RECOGNITION.
Three days after Mr. Van Duren's little birthday dinner at Greenwich,
the following advertisement appeared in the second column of the
_Times_:--
"_Albatross_.--Should this meet the eye of any person or persons who
happened to be on board the schooner _Albatross_ when she foundered
off Marhyddoc Bay on the 18th Oct., 18--, they may hear of something
to their advantage, by applying to Messrs. Reed and Reed, Solicitors,
Bedford Row, London."
This advertisement was repeated every other day for three weeks. At
the end of that time there came a response.
As it happened, Van Duren never saw the advertisement, and there was
no one to show it to him; no one who knew what a terrible fascination
such an announcement would have had for him. His newspaper reading was
generally confined to the money article, the City intelligence, and
the latest telegrams. For miscellaneous news and leading articles he
cared little Or nothing.
Now that everything had been got out of Max Van Duren that could be
got out of him, the motive that had induced Miriam Byrne to play the
part she had played existed no longer; and although it was needful
that appearances should still be kept up, there was no longer the same
strain upon her. While keeping Van Duren at arm's length, and
permitting no lover-like familiarities, on the ground that as yet he
was only accepted on probation, it would not have been wise, having an
eye to future eventualities, to repel him too rigidly, or to have run
the risk of frightening him away. He must be so kept in hand that a
little coaxing--a smile, a look, a whispered word--could always lure
him to her side. He would fain have been twice as loving, twice as
assiduous in his attentions, as Miriam would allow him to be. "Wait,"
she would say, "wait till I have made up my mind, and then----!" a
look would finish the sentence, a look which seemed to say, "You know
very well that I shall end by accepting you, and then I won't object
to your kissing me, or perhaps to kissing you in return." That, at
least, was Van Duren's interpretation of it.
During the time that the advertisement was appearing every other day,
Byrne seized the opportunity for obtaining a little rest and change.
He and Miriam went back for a week to their old lodgings in Battersea,
which they had not yet given up. Van Duren believed that they were
going to the seaside, but could not discover the particular place for
which they were bound. Miriam put the case to him playfully.
"No, I shall not tell you where we are going," she said, with a smile,
"because that would be merely offering you a premium to run down and
spend the end of week with us. I am going to leave you for seven long
days. You will not know where I am, and I shall not write to you. I am
going to test you--I am going to see whether you will like me as well
when I come back as you do now."
"You should try me for seven years instead of seven days," said Van
Duren, fervently.
"Suppose I take you at your word, and stay away for seven years," said
Miriam, with a mischievous sparkle in her eye.
"Like a knight of old, I should start in quest of you long before that
time was at an end; I should search for you till I found you in your
hidden bower, and then I should seize you, and carry you away with me,
whether you liked it or no."
"Yes, and while you were riding off with me as fast as you could go, I
should be slily searching for a joint in your armour, and when I had
found it, I should stab you to the heart with my silver bodkin. What a
romance it would be!"
"Especially for the poor fellow who was stabbed."
"He would live in song and story ever after, and that would be far
more fame than he would deserve."
At the end of a week Miriam and her father found themselves back in
Spur Alley, and three days later there came a response to the
advertisement. Messrs. Reed and Reed were called upon by two men who
professed to have been on board the _Albatross_ at the time she
foundered. One of these men was Paul Morrell, the mate of the
ill-fated schooner; the other one was Carl Momsen, an ordinary seaman.
An appointment was made for the following day, when Mr. Byrne came in
person to examine them. A private room was set apart for the
interview, and one of Messrs. Reed's shorthand clerks was there to
take notes. The men were examined separately, and out of each other's
hearing, but the evidence elicited from one was almost an exact
counterpart of the evidence elicited from the other. The evidence of
both of them may be summarized as follows:--
The _Albatross_ sailed from Liverpool for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the
17th October, 18--. She was not in the habit of carrying passengers,
but on this particular occasion there was one passenger on board her
who was said to be a friend of the owner. He was a foreigner, but
spoke very good English. He had sandy-coloured hair, and wore small
gold rings in his ears. Neither of the men knew his name. The
_Albatross_ was caught in a gale off the mouth of the Mersey. Next
morning she sprung a leak, and a little while after the schooner's
head was put about for Marhyddoc Bay. Outside the bay the vessel
foundered, and the crew had barely time to take to the boats before
she went down. At the last moment the man with the earrings brought up
out of his cabin what looked like a small portmanteau, it being
covered with leather, but which he called a box. This box he wanted to
take with him in the boat, but as the men had orders to take off and
leave behind them all superfluous clothing, and as it was the merest
chance whether even then the boat would not be swamped, it was quite
evident that the box must be left behind. The man entreated and
stormed, and offered a reward of five hundred pounds to any one who
would take his box ashore. But life is sweeter than five hundred
pounds, and the box had to be left behind. The man raved like a maniac
about the loss, but an hour or two after reaching shore he
disappeared, and neither Morrell nor Momsen either saw or heard
anything of him from that day forward.
After the examination was over, Morrell, as being the more intelligent
of the two men, was asked whether he thought it possible that if he
were to see the passenger of the Albatross he could recognise him
again.
After so long a time it seemed very doubtful to him whether he could
do so, he said, but he would be happy to try.
Accordingly, next day, while Van Duren was dining at his usual tavern,
Morrell was instructed to walk into the room and call for some dinner,
and see whether he could pick his man out of the assembled company.
About an hour later he rejoined Byrne in a private room of another
tavern close at hand.
"I picked him out in a moment, sir," said the ex-mate. "Yes, the very
moment I set eyes on him I knew him again. He's stouter and older
looking, of course, and he's close-shaved now, and wears no earrings;
but, for all that, he's the same man."
"I think you told me the other day," said Byrne, "that you had nothing
very particular to do just now?"
"Yes, sir, I did. I only got back from China a few weeks since, and,
as I am getting on in life, it's just a toss up with me whether I
shall go to sea again or settle down ashore for the rest of my days."
"Then you will have no objection to enter my service for a little
while?"
"None whatever, sir."
"On Wednesday morning next I shall want you to go down from Euston
Station to Marhyddoc, and there make certain inquiries for me."
"Nothing could please me better, sir. I've had plenty of travelling by
water: a little travelling by land will make a pleasant change."
"Then meet me here on Tuesday evening at seven, and I will give you
your instructions."
Before proceeding further, Byrne thought that he had better put
Ambrose Murray in possession of what he had done since their last
meeting, and seek his sanction to the steps he proposed taking next.
Byrne accordingly sought Murray out at his lodgings, and the two men
had a long consultation. Gerald, unfortunately, was at Stammars just
then, and could not be present.
"Everything now hinges upon the result of Morrell's inquiries at
Marhyddoc," said Byrne. "Should the report he will bring back with him
prove a favourable one, then we may consider ourselves fortunate
indeed--then we may take it that the best or worst will soon be known
to us. But should the result of his inquiries prove unfavourable to
our hopes, then all that we have done--all my toiling and scheming,
all the expense you have been put to--will have been next to useless.
Van Duren's guilt as the murderer of Paul Stilling may have been
morally proved to the satisfaction of you and me and one or two
others, but that would be of no avail whatever in proving your
innocence and in bringing home the crime to him. Unless we can wrest
from the sea the terrible secret which it has hidden so carefully all
these years, the guilt of Van Duren will remain unproved for ever.
Beyond the point now reached by us it is impossible to advance a
single step till we shall have made that secret our own."
"The sea has only been keeping its secret all these years that it
might yield it up when the time should be ripe for me to ask for it.
That time has now come. I ask for it, and I shall have it. Have no
fear, my good friend, no fear whatever. Guided by an unseen hand, we
have threaded a labyrinth from which at first there seemed no possible
outlet; and now that we have reached the gate, and are bidden to look
for the key, can you doubt that it is there for the searching--can you
doubt that we shall find it?"
"Cracked, to a certainty," muttered Byrne to himself, as he left the
house. "And no wonder either, poor fellow, when one remembers all that
he has had to go through."
Morrell went down to Wales in due course, and in due course he
returned. His report to Byrne was of such a nature that the latter
could not conceal his exultation. "We shall have him yet!" he
exclaimed, much to the ex-mate's astonishment. "He has escaped for
twenty long years, but the hangman's fingers shall unbutton his collar
before he is six months older."
Then he went and saw Murray again, and it was arranged that they two,
together with Gerald, if possible, should go down to Marhyddoc as soon
as certain necessary preparations which would have to be made in
London should be completed. Morrell, too, was to form one of the
party.
When Byrne and Miriam got back to their rooms in Spur Alley, Van Duren
could not conceal his exultation at seeing them under his roof again.
His time of probation would soon be at an end now: Miriam would soon
have to make up her mind to the utterance of a definite "Yes," or
"No." Now that she had come back, she seemed more kind and gracious to
him than before, from which fact he did not fail to draw an augury
that was favourable to his own wishes.
Ambrose Murray had his little portmanteau packed ready for the journey
to Wales several days before the other preparations could possibly be
completed. Miss Bellamy had never seen him so elated before. He went
about the house singing to himself in an under-tone, or whistling
snatches of old tunes that had been popular when he was a boy. That
cloud of quiet melancholy, which would sometimes oppress him for days
together, without a break in its dulness, had all but vanished,
leaving but a shadow of its former self behind. Miss Bellamy had asked
him several times to go and have his portrait taken, but up to the
present he had always declined to do so. One fine day, however, after
the journey to Wales had been decided on, he astonished her by telling
her that if she would go and be photographed he would follow her
example.
"First of all, Maria, you shall be photographed by yourself," he said,
"and then I'll be photographed by myself; and after that, what do you
say to our being photographed together, eh? Such old friends as you
and I are ought to be photographed together. But, above all things,
Maria, don't forget to be taken with your locket."
This latter remark was a sly hit at the large, old-fashioned locket
which Miss Bellamy wore round her neck on high days and holidays--at
such times, in fact, as she wore her silver grey dress and her company
cap, but at no other. Ambrose Murray could remember Miss Bellamy
wearing this locket when she was a girl of nineteen, and she wore it
still. He often joked her about it, and would offer to wager anything
that if she would only let him have a peep inside it he should find
there the portrait of a certain handsome cornet of dragoons, with
whom, according to his account, she had at one time a desperate
flirtation. But he never had seen inside the locket, and Miss Bellamy
was quite sure that he never would do so with her consent; for within
that old-fashioned piece of jewellery was shut up the cherished secret
of Miss Bellamy's life. Ambrose Murray's laughing assertion that in it
was hidden the portrait of a man was so far true, but the likeness was
not that of any young cornet of dragoons, but that of Ambrose Murray
himself--of Ambrose Murray at two-and-twenty, with brown hair, and
laughing eyes, and no care in the world beyond that of making up his
mind which one out of a bevy of pretty girls he was most in love with.
He fell in love, not with Miss Bellamy, but with her friend, and Miss
Bellamy's secret remained buried for ever in her own heart. With the
portrait were shut up two locks of hair: one lock was of a light
golden brown colour, the other was white.
"There is room for another portrait," said Miss Bellamy to herself,
with a sigh, when Ambrose Murray proposed going to the photographer's,
"and then it will be full." She had left orders in her will that the
locket should be buried with her. How her heart fluttered, how the
unwonted colour rushed to her face, when Ambrose proposed that they
should be photographed together! Years had no power to weaken or alter
her love, but she would have died rather than let Murray suspect for a
moment the existence of any such feeling on her part. He knew it not,
but it was a fact that, with the exception of a few trifling legacies,
all her little property was bequeathed to him, or, in event of his
prior demise, to Eleanor. In her secret heart she could not help
dreading a little the coming of that time when father and daughter
should learn to know and love each other. She must then, of necessity,
fall into the background; she must then, of necessity, sink into
little more than a mere cypher in the sum of Ambrose Murray's
existence. Had Eleanor been a daughter of her own she could hardly
have loved her better, and she told herself, times without number,
that to see the girl and her father happy in each other's love ought
to be sufficient reward for any one who thought of others more than
herself. And ought she not to study the happiness of these two, both
of whom were so dear to her, rather than her own selfish feelings?
However sharp the pang might be, whatever the cost to herself might
be, she would so study it--she would do her best to bring them
together.
That time when Ambrose Murray was, as it were, living under the same
roof with her, was a very happy time for Miss Bellamy. Murray himself
did not seem to know, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that
he never thought how greatly he was indebted to her. Beyond a flying
visit now and then from Gerald, he had no society save that of Miss
Bellamy, and of the children of the two houses in which he and she had
apartments. He almost invariably took tea and supper with Miss
Bellamy, and spent his evenings with her, and made, besides, almost as
free a use of her sitting-room as of his own. He looked upon her, in
fact, as he would have looked upon a sister to whom he was much
attached, and that she regarded him in the light of a brother he was
fully convinced.
An agreement had long ago been come to between Gerald and Miss Bellamy
by which it was arranged that Ambrose Murray should be relieved from
all pecuniary cares and liabilities. No one ever presented him with a
bill for the rent of his apartments. The servant would ask him what he
would have for breakfast or dinner, and whatever he might order was
there for him ready to the minute, but no butcher or baker ever vexed
his soul with unpaid accounts. Now and then he would find a sovereign
in some odd place or other--in his razor-case, inside one of his
gloves, or in the folds of his Sunday cravat. He would pick up the
coin, look at it curiously for a moment or two, wondering how he could
possibly have been so absent-minded as to leave money there, and then
put it quietly into his pocket and think no more about it.
A brief telegram from Byrne reached Ambrose Murray one afternoon:--
"Preparations completed. Shall be ready to start from Euston Square at
nine o'clock on Saturday morning. Shall expect to find you on
platform, unless I hear from you in course of to-day."
He was so fluttered by the receipt of this telegram that he could not
eat any dinner. He at once sat down and wrote a note to Gerald,
enclosing the telegram, and begging of him, if he could possibly do
so, to join him in Wales early in the ensuing week. Then he said to
himself, "I must write to Mary before I go. I feel sure that she is
expecting a letter from me. But first the boat must be finished."
In a back room he had fixed up a lathe, and a small joiner's bench, at
which he occasionally amused himself. There were various kinds of
useless knick-knacks that he could manufacture with some degree of
skill, and the toys of half the children in the neighbourhood were
mended at his bench. As soon as he had sent off his letter to Gerald,
he shut himself up in his little workshop, and set to work busily to
finish a little toy boat, which was half done already. It was a very
small affair--a child's boat, in fact, cut out of a block of wood, and
not more than a couple of feet in length. He worked at it till late
that evening, and by noon next day it was finished to his
satisfaction. Then he slept for an hour, and then he sat down to write
his letter. This is what he wrote:--
"My Darling Mary,
"I had a very strange dream the other night. I dreamt that I had
written you a letter, and that when I had sealed it up I put it in a
little boat, and let the boat and the letter float down the river with
the tide. And in my dream I seemed to watch the boat till it got far
out to sea, beyond the sight of any land. Then all at once the clouds
gathered, till the black edges of one of them seemed to touch the sea,
and then from cloud and sea together there was formed a huge
waterspout, that presently drew to itself and sucked up my boat and
letter. And when they vanished, the waterspout vanished also, and
presently the clouds broke away, and in the heavens one splendid star
was shining, which seemed to me as a token that you had received my
letter.
"My darling, I have translated this dream as a message from you,
telling me what I ought to do. Very often of late your face has
appeared to me in my dreams; but when I have tried to speak to you, an
invisible finger seemed to be laid on my lips, and my heart could only
yearn dumbly towards you. But now you have shown me a way by means of
which a message may reach you--for from you alone that dream could
come. The boat is ready, and the midnight tide will take it down to
the sea, and then at dawn of day the waterspout will come and lift my
letter up into the clouds; but of what will follow after I know
nothing.
"My darling, day by day the time of our separation grows shorter; soon
shall we see each other again, and all these long years of waiting and
trouble will seem but as a dim vision of the night, fading and
vanishing utterly in the bright dawn of an everlasting day. The
purpose that has held me and chained me to this life for so, long a
time is now near its fulfilment, and after that I feel and know that I
shall not be long before I join you. Soon the time will be here when I
can tell everything to our child--our child, Mary! whom I have never
seen since she lay an infant in your arms. Very precious will her love
be to me, but not so precious as yours. I shall stay with her a little
while, I shall tell her all about the mother whom she cannot remember,
and then I shall go to you.
"To-morrow night, darling, you will come to me in my sleep, will you
not? Then, when I see you, I shall take it as a token that you have
had my letter.
"Soon I will write to you again--when the sea shall have given up the
secret which it has hidden so carefully for twenty years. Till then,
adieu.
"Your husband,
"Ambrose Murray."
This singular document Mr. Murray sealed up carefully, and then
addressed it, "To my Wife in Heaven." Then leaving a message for Miss
Bellamy, who happened to be out shopping, that he was going out for
the evening, he took a hansom to London Bridge and started by the next
train for Gravesend, taking the boat and letter with him. He had still
some hours to wait; but at midnight, having made a previous
arrangement with a boatman, he put off from the pier stairs, and was
pulled slowly out to the middle of the black and silent river. A few
stars could be seen overhead; now and then the moon shone down through
a rift in the clouds. The whole scene was weird and ghostly. The tide
was running down rapidly. A cold wind blew faintly across the river,
as though it were the last chill breath of the dying day. They halted
in mid-stream just as the clocks on shore began to strike twelve. Then
Murray took his toy-boat out of its brown paper covering, and having
firmly fixed his letter in it by means of a strip of wood intended for
that purpose, he leaned over the side and placed it gently on the
surface of the stream. On this point, at any rate, poor Murray was
still insane.
"What are you after, master?" cried the boatman, whose suspicions were
beginning to be aroused.
"I am sending a letter to my wife," answered Murray, as he lifted his
hat for a moment. "See how swiftly it starts on its journey. And now I
can see it no longer. But no harm will happen to it. How pleased my
darling will be when she reads it!"
The boatman said no more, but thinking that he had got a crazy person
to deal with, whose next act might be to jump into the river himself,
he made all possible haste back to shore.
It happened, singularly enough, that on the Wednesday previous to the
Saturday fixed on by Peter Byrne for the journey to Wales, Mr. Van
Duren entered his room and announced to him and Miriam that he had
been called suddenly from home on business of great importance. Byrne,
as yet, had given no hint of any intention on his part to go out of
town, and he now determined to say nothing about it till after Van
Duren's departure.
"How long do you expect to be away, Mr. Van Duren?" asked Miriam, as
she glanced at him out of her big black eyes.
"Four or five days, at the least, I am afraid," he said. "It is a
source of great annoyance to me to be called away at this time, but
unfortunately there is no way of avoiding it. You may depend upon my
getting back as quickly as possible," he added, significantly.
"The house will seem very lonely and dull without you."
"I am afraid you flatter me," he replied, slowly. Then he suddenly
drew his chair up to her side and took her hand in his. "Miriam," he
said, "do you know that the time you asked for in order that you might
be able to make up your mind is nearly at an end?"
"Yes, I suppose it is," said Miriam, in little more than a whisper.
"As soon as I return from the continent, I shall expect you to give me
an answer."
She did not speak.
"If I only knew what the answer would be!"
She smiled, and gave him another glance out of her black eyes.
The colour mounted to his forehead.
"You won't keep me in suspense much longer?" he said. "You will let me
know my fate, won't you, as soon as I come back?"
For the first time she bent her eyes on him fully and steadily. "Yes,
Mr. Van Duren," she said, "you shall know your fate when you get back
from the Continent."
Before she knew what he was about to do, he had seized her hand and
pressed it passionately to his lips. She shuddered from head to foot
as she withdrew it from his grasp. Bakewell knocked and entered. "Your
hansom is at the door, sir, and you have only just time to catch the
train."
Van Duren arose and made his adieux. "Your father still seems very
weak and feeble," he said, in a low voice, to Miriam, as he stood for
a moment at the door. "I am afraid that the warm weather has not done
much to benefit him."
"Will anything in this world ever do much to benefit him," she
answered. Then there was a last shake of the hand, and then she
watched him go downstairs. As soon as she heard the front door clash
she ran to the window, and waved him a last adieu as he was driven
away. "Shall I ever see him again, I wonder?" she whispered to herself
"I hope not."
"Farewell, Max Jacoby, otherwise Van Duren!" cried Byrne, as he took
off his wig and flung it across the room. "When next we meet it will
be under very different circumstances."
Pringle, as was usual whenever his master was from home, was left in
special charge of the premises. At such times he slept in the house,
and was waited upon by Bakewell and his wife. As it was necessary to
give some sort of an intimation that they were going out of town,
Byrne, on the Friday morning, sent Miriam downstairs to see Pringle,
and tell him that they had suddenly made up their minds to take a
holiday at the seaside for a week or two. Pringle was most affable
and polite, and desired Miss Byrne to give his respects to her papa,
and say how sincerely he hoped that the sea air might prove of benefit
to him. At the same time, might he be permitted to ask for an address
to which he could send any post letters that might happen to come for
Mr. Byrne after his departure?
As Miriam had not mentioned the place to which they were going, this
seemed only a fair question. However, she had an answer ready. She
wrote down Miss Bellamy's address, to which place Pringle was
requested to send all letters.
That same evening, between eight and nine, Miriam and her father went
out for a little while to make a few final arrangements for their
journey in the morning. They had hardly been gone five minutes when
Pringle happened to find himself on the landing opposite the door of
their sitting-room. On turning the handle the door was found to be
unlocked and the gas only half turned down--signs that the inmates
might be expected back before very long.
Leaving the door wide open, Pringle glided into the room. He was dying
to know to what place Byrne and his daughter were going--in fact, he
did not believe they were going to the seaside at all--and he thought
that he might perhaps find a luggage label, or something else, in the
room, that would reveal to him what he wanted to know.
One or two boxes, ready packed, were there, and on the table lay
several loose labels, but, unfortunately for Pringle's purpose, they
were still blank. Gliding quietly about the room, he next tried the
different drawers and cupboards, hoping that in one or other of them
he might find a clue of some kind to what he was so anxious to know,
but all his searching proved of no avail. Suddenly he heard the street
door open, and he had hardly time to get out of the room and round the
corner of the next landing, before Miriam ran lightly up the stairs to
fetch something that she had forgotten.
Later on in the evening, when Byrne and Miriam had got back home,
Pringle sent Bakewell upstairs to ask at what time next morning they
would like to have a cab in readiness.
"How long will it take to drive to Euston Square?" asked Miriam.
"A good half-hour, miss. Three-quarters, if you happen to meet with a
block."
"At that rate an hour would be ample time. Will you kindly arrange to
have a cab in readiness by nine o'clock?"
At five minutes past nine next morning, Mr. Byrne and his daughter,
together with sundry boxes of luggage, drove away from Spur Alley in a
four-wheeler for Euston Square. Three minutes later Pringle was
following on their heels in a hansom. He had timed himself to arrive
at the station within two minutes of those whom he was following. He
alighted, and began to reconnoitre cautiously. It would not do to be
seen by either father or daughter. Peeping round a corner of the
entrance doors into the large hall, he there saw Miriam standing by
the luggage, Byrne having in all probability gone to secure tickets.
Pringle beckoned to a porter. "I'm from Scotland Yard," he whispered.
"I want you to find out, without its being noticed, for what place
those boxes are directed by which yonder young lady is standing."
"All right, sir--that's easily done," said the porter.
Three minutes later he came back to Pringle. "The boxes are labelled
for Marhyddoc, in North Wales," he said. Pringle put down the name of
the place in his note-book, gave the man a shilling, and took the next
omnibus back to the City.
But he did not leave the station till he caught a glimpse of Byrne as
he stood at the refreshment counter waiting for his travelling flask
to be filled. But the Peter Byrne whom he now saw was a very different
person from the decrepit, deaf old invalid of Spur Alley, The long
white locks, the black velvet skull-cap, the hump on the left
shoulder, and the feeble walk, had all disappeared in the cab, as if
by magic, leaving behind them a brisk, pleasant-looking gentleman of
middle age, who was speaking with the young person that was waiting
upon him, and who seemed to have no difficulty whatever in hearing her
replies.
"I thought as much," said Pringle, with a knowing shake of the head.
"It's no more than I expected. I've known all along that the old boy
and his daughter were up to some private little game of their own.
Well, so long as it means no good to Van Duren and no harm to me, I'm
not the man to spoil their sport. But what will Van Duren say when he
gets back home and finds his birds flown? It don't matter: I hope to
have flown too by that time."
END OF VOL. II.
______________________________________________
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.