WHAT DOES HE WANT?
"Mr. George Shenstone?" queries Captain Ryecroft, reading from the card.
"George Shenstone!" he repeats, with a look of blank astonishment--"What
the deuce does it mean?"
"Does what mean?" asks the Major, catching the other's surprise.
"Why, this gentleman being here. You see that?" He tosses the card
across the table.
"Well, what of it?"
"Read the name!"
"Mr. George Shenstone. Don't know the man. Haven't the most distant idea
who he is. Have you?"
"Oh, yes."
"Old acquaintance; friend, I presume? No enemy, I hope?"
"If it be the son of a Sir George Shenstone, of Herefordshire, I can't
call him either friend or enemy; and as I know nobody else of the name,
I suppose it must be he. If so, what he wants with me is a question I
can no more answer than the man in the moon. I must get the answer from
himself. Can I take the liberty of asking him into your house, Mahon!"
"Certainly, my dear boy! Bring him in here, if you like, and let him
join us--"
"Thanks, Major!" interrupts Ryecroft. "But no; I'd prefer first having a
word with him alone. Instead of drinking, he may want fighting with me."
"Oh, oh!" ejaculates the Major. "Murtagh!" to the servant, an old
soldier of the 18th, "show the gentleman into the drawing-room."
"Mr. Shenstone and I," proceeds Ryecroft in explanation, "have but the
very slightest acquaintance. I've only met him a few times in general
company, the last at a ball--a private one--just three nights ago. 'Twas
that very morning I met the priest I supposed we'd seen up there.
'Twould seem as if everybody on the Wyeside had taken the fancy to
follow me into France."
"Ha--ha--ha! About the _pretre_, no doubt you're mistaken. And maybe
this isn't your man, either. The same name, you're sure?"
"Quite. The Herefordshire baronet's son is George, as his father, to
whose title he is heir. I never heard of his having any other----"
"Stay!" interrupts the Major, again glancing at the card, "here's
something to help identification--an address--_Ormeston Hall_."
"Ah! I didn't observe that." In his agitation he had not, the address
being in small script at the corner. "Ormeston Hall? Yes, I remember,
Sir George's residence is so called. Of course it's the son--must be."
"But why do you think he means fight? Something happened between you,
eh?"
"No, nothing between us, directly."
"Ah! Indirectly, then? Of course the old trouble--a woman."
"Well, if it be fighting the fellow's after, I suppose it must be about
that," slowly rejoins Ryecroft, half in soliloquy and pondering over
what took place on the night of the ball. Now vividly recalling that
scene in the summer-house, with the angry words there spoken, he feels
good as certain George Shenstone has come after him on the part of Miss
Wynn.
The thought of such championship stirs his indignation, and he
exclaims--
"By Heavens! he shall have what he wants. But I mustn't keep him
waiting. Give me that card, Major!"
The Major returns it to him, coolly observing--
"If it is to be a blue pill, instead of a whisky punch, I can
accommodate you with a brace of barkers, good as can be got in Boulogne.
You haven't told me what your quarrel's about; but from what I know of
you, Ryecroft, I take it you're in the right, and you can count on me as
a second. Lucky it's my left wing that's clipped. With the right I can
shoot straight as ever, should there be need for making it a
four-cornered affair."
"Thanks, Mahon! You're just the man I'd have asked such a favour from."
"The gentleman's inside the dhrawin-room, surr."
This from the ex-Royal Irish, who has again presented himself, saluting.
"Don't yield the _Sassenach_ an inch!" counsels the Major, a little of
the old Celtic hostility stirring within him. "If he demands
explanations, hand him over to me. I'll give them to his satisfaction.
So, old fellow, be firm!"
"Never fear!" returns Ryecroft, as he steps out to receive the
unexpected visitor, whose business with him he fully believes to have
reference to Gwendoline Wynn.
And so has it. But not in the sense he anticipates, nor about the scene
on which his thoughts have dwelt. George Shenstone is not there to call
him to account for angry words, or rudeness of behaviour. Something more
serious, since it was the baronet's son who left Llangorren Court in
company with the plain-clothes policeman. The latter is still along with
him, though not inside the house. He is standing upon the street at a
convenient distance, though not with any expectation of being called in,
or required for any further service now, professionally. Holding no
writ, nor the right to serve such if he had it, his action hitherto has
been simply to assist Mr. Shenstone in finding the man suspected of
either abduction or murder. But as neither crime is yet proved to have
been committed, much less brought home to him, the English policeman has
no further errand in Boulogne--while the English gentleman now feels
that his is almost as idle and aimless. The impulse which carried him
thither, though honourable and gallant, was begot in the heat of blind
passion. Gwen Wynn having no brother, he determined to take the place of
one, his father not saying nay. And so resolved, he had set out to seek
the supposed criminal, "interview" him, and then act according to the
circumstances, as they should develop themselves.
In the finding of his man he has experienced no difficulty. Luggage
labelled "LANGHAM HOTEL, LONDON," gave him hot scent, as far as the
grand _caravanserai_ at the bottom of Portland Place. Beyond it was
equally fresh, and lifted with like ease. The traveller's traps
re-directed at the Langham, "PARIS _via_ FOLKESTONE and BOULOGNE"--the
new address there noted by porters and traffic manager--was indication
sufficient to guide George Shenstone across the Channel; and cross it he
did by the next day's packet for Boulogne.
Arrived in the French seaport, he would have gone straight on to Paris
had he been alone. But, accompanied by the policeman, the result was
different. This--an old dog of the detective breed--soon as setting foot
on French soil, went sniffing about among _serjents de ville_ and
_douaniers_, the upshot of his investigations being to bring the chase
to an abrupt termination--he finding that the game had gone no further.
In short, from information received at the Custom House, Captain
Ryecroft was run to earth in the Rue Tintelleries, under the roof of
Major Mahon.
And now that George Shenstone is himself under it, having sent in his
card, and been ushered into the drawing-room, he does not feel at his
ease; instead, greatly embarrassed; not from any personal fear--he has
too much "pluck" for that. It is a sense of delicacy, consequent upon
some dread of wrong-doing. What, after all, if his suspicions prove
groundless, and it turn out that Captain Ryecroft is entirely innocent?
His heart, torn by sorrow, exasperated with anger, starting away from
Herefordshire, he did not thus interrogate. Then he supposed himself in
pursuit of an abductor, who, when overtaken, would be found in the
company of the abducted.
But, meanwhile, both his suspicions and sentiments have undergone a
change. How could they otherwise? He pursued, has been travelling openly
and without any disguise, leaving traces at every turn and deflection of
his route, plain as fingerposts! A man guilty of aught illegal, much
more one who has committed a capital crime, would not be acting thus.
Besides, Captain Ryecroft has been journeying alone, unaccompanied by
man or woman; no one seen with him until meeting his friend, Major
Mahon, on the packet landing at Boulogne.
No wonder that Mr. Shenstone, now _au fait_ to all this--easily
ascertained along the route of travel--feels that his errand is an
awkward one. Embarrassed when ringing Major Mahon's door-bell, he is
still more so inside that room, while awaiting the man to whom his card
has been taken. For he has intruded himself into the house of a
gentleman a perfect stranger to himself, to call his guest to account.
The act is inexcusable, rude almost to grotesqueness!
But there are other circumstances attendant, of themselves unpleasant
enough. The thing he has been tracking up is no timid hare or cowardly
fox; but a man, a soldier, gentleman as himself, who, like a tiger of
the jungles, may turn upon and tear him.
It is no thought of this, no craven fear, which makes him pace Major
Mahon's drawing-room floor so excitedly. His agitation is due to a
different and nobler cause--the sensibility of the gentleman, with the
dread of shame should he find himself mistaken. But he has a consoling
thought. Prompted by honour and affection, he embarked in the affair,
and, still urged by them, he will carry it to the conclusion, _coute que
coute_.