PRIVILEGED INFORMATION.
Lord Hartfield did not arrive at Euston Square until near eleven o'clock
at night. A hansom deposited him at the entrance to the Albany just as
the clock of St. James's Church chimed the hour. He found only
Maulevrier's valet. His lordship had waited indoors all the evening, and
had only gone out a quarter of an hour ago. He had gone to the
Cerberus, and begged that Lord Hartfield would be kind enough to follow
him there.
Lord Hartfield was not fond of the Cerberus, and indeed deemed that
lively place of rendezvous a very dangerous sphere for his friend
Maulevrier; but in the face of Maulevrier's telegram there was no time
to be lost, so he walked across Piccadilly and down St. James's Street
to the fashionable little club, where the men were dropping in after the
theatres and dinners, and where sheafs of bank notes were being
exchanged for those various coloured counters which represented divers
values, from the respectable 'pony' to the modest 'chip.'
Maulevrier was in the first room Hartfield looked into, standing behind
some men who were playing.
'That's something like friendship,' he exclaimed, when he saw Lord
Hartfield, and then he hooked his arm through his friend's, and led him
off to the dining room.
'Come and have some supper, old fellow,' he said, 'and I can tell you my
troubles while you are eating it. James, bring us a grill, and a
lobster, and a bottle of Mumms, number 27, you know.'
'Yes, my lord.'
'Sorry to find you in this den, Maulevrier,' said Lord Hartfield.
'Haven't touched a card. Haven't done half an hour's punting this
season. But it's a kind of habit with me to wander in here now and then.
I know so many of the members. One poor devil lost nine thousand one
night last week. Rather rough upon him, wasn't it? All ready money at
this shop, don't you know.'
'Thank God, I know nothing about it. And now, Maulevrier, what is wrong,
and with whom?'
'Everything is wrong, and with my sister Lesbia.'
'Good heavens! what do you mean?'
'Only this, that there is a fellow after her whose very name means ruin
to women--a Spanish-American adventurer--reckless, handsome, a gambler,
seducer, duellist, dare-devil. The man she is to marry seems to have
neither nous nor spunk to defend her. Everybody at Goodwood saw the game
that was being played, everybody at Cowes is watching the cards, betting
on the result. Yes, great God, the men at the Squadron Club are staking
their money upon my sister's character--even monkeys that she bolts with
Montesma--five to three against the marriage with Smithson ever coming
off.'
'Is this true?'
'It is as true as your marriage with Molly, as true as your loyalty to
me. I was told of it all this morning at the Haute Gomme by a man I can
rely upon, a really good fellow, who would not leave me in the dark
about my sister's danger when all the smoking-rooms in Pall Mall were
sniggering about it. My first impulse was to take the train for Cowes;
but then I knew if I went alone I should let my temper get the better of
me. I should knock somebody down--throw somebody out of the window--make
a devil of a scene. And this would be fatal for Lesbia. I wanted your
counsel, your cool head, your steady common-sense. "Not a step forward
without Jack," I said to myself, so I bolted off and sent that telegram.
It relieved my feeling a little, but I've had a wretched day.'
'Waiter, bring me a Bradshaw, or an A B C,' said Lord Hartfield.
He had eaten nothing but a biscuit since breakfast, but he was ready to
go off at once, supperless, if there were a train to carry him.
Unluckily there was no train. The mail had started. Nothing till seven
o'clock next morning.
'Eat your supper, old fellow,' said Maulevrier. 'After all, the danger
may not be so desperate as I fancied this morning. Slander is the
favourite amusement of the age we live in. We must allow a margin for
exaggeration.'
'A very liberal margin,' answered Hartfield. 'No doubt the man who
warned you meant honestly, but this scandal may have grown out of the
merest trifles. The feebleness of the Masher's brain is only exceeded by
the foulness of the Masher's tongue. I daresay this rumour about Lady
Lesbia has its beginning and end among the Masher species.'
'I hope so, but--I have seen those two together--I met them at Victoria
one evening after Goodwood. Old Kirkbank was shuffling on ahead,
carrying Smithson with her, absorbing his attention by fussification
about her carriage. Lesbia and that Cuban devil were in the rear. They
looked as if they had all the world to themselves. Faust and Marguerite
in the garden were not in it for the expression of intense absorbing
feeling compared with those two. I'm not an intellectual party, but I
know something of human nature, and I know when a man and woman are in
love with each other. It is one of the things that never has been, that
never can be hidden.'
'And you say this Montesma is a dangerous man?'
'Deadly.'
'Well, we must lose no time. When we are on the spot it will be easy to
find out the truth; and it will be your duty, if there be danger, to
warn Lesbia and her future husband.
'I would much rather shoot the Cuban,' said Maulevrier. 'I never knew
much good come of a warning in such a case: it generally precipitates
matters. If I could play _écarté_ with him at the club, find him
sporting an extra king, throw my cards in his face, and accept his
challenge for an exchange of shots on the sands beyond Cherbourg--there
would be something like satisfaction.'
'You say the man is a gambler?'
'Report says something worse of him. Report says he is a cheat.'
'We must not be dependent upon society gossip,' replied Lord Hartfield.
'I have an idea, Maulevrier. The more we know about this man--Montesma,
I think you called him----'
'Gomez de Montesma.'
'The more fully we are acquainted with Don Gomez de Montesma's
antecedents the better we shall be able to cope with him, if we come to
handy-grips. It's too late to start for Cowes, but it is not too late to
do something. Fitzpatrick, the political-economist, spent a quarter of a
century in South America. He is a very old friend--knew my father--and I
can venture to knock at his door after midnight--all the more as I know
he is a night-worker. He is very likely to enlighten us about your Cuban
hidalgo.'
'You shall finish your supper before I let you stir. After that you may
do what you like. I was always a child in your hands, Jack, whether it
was climbing a mountain or crossing the Horse-shoe Fall. I consider the
business in your hands now. I'll go with you wherever you like, and do
what you tell me. When you want me to kick anybody, or fight anybody,
you can give me the office and I'll do it. I know that Lesbia's
interests are safe in your hands. You once cared very much for her. You
are her brother-in-law now, and, next to me, you are her natural
protector, taking into account that her future husband is a cad and
doesn't score.'
'Meet me at Waterloo at ten minutes to seven to-morrow morning, and
we'll go down to Cowes together. I'm off to find Fitzpatrick. Good
night.'
So they parted. Lord Hartfield walked across the Park to Great George
Street, where Mr. Fitzpatrick had chambers of a semi-official character,
on the first floor of a solemn-looking old house, spacious, gloomy
without and within, walls sombre with the subdued colouring of
decorations half a century old.
The lighted windows of those first-floor rooms told Lord Hartfield that
he was not too late. He rang the bell, which was answered with the
briefest delay by a sleepy-looking clerk, who had been taking shorthand
notes for Mr. Fitzpatrick's great book upon 'Protection _versus_ Free
Trade.' The clerk looked sleepy, but his employer had as brisk an air as
if he were just beginning the day; although he had been working without
intermission since nine o'clock that evening, and had done a long day's
work before dinner. He was walking up and down the spacious unluxurious
room, half office, half library, smoking a cigar. Upon a large table in
the centre of the room stood two powerful reading lamps with green
shades, illuminating a chaotic mass of books and pamphlets, heaped and
scattered all over the table, save just on that spot between the two
lamps, which accommodated Mr. Fitzpatrick's blotting pad and inkpot, a
pewter inkpot which held about a pint.
'How d'ye do, Hartfield? Glad you've looked me up at last,' said the
Irishman, as if a midnight call were the most natural thing in the
world. 'Just come from the House?'
'No; I've just come from Westmoreland. I thought I should find you among
those everlasting books of yours, late as it is. Can I have a few words
alone with you?'
'Certainly. Morgan, you can go away for a bit.'
'Home, sir?'
'Home--well--yes, I suppose it's late. You look sleepy. I should have
been glad to finish the chapter on Beetroot Sugar to-night--but it may
stand over for the morning. Be sure you're early.'
'Yes, sir,' the clerk responded with a faint sigh.
He was paid handsomely for late hours, liberally rewarded for his
shorthand services; and yet he wished the great Fitzpatrick had not been
quite so industrious.
'Now, my dear Hartfield, what can I do for you?' asked Fitzpatrick, when
the clerk had gone. 'I can see by your face that you've something
serious in hand. Can I help you?'
'You can, I believe, in a very material way. You were five-and-twenty
years in Spanish America?'
'Rather more than less.'
'Here, there, and everywhere?'
'Yes; there is _not_ a city in South America that I have not lived
in--for something between a day and a year.'
'You know something about most men of any mark in that part of the
world, I conclude?'
'It was my business to know men of all kinds. I had my mission from the
Spanish Government. I was engaged to examine the condition of commerce
throughout the colony, the working of protection as against free trade,
and so on. Strange, by-the-bye, that Cuba, the last place to foster the
slave trade, was of all spots of the earth the first to carry free-trade
principles into practical effect, long before they were recognised in
any European country.'
'Strange to me that you should speak of Cuba so soon after my coming
in,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'I am here to ask you to help me to find
out the antecedents of a man who hails from that island.'
'I ought to know something about him, whoever he is,' replied Mr.
Fitzpatrick, briskly. 'I spent six months in Cuba not very long before
my return to England. Cuba is one of my freshest memories; and I have a
pretty tight memory for facts, names and figures. Never could remember
two lines of poetry in my life.'
'Did you ever hear of, or meet with, a man called Montesma--Gomez de
Montesma?'
'Couldn't have stopped a month in Havana without hearing something about
that gentleman,' answered Fitzpatrick, 'I hope he isn't a friend of
yours, and that you have not lent him money?'
'Neither; but I want to know all you can tell me about him.'
'You shall have it in black and white, out of my Cuban note-book,'
replied the other, unlocking a drawer in the official table; 'I always
take notes of anything worth recording, on the spot. A man is a fool who
trusts to memory, where personal character is at stake. Montesma is as
well known at Havana as the Morro Fort or the Tacon Theatre. I have
heard stories enough about him to fill a big volume; but all the facts
recorded there'--striking the morocco cover of the note-book--'have been
thoroughly sifted; I can vouch for them.'
He looked at the index, found the page, and handed the book to Lord
Hartfield.
'Read for yourself,' he said, quietly.
Lord Hartfield read three or four pages of plain statement as to various
adventures by sea and land in which Gomez de Montesma had figured, and
the reputation which he bore in Cuba and on the Main.
'You can vouch for this?' he said at last, after a long silence.
'For every syllable.'
'The story of his marriage?'
'Gospel truth: I knew the lady.'
'And the rest?'
'All true.'
'A thousand thanks. I know now upon what ground I stand. I have to save
an innocent, high-bred girl from the clutches of a consummate
scoundrel.'
'Shoot him, and shoot her, too, if there's no better way of saving her.
It will be an act of mercy,' said Mr. Fitzpatrick, without hesitation.