Overjoyed at this news, the four of us swept out of the police station.
Even the inspectors and sergeants seemed to catch some of our
enthusiasm, or was it the sight of Mr Cooper-Nassington and of the
order from the Home Secretary that brought about so miraculous a change
in their manner towards us? At all events, they led us quite in triumph
out into Bow Street, and from thence, at a word from the Member of
Parliament, we took our way to the Hotel Cecil, where, in a private room
where a delightful supper had been spread, we found Colonel Napier
awaiting us, apparently none the worse in temper or appearance for his
bewildering experiences on the racecourse at Worcester.
Then, as we discussed the meal, with many a merry jest and many a toast
in the best champagne the hotel could produce, all the news poured about
us like an avalanche.
"First," said Cooper-Nassington, who by unanimous request had taken the
head of the table, with Doris and I on his right hand and Casteno on his
left and the colonel to the front of him, "you are both, no doubt,
literally dying to know how Lord Cyril came to tumble from his pinnacle
as Foreign Secretary in a day as it were. Well, don't trouble to look
at the papers. They are full of lies, as usual. They pretend it is
failing health, that the strain of European complications has been too
much for him, that he's threatened with softening of the brain; but all
that is really nonsense. I got at the great man myself, and I _made_
him resign!" And, swelling with pride and importance, the Member of
Parliament rose and gazed delightedly upon us.
"You actually did!" we cried in a breath; but he waved our dissent
aside.
"Yes; I contrived it all," he went on. "As a matter of fact, I did it
by bluff, sheer bluff; but I knew my man, and I knew where to hit him.
He had tried to crush us, and I recognised that the time had come when,
if we didn't wish to be totally exterminated, we must fall upon him and
demolish him."
And we both nodded, recalling that cruel letter of his to Jose.
The Member of Parliament paused for a moment theatrically, and then went
on in a more grave and earnest tone. At the bottom we could see he was
really profoundly touched by the turn events had taken and by our own
good fortune, but, British like, he sought to hide it by a jocularity
and levity he was very far, indeed, from feeling.
"I got a private interview with him at the Foreign Office this
afternoon," he said, "just after he had announced to a delighted House
all about the wonderful discovery he had made of documents that proved
that the sacred lake belonged to England, and that a mission would be
despatched forthwith to take possession of it. This he did on the
strength of the forged manuscripts which Naylor found in the safe when
he searched St Bruno's from top to bottom. `Cuthbertson,' I began very
firmly, `you've been fooled, fooled completely. Those are not the
documents you want at all. They are forgeries, as your experts will
rapidly discover; forgeries made by the hunchback's good-for-nothing
second son.' He stormed and he raved, and he sent for old Peter Zouche
and his son Paul, who, of course, had to admit the truth of what I said,
and then he lost nerve completely, begged my pardon, and tried to come
to terms with me. `Let me have the real things,' he pleaded, `and I'll
release your friends. I'll give you a share of the credit of the
discovery, and at the first opportunity I have I'll find you a snug
place in the Government.'
"Now," proceeded the Member of Parliament, "tempting as those terms
were, I refused them. For one thing, I knew my man, and I knew he was
but a pinchbeck, unstable, untruthful kind of genius. For another, I
realised that, as Foreign Secretary, he was a terrible danger to
England, so I stuck to the line I had marked out for myself, without any
thought or hope of my own advancement. `You've got to resign,' I
returned--`nothing else will satisfy me or save you from the ridicule I
have arranged to pour upon you. I have prepared a careful account of
the whole business as we know it from the inside, ay, even of the way
you must have helped Fotheringay to send those sham nurses, and
to-morrow I shall telegraph it to every newspaper of importance. I will
swear an affidavit of its truth, and join the opposition, and between us
we will contrive to literally _laugh_ you out of power.' A terrible
scene, of course, followed. He grew abusive, he tried more bribes, he
threatened to have me flung into prison like yourselves--there wasn't,
in fact, a trick or a dodge which a man in his powerful position could
resort to that he didn't in turn practise on me.
"Luckily, I am pretty obstinate," he went on, "and I won, hands down.
Straight away he got two or three doctor friends together, and they
cooked up a certificate about the state of his health; he rushed off to
Buckingham Palace and handed over his resignation to the king, who,
fortunately, happened to be in town; and, after various audiences, the
Premier about an hour ago appointed the Marquis of Penarth in his place.
In the Cabinet it is pretty well known how I managed it, but nobody
regrets Cuthbertson's downfall. He was too proud, too overbearing, too
insolent for the position, and all the members of the House whom I have
spoken to seem to be relieved at his resignation and hurried departure
to that old castle of his up in Galloway."
"And what," asked Jose, "has become of my father and brother?" And his
face was pale and his eyes full of tears.
"I am sorry to say they have both bolted. The Home Secretary sent after
them regarding the loss of certain plans from the Woolwich Arsenal, but
they took fright over the forgeries and Cuthbertson's threats and
slipped off to Greenwich, from which they got a tramp steamer to take
them to some foreign port, whence they can flee up country and gain a
quasi kind of protection, which it won't pay England to fight--probably
in Portugal or Spain, or even in Greece, with which country, I
understand, we have no extradition treaty whatever."
"And you, colonel," I asked, turning to Napier. "How did you come to
forgive us?" I queried.
The old soldier broke into a hearty laugh. "Oh! that wasn't difficult
when such a magician as Cooper-Nassington set to work. He told me the
whole of the facts, whereas Fotheringay had only explained to me half!"
And under the table-cloth Doris' small hand found mine, and gave me a
sweet little token of satisfaction, trust, and content. Already I felt
more than repaid for the misunderstanding I had suffered.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Little more remains to be told.
Only next day the papers came out with the true account of Bernard
Delganni's suicide, and there is no doubt in my mind now that he was the
man who stabbed the colonel's spaniel, which was said to sleep usually
in the colonel's room.
Soon after this the expedition to Mexico set sail, and now any day we
may hear that, with the aid of the old Jesuits' chart and the
information contained in the yellow parchments, Beckworth's sacred lake
has actually been drained off and England in possession of a practically
inexhaustible mine of wealth. Every day I open my newspaper I look for
this welcome intelligence, and every day I am certain brings us nearer
the consummation of this discovery. One day before long the sacred
lake, which is already located and has been sounded, will be run dry by
a tunnel which is being cut through a small mountain, and when this is
accomplished it will bring joy and solid relief to the heart of every
taxpayer and Englishman. The wealth known to be in the bed of the lake
is enormous, and some of the gems and gold ornaments recovered are
already in London. That Fotheringay has got a place in the expedition
gives me no concern. He was never really bad, and chances of redemption
should be given to all, although Casteno has really never forgiven him
that trick with the sham nurses.
The Order of St Bruno still flourishes under Mr Cooper-Nassington's
guidance, and anyone who desires to join it should address my friend,
the Member of Parliament, at the House of Commons. I have but thinly
disguised his identity in these chapters, and any serious patriot could
discover his real name by a little judicious inquiry, say from the
chairman of the Press Gallery, who knows twice as much of the secret
history of our legislative establishment as, notwithstanding what
croakers over press morality assert, ever finds its way into print.
The Order has, I am compelled to record, lost two of its active members.
One, Jose Casteno, who has married that very charming girl, Camille
Velasquon, and set sail for Mexico, hot on the heels of the British
expedition to Tangikano, and also to see that Fotheringay goes straight.
The other, my poor, graceless self, who, now that Doris has become my
wife, no longer figures in Stanton Street, WC, as a secret investigator,
but lives out at Redhill, and goes daily to his chambers in the Temple--
Lawyers' Land--to lay the foundation of a barrister's practice, aided by
poor Naylor, who was retired compulsorily from Scotland Yard upon a
small pension, but who, I find, makes an admirable clerk when it comes
to a hand-to-hand tussle with solicitors, who ever want more than their
true pound of flesh.
And so for the present, with the others, I must make my adieu!
When England is startled, as she will be one day ere long, by the
announcement of the recovery of the enormous treasure of Tangikano, the
emeralds and rubies unequalled in the world, and the wonderful images
and utensils of solid gold that have been hidden for ages in the slime
beneath those silent waters, then will you, perhaps, recollect the
chapters of an eventful history which I have recorded in the foregoing
pages, and remember what part in the modern drama of London life was
played by the man once known to connoisseurs and collectors as the
Hunchback of Westminster.