The Clareboroughs' carriage was at the door, and the well-matched,
handsome pair of horses were impatiently pawing the ground, in spite of
sundry admonitions from the plump coachman of the faultless turn-out to
be "steady there!" "hold still!" and the like.
Mr Roach, the butler, had appeared for a minute on the step, looking
very pompous and important, exchanged nods with the coachman, and gone
in again to wait for the descent of their people, bound for one of Lord
Gale's dinner-parties in Grosvenor Place.
All was still in the hall as the door was closed, and the marble statues
and bodiless busts did not move upon their pedestals, nor their blank
faces display the slightest wonder at the proceedings which followed,
even though they were enough to startle them out of their equanimity.
For all at once the pompous, stolid butler and the stiff,
military-looking footman, in his good, refined livery, suddenly seemed
to have been stricken with a kind of delirious attack. The expression
upon their faces changed from its customary social diplomatic calm to
one of wild delight, and they both broke into a spasmodic dance, a
combination of the wildest step of the _can-can_ and the mad angulations
of a nigger breakdown, with the accompaniment of snapping of fingers at
each other and the final kick-up and flop of the right foot upon the
floor.
Then they rushed at each other and embraced--the solemn, middle-aged
butler and the tall young footman--theatrically, after which they seemed
to come to their normal senses, and quietly shook hands.
"'Bliged to let some of the steam off, old man?" whispered the footman.
"Yes, Orthur, my boy, had to open the safety valve," replied the butler.
"We're made men, eh?"
"Not quite," said the footman, grinning, "but getting into shape. Three
hundred a-piece. I say, ain't it grand?"
"Splendid," said the butler, with a broad smile. "But steady now."
"I say; wasn't the idea right?"
"Right as right, my boy."
"Ah," said the footman, with a knowing wink, "who'd be without a good
only uncle to tip you when you want a few pounds to invest? I say,
though, you'll go and pay the old boy as soon as we're gone?"
"Won't be time."
"Oh yes; you'll be all right. Get it done. Make it easy if we want to
do it again, eh?"
"All right; I'll go. I say, Orthur, ain't I like a father to you?"
"Dear old man!" whispered the gentleman addressed, with a grin. "Me
long-lost forther!"
"Steady!" said the butler, sternly, and their masks of servitude were on
their faces again, with the elder stern and pompous, the younger
respectful and steady as a rock. "Yes; I'll go and put that right.
Must take a cab. You'll pay half?"
"Of course; that's all right, sir. Fair shares in everything. I say,
Bob's got something else on. Hadn't a chance to tell you before."
"Eh? What is that?"
"Goodwood. He's had a letter. I say, shall we be on there? Oh no, not
at all."
"Pst! coming down," whispered the butler; and the footman opened the
door and went out to the carriage, which soon after dashed off, while
the butler, after the regular glance up street and down, closed the
door. He descended to his pantry, where he drew a glossy hat from a
box, took an empty Gladstone bag from a cupboard and went out to hail
the first hansom round the corner. This rattled him away in the
direction of Bloomsbury, where he descended close to the great grim
portico of the church, and told the man to wait.
The driver gave a glance at him, but the butler looked too respectable
for a bilker, and he settled down for a quiet smoke, muttering, "Grapes
or pears."
But cabby was wrong. Mr Roach was not the class of domestic to lower
his dignity by engaging in a kind of commerce which could be properly
carried on by the fruiterer. He made for a quiet street, turned up a
narrow court, and passed in through a glazed swing door upon whose
embossed pane appeared the blazon of the Medici family--the three golden
pills--the crest of the generous relative--"mine uncle" of the borrower
high and low, and the minute after he stood in darkness in a narrow box.
A sharp-faced young man with a pen behind his ear came from the right
and stretched out his hand across the broad counter.
"Send the guv'nor," said Roach, importantly.
A sharp look was the answer, the shopman went away, and his place was
taken directly by a keen, dark man, with a gaslight complexion, and to
him Roach handed a little white ticket.
"Hullo! So soon!" said the man, showing his teeth, which matched his
skin.
"Well, didn't I tell you so?" said Roach, importantly.
"Yes, but I don't quite believe everything my clients say."
"No, and you were precious uppish and hold-offish the other day," said
Roach, shortly.
"Obliged to be careful, Mr Smith, in my profession," said the
pawnbroker, with a peculiar smile. "There's a law against receiving
stolen goods, and one don't want to get into trouble."
"Well, you needn't begin to suspect everybody who wants money, if there
is. Do you suppose gentry don't run short of money sometimes?"
"Oh no. I know they do, Mr Smith. I could show you some jewellery
that would open your eyes."
"And I dessay I could show you something that would open yours. May
have to bring it to you some day. Who knows?"
"Glad to do business on the square any time, Mr Smith," said the
pawnbroker.
"Of course you are; so's lots more. People thinks there's no
card-playing going on now, and gents and ladies running short."
"We don't think so, Mr Smith."
"No, I suppose not," said Roach. "I did make up my mind I wouldn't come
here again after what passed."
"Only business caution, Mr Smith."
"Oh, well, if that's all, perhaps I may. This was a commission; hundred
pound wanted on the nail, and security worth five offered. Money's come
in again, and my people want the security. Here's the cash and
interest, and the sooner I'm off the better."
"Soon done, Mr Smith," said the pawnbroker, "and I shall be happy to do
business with you again any time." The man made some memoranda on the
card, and went into a back room to a safe, from which he brought a
carefully-done-up packet.
"Rather I hadn't fetched it, eh?" said Roach, after having the packet
opened and satisfied himself that the gold contents were intact.
"Don't you make that mistake, Mr Smith," said the pawnbroker. "We
don't want unredeemed pledges to sell, but to have them taken out and
receive our interest. That's the way money is made, sir."
"I dessay," said the butler, paying over the sum needed in notes and
gold, and then packing the security in the Gladstone bag; "but it's a
free country, and people have a right to believe what they like."
"Of course, my dear sir, of course."
"Now look here," whispered Roach; "if there happens to be an emergency,
mister, and I'm disposed to come here again with something for an
advance, is it to be prompt business, or a lot of humbugging questions?"
"Prompt business, Mr Smith, with approved customers, and to any
amount."
"That will do then. I'll come. Private and confidential, eh?"
"Private and confidential, sir. Good-evening.--Jobson, shut up."
"Yes, and I shut him up," muttered Roach, as he went out with his
Gladstone bag feeling weighty, and sought his cab, but not without
looking back once or twice and choosing another way for his return.
But he saw nothing to excite his suspicions of being followed, for it
was not likely that the homely-looking woman with a thickish umbrella
had come from the pawnbroker's. But somehow she had.
An hour later, Roach's carefully-done-up parcel was denuded of its
wrappings, and its golden glories were hidden in the iron plate-closet
at the back of his pantry. And then he came upon Arthur, not long
returned from setting down their people at Grosvenor Place.
"Hullo! Didn't know you'd come back. Got it?" said the footman.
The butler nodded.
"Shut the door," he said; and as soon as they were alone in the pantry,
Roach unlocked the iron closet which contained the plate under his
charge, and pointed to a handsome centre-piece standing on the shelf.
Then it was that the younger man so far forgot the respect due to his
elder as to slap him on the back, an act not in the least resented, but
responded to by a playful dig in the ribs.
"But I say, my boy," whispered the butler, "it won't do, you know. I've
funked horribly for fear that they should ask for it."
"Likely!" said the footman, scornfully. "It's never been used but
once."
"More likely to be asked for to be put away with the rest in the vault.
Jemmy's safe to remember it some day."
The footman was thoughtful as the butler locked up the iron closet.
"We ought to put away something not likely to be asked for, eh?"
"Yes," said the butler, shaking his head sagely; "but what is there? We
may have a dinner-party any day, and everything have to be shown."
"Must be lots of things in the vault."
"Course there is."
"I say, ain't it rum that they don't send the things to their bankers?"
"Not a bit, when they've got a strong closet of their own, Orthur, my
boy. I heard 'em talking about it one day at dinner, and Jemmy said
something about their old bank breaking, and a lot of the family plate
and jewels being lost. The rogues had been hard up for long enough and
sold it."
"Ah! there's a sight o' rogues in the world," said Arthur, quietly.
"We've got some capital now."
"Yes, but let's think of a rainy day. Now, look here, there must be no
end of things in the vault as they're never like to ask for."
"No end," said the butler.
"Never been in it?"
"Never."
"Well, couldn't we have a look in, and pick out something small and
handy?--say jools. They do lock them there when they go down to The
Towers. I do know that."
"Yes, my lad, they do; and I believe there's a lot of old gold, family
plate and diamonds as they never do want."
"That's the stuff for us--in case we want it, of course. Don't hurt
them to borrow it, and it finds us the capital to do us good."
"Yes, but how are we to get at it?"
"Keys."
"Where are they kept?"
"Oh, we could soon find out that."
"Well, I can't. I've been on the look-out this two years, and I believe
Jemmy keeps 'em somewhere, but I never could find out where."
"Then you had thought of that plan, old man?"
"Of course I had. Where you ain't trusted it sets you thinking.
They're well-bred, but somehow the Clareboroughs ain't real gentlemen.
They trust me with some of the plate, and I'm supposed to be butler, but
what about the wine? Do they ever let me have the key of the cellar?"
"No, that's Bob's job," said the footman, thoughtfully.
"Yes, and a couple of paltry dozen at a time. How am I to know if the
wine's keeping sound or not? But there are ways, Orthur," continued
Roach, with a wink, and he rose slowly, went to a chest of drawers,
unlocked it, took out a box, unlocked that, and drew forth a couple of
new-looking keys.
"Hullo!" said the footman in a whisper; "cellar?"
"That one is," replied the butler, as his companion turned over the big
bright key he had taken up.
"Good. And what's this?"
"One I got made to try the vault."
"Phe-ew!" whistled Arthur, excitedly. "Then you have been in?"
"No, my lad; that only opens the wooden door at the end of the passage.
Then you're in a bit of a lobby, with a big iron door on one side."
"Well, didn't you get a key made for that?"
"No, my lad. I couldn't. It's a rum one. I don't believe you could
get one made by anybody but them as sold the safe."
"Don't believe it," cried the footman, contemptuously, "Let me have a
look."
"Nay, nay, you'd better not."
"Gammon. Where's the old woman?"
"In her room, up atop."
"Who's in the kitchen?"
"Only the scullery-maid. T'others are all gone out."
"Then let's go and have a look," cried Arthur. "I want to be a man.
I'm sick of being a mouse."
The butler seemed disposed to sit still, but the energy of his young
companion stirred him to action, and he placed the keys in his pocket
and stood hesitating.
"Go and see first what that gal's doing," he whispered, "while I make
sure the old woman's up in her room."
The footman nodded, and both went their ways, to meet again with a nod
indicating that all was right, and then the butler led on along one of
the passages of the extensive basement to where another struck off at
right angles, ending in an ordinary stout oak-grained door. This
readily yielded to the key the butler brought, and after lighting a bit
of candle the pair stepped into a little stone-walled room of about ten
feet square, with a closely-fitting drab-painted door on their right,
standing flush with the iron frame which filled up the centre.
"That's a tight one, Orthur, lad," said the butler.
"Yes, to them as has no key," said the footman, quietly, after going
down on one knee and examining the key-hole by holding the loose cover
on one side. "I'm a-going to have a key to fit that lock, old man,
afore long."
"You are, my boy?"
"I am, guv'nor. You and I's got together and we've got to stick
together and make our fortunes. There's horses and carriages and plate
chests and cellars o' wine for them as likes to be enterprising, and
we're enterprising now."
"But we mustn't do anything shady, Orthur."
"Shady, guv'nor!" cried the footman, contemptuously; "not us. It's to
be sunshiny. Don't you be afraid o' that. We sha'n't do nothing to
make us afraid to look a bobby in the face. Only a bit of
speckylation--a bit o' borrowing now and then to raise the wind, and
paying of it back. Give us your hand on it, old man. We sticks
together through thick and thin."
There were vinous tears in the butler's eyes as he extended his plump
white hand to be grasped hard, and the two speculators looked each in
the other's face, seeing a gilded future before them, the glare of which
hid everything else.
"That'll do for the present, guv'nor," said Arthur.
He drew open the door, and was about to pass out, when a short cough
came echoing along the passage, and he pushed the door close again.
"Hist!" he whispered, as he blew out the light; "the old woman's coming
down."
"Quick! take out the key, and lock it from inside," whispered the
butler. "She's always coming along here to see if this place is all
right and try the door."
The footman obeyed, making a faint rattle with the key, after which he
closed the door, leaving them in darkness.
"Have you locked it?"
"No, there ain't no key-hole on this side. Hist! she's coming straight
here."
The next moment the footman's shoulder was placed against the door to
keep it fast.
The men stood holding their breath and feeling the perspiration gather
upon their faces like a heavy dew, as they waited, hearing nothing now
but the throbbing of their own hearts for what seemed to be an
interminable time, before there came the sound as of something soft
being dabbed against the door, followed by a sudden heavy push which, in
spite of his strength, sent a jarring thrill through every nerve of the
footman's body.