"Quite so; I stayed here once before," and rang the bell.
The door was opened by a person of whose nationality there could be
little doubt, particularly when, after a momentary inspection of his
belated guests, he uttered an exclamation of joy and accosted the
tutor--
"_Mon ami_! Oh! I am glad to see you, my good friend. Friend of my
_pauvre pere_!--friend of my youth! It is you. Ah, Monsieur!" added
he, addressing Roger, "for your friend's sake you are welcome.
_Entrez_!"
"Be quiet now, Gustav," said the tutor. "Bring us come coffee in the
coffee-room, if you can get it made, and light a fire in the bedroom.
We will talk in the morning."
Gustav gesticulated delighted acquiescence in any demand his hero made,
and ushered them into the coffee-room.
"What a queer fellow!" said Roger when he had vanished in search of the
coffee.
"Queer but good-hearted fellow is Gustav," said the tutor. "I have
known him a long time; to-morrow I'll tell you-- Hullo!"
There was but a single candle in the room, and by its dim light, and
that of the half-expired fire, they had not at first been able to see
that they were not the sole occupants of the apartment. On the sofa lay
curled the figure of a man breathing heavily, and, to judge by the
spirit-bottle and glasses on the table at his hand, expiating a carouse
by a disturbed and feverished slumber.
The tutor raised the candle so that the light fell more clearly on the
sleeper. Something in the figure had struck him. The man lay with his
face turned towards them. He was stylishly though cheaply dressed. His
age may have been forty, and his features were half obscured by a
profuse and unkempt sandy beard. This was not what had struck the
tutor. In his frequent turnings and tossings the sleeper had contrived
to betray the fact that his hirsute appearance was due not to nature but
to art. A wire hook had been displaced from the ear, leaving one side
of the wig tilted so as to disclose underneath the smooth cheek of a
clean-shaven man.
The examination was still in process when Gustav re-entered the room.
The clatter with which he put down the cups on the table, aided by the
glare of the candle and the tutor's sharp ejaculation, wakened the
sleeper with a start. He was sober enough as he raised his head sharply
and sprang to his feet. In doing this the treacherous wig slipped still
farther. Before he could raise his hand to replace it Mr Armstrong had
stepped forward and torn the mask from his face, disclosing the livid
countenance of Mr Robert Ratman!
The surprise on either side was at first beyond reach of words. The
miscreant stood staring in a dazed way, first at Armstrong, then at
Roger, then at Gustav, who, being a Frenchman, was the first to come to
his use of his tongue.
"_Mon dieu_! Monsieur, this is no bedroom for the gentleman. It is
forbidden to sleep all night in the _salle a manger_."
"Silence, Gustav! Go for a policeman," said Armstrong in a tone so
strange that the faithful Gustav slunk away like a dog with his tail
between his legs.
"Now, sir!" said the tutor as the door closed.
The wretch made one wild effort at escape. He might have known by this
time with whom he had to deal. Mr Armstrong held him by the wrist as
in a vice.
"It won't do, Ratman," said he. "The game is up. The best thing you
can do is to stand quietly here till the police come."
The prisoner sullenly abandoned his struggle, and turned with a bitter
sneer to Roger.
"So you've run me down, have you? You've found your lost brother at
last? I expected it. I was a fool to suppose you would lift a finger
for me. There's some chance of escaping from an enemy, but from a
brother who has set himself to hound a brother to death, never. Never
mind. Your money's safe now. Have me hung as soon as you like; the
sooner the better for me."
Roger, stupefied and stung to the quick by these taunts, winced as
though he and not the speaker were the miscreant. He looked almost
appealingly at his accuser, and tried to speak to justify himself, but
the words refused to come.
Suddenly he seemed to detect in the prisoner's eye some new sinister
purpose.
"Take care, Armstrong; take care!" he cried, and flung himself between
the two.
It was not an instant too soon. With his free hand Ratman had contrived
while talking to reach unheeded a pocket, from which he suddenly whipped
a pistol, and, pounding on his captor, fired.
The shot was badly and wildly aimed at the tutor's face. Even at so
short a distance it might have missed its mark altogether. Roger's
sudden intervention, however, found it an unexpected target. The lad's
up-flung hand caught the pistol at the moment it went off, and received
in its palm the ball which had been intended for his friend.
The sight of this untoward accident completely unnerved the prisoner.
He sullenly let the weapon drop from his fingers, and with the air of a
gambler who has played and lost his last stake, sank listlessly on the
sofa on which not ten minutes before he had been sleeping.
"Luck's against me," he said with an oath. "Look to the boy; I shan't
trouble you any more. I've done him harm enough without this. I wish
I'd never heard of his elder brother."
The tutor, busy binding up his ward's hand, only half heard the words;
but Roger, amidst all his pain, heard it and looked up.
"Then you are not my brother?" he said faintly.
"Brother? No. And if you hadn't left the papers about in your room a
year ago I should never have known it was worth my while to pretend it."
When, a few moments later, Gustav entered with two constables, Mr
Ratman welcomed the visitors with a sigh almost of relief, and placed
himself quietly in their hands. As he passed the chair where Roger sat,
half faint with pain and loss of blood, he stopped a moment and said--
"Your brother! No. If I had been I shouldn't have come to this."
About ten days later a small party was gathered in Roger's cosy den at
Maxfield.
The young Squire was there, with his hand in a sling, still pale and
weak, but able to sit up on the sofa and enjoy for the first time the
society of a few choice friends. Among those friends it was not
surprising to find Rosalind. That young lady had recently exchanged the
duties of governess at the Vicarage for those of temporary sick-nurse at
the manor-house, and to-night, in her simple mourning, with a flush of
pleasure on her cheek as now and again she turned her eyes to the
patient whose recovery did her care such credit she looked--at least
Roger, an impartial witness, thought so--more beautiful than ever. But
as Roger made the same discovery every time he and his nurse met, the
opinion may be regarded as of relative value. Tom was there, enjoying
himself as usual, indeed rather more than usual, because in the stable
hard by, munching his oats, was a horse (the gift of the Squire) who
owned him, Tom, as lord and master. Jill was there too, a little
pensive as she looked round for some one who was not there, but trying
hard to enjoy herself and seem glad. Besides these intimates there was
Mr Headland, feeling like a father to everybody; Dr Brandram, in
professional attendance; and the Vicar himself, accidentally present to
congratulate his young parishioner on his recovery.
The absentee of the evening was Mr Armstrong, who had gone to London
the previous day on matters connected with the approaching assizes.
"I wish Armstrong was here," said Tom. "Won't he open his eye when he
sees `Crocodile'!"
"Crocodile" was the name of the horse before mentioned.
"It hardly seems like a party without him," said Jill, blushing a
little.
"You were telling us about the letter written at sea," said the vicar.
"Of course, you heard nothing of the ship in London?"
"Yes, I did," said Roger. "After no end of disappointment, Armstrong
suggested telegraphing to the post-master at Havana, off which the
letter was written, you know, and we heard that there had been a ship
called the `Cyclops' ten years ago trading between the West Indies and
Ceylon, but that nothing was known of any one of the name of Ingleton."
Rosalind looked up suddenly.
"Ceylon and the West Indies?" exclaimed she. "Roger, did Mr Armstrong
never tell you a story he once told me of a shark adventure which
happened to him when he was a sailor on a ship trading between Ceylon
and the West Indies?"
The sudden silence which followed this inquiry was only broken by a low
whistle of wonder from Tom.
Roger, with a flush of colour on his pale cheeks, sat up and said, "What
is the story?"
Rosalind told it as nearly as possible in the tutor's own words.
"He did not tell you the name of the ship?" asked the doctor.
"No."
"Or the name of the man who was killed?"
"No."
There was another silence; it seemed as if they were sitting as
witnesses to the completion of some curious tunnelling operation, when
the party on one side suddenly catches sound of the pick-axe stroke of
the party on the other. Step by step the lost Roger Ingleton had been
tracked forward to the deck of this West India trading-ship; and
backward, step by step, the tutor's history went, till it almost touched
the same point.
"I expect," said Tom, with a cheerfulness hardly in accord with the
spirits of the company generally, "the fellow who was had by the shark
was the one, and Armstrong never knew it."
The profound young man had dropped on the very idea which was present in
the minds of each one.
"Wal," said the American mayor, "it may be so; but the question I'm
asking myself is this: If so, it's singular Mr Armstrong did not
mention the coincidence when you got the cablegram."
"Oh," said Roger, "at the time I was so cut up to find I'd failed after
all, that I didn't care to talk; and directly after that we met Ratman.
He had no chance."
"I calculate I'd like to ask your tutor one or two pertinent questions,"
said the Mayor.