.
They were admitted to the house and ushered into Sutton’s room.
The youth sat amidst a litter of catalogues, maps, and samples of
equipment. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe, and was
obviously and most absurdly pleased with himself.
He greeted his visitors with a cheerful smile.
“Come in, and find a place to sit down if you can,” he invited. “I will
let Cynthia know that you are here.” He leant back and pushed a bell by
the side of the fireplace.
“We had better fix up the question of the chart,” he said; “that
confounded man Amber has upset everything; you know how suspicious
women are, and the dear girl suspects you good people of all sorts of
sinister plans.”
He laughed heartily at the joke of it.
A servant appeared at the door and he sent a message to his sister.
“I have succeeded in persuading her,” he went on, “to let me have the
chart.”
Lambaire breathed an inward sigh of relief, and the twinkling eyes of
Whitey danced with glee.
“It will surprise you to learn that, save for a momentary glimpse, even
I have never seen it,” he said, “and really, after all the bother that
has been made about the thing, I shall be disappointed if it is not the
most lucid of documents.”
Cynthia Sutton came into the room at that moment.
She favoured Lambaire with a distant bow, and ignored the extravagant
politeness of Whitey, who was the only one of the party that stood.
Lambaire, with an eye for the beautiful, and having for the first time
leisure to observe her, noted with a pleasant feeling of surprise
that she was more than ordinarily pretty. Her features were perfectly
modelled, her eyes were large and grey, she was slender and tall, and
her every movement betrayed her supple grace.
For the first time, Lambaire viewed her as a woman, and not as an
antagonist, and he enjoyed the experience.
She stood by the table where her brother sat, her hands behind her,
looking down at him gravely.
Whitey derived no small amount of satisfaction from the fact that from
where he sat he saw that in one hand she held an envelope of a large
size. He guessed that therein was the chart which had been the subject
of so much discussion.
This proved to be the case, for without preamble, she produced two
sheets of paper. The first was a discoloured and stained little map,
drawn on thick cartridge paper.
It was blistered by heat, and bore indications of rough treatment. The
second sheet was clean, and this she placed before her brother.
He looked at it wonderingly, then raised his eyes to the girl’s face
with a puzzled air.
“Yes,” she said, as in answer to his unspoken question, “this is a
copy, but I have brought the original that you may compare it.” She
laid the discoloured plan by its side. “The copy is a perfect one,” she
said.
“But why on earth do you want a copy?”
For answer she slipped the original into the envelope again.
“The copy is for you,” she said, “the original I shall keep.”
Sutton was too pleased to secure the plan to care overmuch whether it
was the original or a copy. As he pored over it insensibly the two men
were drawn to the table.
“It is a rum-looking map--my father seems to have gone in a
half-circle.”
“What I can’t understand is this dotted line,” said the youth, and
indicated a straight line that formed the base of an obtuse triangle,
the other two sides being formed by the travellers’ route.
“I think this is a favourable moment to make an explanation,” said
Lambaire in his gentlest voice. He addressed himself to the girl, who
shifted her gaze from her brother’s face to his.
“On the occasion of my last visit here,” he continued, “there was a
painful scene, which was not of my seeking. A man I can only describe
as a--a----”
“Dangerous bloke--fellow,” said Whitey, correcting himself in some
confusion.
“A dangerous fellow,” repeated Lambaire, “who made wild and reckless
charges against my honesty. That man, who has been an inmate of every
gaol----”
“I do not think you need go into particulars of Mr. Amber’s career.”
There was the faintest touch of pink in her cheeks as she changed the
course of Lambaire’s speech.
“As you wish.” He was irritated, for he was a man of no very great gift
of speech, and he had come prepared with his explanation. “I only wish
to say this, that the man Amber spoke the truth--though his----”
“Deductions?” suggested Whitey _sotto voce_.
“Though his deductions were wrong: the compass your father used was a
faulty one.”
The girl’s eyes did not leave his face.
“It was a faulty one,” continued Lambaire, “and it was only yesterday
that I discovered the fact. There were four compasses made, two of
which your father had, and two I kept locked up in my safe.”
“Why was that?” questioned the girl.
“That is easily explained,” responded the other eagerly. “I knew
that even if Mr. Sutton succeeded, another expedition would be
necessary, and, as a business man, I of course bought in a businesslike
manner--one buys these instruments cheaper----”
“By taking a quantity,” murmured Whitey.
“In a sense,” continued Lambaire impressively, “that precaution of mine
has made this expedition of your brother’s possible. We are now able
to follow in your father’s track--for we shall work by the compass he
used.”
He felt that his explanation was all that was necessary. More than
this, he half believed all that he had said, and felt an inexplicable
sense of satisfaction in the realization of his forethought.
Cynthia said nothing. She had gone beyond the place where she felt the
duty or inclination to oppose her brother’s will. It could be said with
truth that her brother and his project had faded into the background,
for there had come a newer and a more astounding interest into her life.
She did not confess as much to herself. It was the worst kind of
madness.
A convict--with not even the romantic interest of a great conviction. A
mean larcenist, for all the polish of his address, and the gay humour
of those honest eyes of his.
Her brother would go to the coast in search of the River of Stars.
Possibly he might find it: she was sufficiently blessed with the goods
of this world not to care whether he did or not. She would like her
father’s judgment vindicated, but here again she had no fervency of
desire to that end.
Her father had been a vague shadow of a man, with little or no concern
with his family. His children, during the rare periods he stayed in the
same house with them, had been “noises” to be incontinently “stopped.”
All her love had been lavished on her brother; her struggles, in
the days before the happy legacy had placed her beyond the need for
struggling, had been for his comfort and ease. She had been willingly
blind to his follies, yet had been frantic in her efforts to check
those follies from degenerating into vices.... She remembered she had
been on the verge of tears the first time she met Amber, and almost
smiled at the recollection.
Francis would go out, and would come back again alive: she had no doubt
about this: the tiny ache in her heart had an origin foreign to the
question of her brother’s safety.
All this passed through her mind, as she stood by the table pretending
to listen to a conversation which had become general.
She became alert when Lambaire returned to a forbidden subject.
“I don’t know why he has interfered,” he was saying, answering a
question Sutton had addressed to him; “that night he came into the
Whistlers----” A warning caught from Whitey brought him on to another
tack. “Well, well,” he said benevolently, “it is not for us to judge
the poor fellow, one doesn’t know what temptations assail a man: he
probably saw an opportunity for making easy money,” another cough from
Whitey, and he pulled out his watch. “I must be getting along,” he
said, “I have to meet a man at Paddington: would you care to come? I
have one or two other matters to talk over with you.”
Sutton accepted the invitation with alacrity.
What impelled Cynthia Sutton to take the step she did it is difficult
to say. It may have been the merest piece of feminine curiosity, a
mischievous desire to hinder the free exchange of ideas; the chances
are that another explanation might be found, for as Sutton left the
room to change his coat she turned to Lambaire and asked:
“What is Mr. Amber’s history?”
Lambaire smiled and glanced significantly at Whitey.
“Not a very nice one--eh, Whitey?”
Whitey shook his head.
“I am a little interested,” she said; “should I be a bother to you if I
walked with you to Paddington--it is a beautiful afternoon?”
“Madam,” said the gratified Lambaire, “I shall be overjoyed. I feel
that if I can only gain your confidence--I was saying this morning,
wasn’t I, Whitey?”
“You were,” said the other instantly.
“I was saying, ‘Now if I could only get Miss Cynthia----’”
“Miss Sutton,” said Cynthia.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Sutton, to see my point of view....”
“I won’t promise that,” she said with a smile, as her brother returned.
He was inclined to be annoyed when she walked ahead with his patron,
but his annoyance was certainly not shared by Lambaire, who trod on
air.
“... Yes, I’m afraid Amber is a bad egg--a wrong ’un, ye know. He’s not
Big.”
Her heart sank as she recognized the echo of her own thoughts. It was
absurd that the mediocrity of Amber’s criminal attainments should fill
her with numb despair, but so it was.
“No, he’s not Big--although,” said Lambaire hastily, “I’ve no sympathy
for the Big Mob.”
“With the----?”
She was puzzled.
“With the Big Mob--the high-class nuts--you know what I mean--the----”
He looked round helplessly for Whitey.
“I think I understand,” she said.
They walked on in silence for another five minutes.
“Do you think that if some good influence were brought to bear on a man
like Mr. Amber----”
“No, absolutely no, miss,” said Lambaire emphatically, “he’s the sort
of man that only gaol can reform. A friend of mine, who is Governor
of Clemstead Gaol, told me that Amber was one of the most hardened
prisoners he’d ever had--there’s no hope for a man like that.”
Cynthia sighed. In a vague way she wondered how it came about that such
a man as she judged Lambaire to be, should have friends in the prison
service.
“A bad lot,” said Lambaire as they turned into the station.
On the platform Cynthia took her brother aside, whilst the other two
were making inquiries regarding the arrival of a train.
“I shall go back to the house--I suppose you are determined to go
through with this expedition?”
“Of course,” irritably; “for Heaven’s sake, Cynthia, don’t let us go
into this matter again.”
She shrugged her shoulders, and was about to make some remark, when
Lambaire came hurrying along the platform, his face eloquent of triumph.
“Look here,” he said, and beckoned.
Wondering what could have animated this lymphatic man, she followed
with her brother.
She turned a corner of the station building, then came to a sudden
stop, and went white to the lips.
Under the care of two armed warders were a dozen convicts in the ugly
livery of their servitude.
They were chained wrist to wrist, and each handcuff was fastened to the
next by a steel chain.
Conspicuous in the foremost file was Amber, bright, cheerful,
unaffected by this ignominious situation.
Then he saw the girl, and his eyes dropped and a scarlet flush came to
his tanned cheek.
“My Lambaire,” he murmured, “I owe you one for this.”