THE MEETING.
Near the appointed hour, he walked across the park, and through the
Horse Guards, and in a few minutes more was between the tall
old-fashioned houses of the street in which Mr. Levi's office is to be
found. He passes by a dingy hired coach, with a tarnished crest on the
door, and sees two Jewish-looking men inside, both smiling over some sly
joke. Whose door are they waiting at? He supposes another Jewish office
seeks the shade of that pensive street.
Mr. Levi opened his office door for his handsome client. They were quite
to themselves. Mr. Levi did not look well. He received him with a nod.
He shut the door when Sir Richard was in the room.
"He'sh not come yet. We'll talk to him inshide." He indicates the door
of the inner room, with a little side jerk of his head. "That'sh
private. He hazh that--_thing_ all right."
Sir Richard says nothing. He follows Levi into a small inner room, which
had, perhaps, originally been a lady's boudoir, and had afterwards, one
might have conjectured, served as the treasury of cash and jewels of a
pawn-office; for its door was secured with iron bars, and two great
locks, and the windows were well barred with iron. There were two huge
iron safes in the room, built into the wall.
"I'll show you a beauty of a dresshing-ca-ashe," said Levi, rousing
himself; "I'll shell it a dead bargain, and give time for half, if you
knowsh any young shwell as wantsh such a harticle. Look here; it was
made for the Duchess of Horleans--all in gold, hemerald, and
brilliantsh."
And thus haranguing, he displayed its contents, and turned them over,
staring on them with a livid admiration. Sir Richard is not thinking of
the duchess's dressing-case, nor is he much more interested when Mr.
Levi goes on to tell him, "There'sh three executions against peersh out
thish week--two gone down to the country. Sholomonsh nobbled Lord
Bylkington's carriage outshide Shyner's at two o'clock in the morning,
and his lordship had to walk home in the rain;" and Levi laughs and
wriggles pleasantly over the picture. "I think he'sh coming," says Levi
suddenly, inclining his ear toward the door. He looked back over his
shoulder with an odd look, a little stern, at the young gentleman.
"Who?" asked the young man, a little uncertain, in consequence of the
character of that look.
"Your--that--your friend, of course," said Levi, with his eyes again
averted, and his ear near the door.
It was a moment of trepidation and of hope to Richard Arden. He hears
the steps of several persons in the next room. Levi opens a little bit
of the door, and peeps through, and with a quick glance towards the
baronet, he whispers, "Ay, it's him."
Oh, blessed hope! here comes, at last, a powerful friend to take him by
the hand, and draw him, in his last struggle, from the whirlpool.
Sir Richard glances towards the door through which the Jew is still
looking, and signing with his hand as, little by little, he opens it
wider and wider; and a voice in the next room, at sound of which Sir
Richard starts to his feet, says sharply, "Is all right?"
"All _right_," replies Levi, getting aside; and Mr. Longcluse entered
the room and shut the door.
His pale face looked paler than usual, his thin cruel lips were closed,
his nostrils dilated with a terrible triumph, and his eyes were fixed
upon Arden, as he held the fatal parchment in his hand.
Levi saw a scowl so dreadful contract Sir Richard Arden's face--was it
pain, or was it fury?--that, drawing back as far as the wall would let
him, he almost screamed, "It ain't me!--it ain't my fault!--I can't help
it!--I couldn't!--I can't!" His right hand was in his pocket, and his
left, trembling violently, extended toward him, as if to catch his arm.
But Richard Arden was not thinking of him--did not hear him. He was
overpowered. He sat down in his chair. He leaned back with a gasp and a
faint laugh, like a man just overtaken by a wave, and lifted
half-drowned from the sea. Then, with a sudden cry, he threw his hands
and head on the table.
There was no token of relenting in Longcluse's cruel face. There was a
contemptuous pleasure in it. He did not remove his eyes from that
spectacle of abasement as he replaced the parchment in his pocket. There
is a silence of about a minute, and Sir Richard sits up and says
vaguely,--
"Thank God, it's over! Take me away; I'm ready to go."
"You shall go, time enough; I have a word to say first," said Longcluse,
and he signs to the Jew to leave them.
On being left to themselves, the first idea that struck Sir Richard was
the wild one of escape. He glanced quickly at the window. It was barred
with iron. There were men in the next room--he could not tell how
many--and he was without arms. The hope lighted up, and almost at the
same moment expired.