‘I respect her lawyer! I admire her lawyer!’ exclaimed Mr Bashwood. ‘I should like to take his hand, and tell him so.’
‘He wouldn’t thank you, if you did,’ remarked Bashwood the younger.
‘He is under a comfortable impression that nobody knows how he saved Mrs Waldron’s legacy for her but himself.’
‘I beg your pardon, Jemmy,’ interposed his father. ‘But don’t call her Mrs Waldron. Speak of her, please, by her name when she was innocent and young, and a girl at school. Would you mind, for my sake, calling her Miss Gwilt?’
‘Not I! It makes no difference to me what name I give her. Bother your sentiment! let’s get on with the facts. This is what the lawyer did before the second trial came off. He told her she would be found guilty again, to a dead certainty. “And this time,” he said, “the public will let the law take its course. Have you got an old friend whom you can trust?” She hadn’t such a thing as an old friend in the world. “Very well, then,” says the lawyer, “you must trust me. Sign this paper; and you will have executed a fictitious sale of all your property to myself. When the right time comes, I shall first carefully settle with your husband’s executors; and I shall then re-convey the money to you, securing it properly (in case you ever marry again) in your own possession. The Crown, in other transactions of this kind, frequently waives its right of disputing the validity of the sale – and if the Crown is no harder on you than on other people, when you come out of prison you will have your five thousand pounds to begin the world with again.” – Neat of the lawyer, when she was going to be tried for robbing the executors, to put her up to a way of robbing the Crown, wasn’t it? Ha! ha! what a world it is!’
The last effort of the son’s sarcasm passed unheeded by the father. ‘In prison!’ he said to himself. ‘Oh me, after all that misery, in prison again!’
‘Yes,’ said Bashwood the younger, rising and stretching himself, ‘that’s how it ended. The verdict was Guilty; and the sentence was imprisonment for two years. She served her time; and came out, as well as I can reckon it, about three years since. If you want to know what she did when she recovered her liberty, and how she went on afterwards, I may be able to tell you something about it – say, on another occasion, when you have got an extra note or two in your pocket-book. For the present, all you need know, you do know. There isn’t the shadow of a doubt that this fascinating lady has the double slur on her, of having been found guilty of murder, and of having served her term of imprisonment for theft. There’s your moneysworth for your money – with the whole of my wonderful knack at stating a case clearly, thrown in for nothing. If you have any gratitude in you, you ought to do something handsome, one of these days, for your son. But for me, I’ll tell you what you would have done, old gentleman. If you could have had your own way, you would have married Miss Gwilt.’
Mr Bashwood rose to his feet; and looked his son steadily in the face.
‘If I could have my own way,’ he said, ‘I would marry her now.’
Bashwood the younger started back a step. ‘After all I have told you?’ he asked, in the blankest astonishment.
‘After all you have told me.’
‘With the chance of being poisoned, the first time you happened to offend her?’
‘With the chance of being poisoned,’ answered Mr Bashwood, ‘in four-and-twenty hours.’
The Spy of the Private Inquiry Office dropped back into his chair, cowed by his father’s words and his father’s looks.
‘Mad!’ he said to himself. ‘Stark mad, by jingo!’
Mr Bashwood looked at his watch, and hurriedly took his hat from a side-table.
‘I should like to hear the rest of it,’ he said. ‘I should like to hear every word you have to tell me about her, to the very last. But the time, the dreadful, galloping time, is getting on. For all I know, they may be on their way to be married at this very moment.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Bashwood the younger, getting between his father and the door.
‘I am going to the hotel,’ said the old man, trying to pass him. ‘I am going to see Mr Armadale.’
‘What for?’
‘To tell him everything you have told me.’ He paused after making that reply. The terrible smile of triumph which had once already appeared on his face, overspread it again. ‘Mr Armadale is young; Mr Armadale has all his life before him,’ he whispered cunningly, with his trembling fingers clutching his son’s arm. ‘What doesn’t frighten me will frighten him!’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Bashwood the younger. ‘Are you as certain as ever that Mr Armadale is the man?’
‘What man?’
‘The man who is going to marry her.’
‘Yes! yes! yes! Let me go, Jemmy – let me go.’
The Spy set his back against the door, and considered for a moment. Mr Armadale was rich. Mr Armadale (if he was not stark mad, too) might be made to put the right money-value on information that saved him from the disgrace of marrying Miss Gwilt. ‘It may be a hundred pounds in my pocket, if I work it myself,’ thought Bashwood the younger. ‘And it won’t be a halfpenny if I leave it to my father.’ He took up his hat, and his leather bag. ‘Can you carry it all in your own addled old head, daddy?’ he asked, with his easiest impudence of manner. ‘Not you! I’ll go with you, and help you. What do you think of that?’
The father threw his arms in an ecstasy round the son’s neck. ‘I can’t help it, Jemmy,’ he said, in broken tones. ‘You are so good to me. Take the other note, my dear – I’ll manage without it – take the other note.’
The son threw open the door with a flourish; and magnanimously turned his back on the father’s offered pocket-book. ‘Hang it, old gentleman, I’m not quite so mercenary as that!’ he said, with an appearance of the deepest feeling. ‘Put up your pocket-book, and let’s be off. – If I took my respected parent’s last five-pound note,’ he thought to himself, as he led the way downstairs, ‘how do I know he mightn’t cry halves when he sees the colour of Mr Armadale’s money? – Come along, dad!’ he resumed. ‘We’ll take a cab and catch the happy bridegroom before he starts for the church!’
They hailed a cab in the street, and started for the hotel which had been the residence of Midwinter and Allan during their stay in London. The instant the door of the vehicle had closed, Mr Bashwood returned to the subject of Miss Gwilt.
‘Tell me the rest,’ he said, taking his son’s hand, and patting it tenderly. ‘Let’s go on talking about her all the way to the hotel. Help me through the time, Jemmy – help me through the time.’
Bashwood the younger was in high spirits at the prospect of seeing the colour of Mr Armadale’s money. He trifled with his father’s anxiety to the very last.
‘Let’s see if you remember what I’ve told you already,’ he began. ‘There’s a character in the story that’s dropped out of it without being accounted for. Come! can you tell me who it is?’
He had reckoned on finding his father unable to answer the question. But Mr Bashwood’s memory, for anything that related to Miss Gwilt, was as clear and ready as his son’s. ‘The foreign scoundrel who tempted her, and let her screen him at the risk of her own life,’ he said, without an instant’s hesitation. ‘Don’t speak of him, Jemmy, don’t speak of him again!’
‘I must speak of him,’ retorted the other. ‘You want to know what became of Miss Gwilt, when she got out of prison, don’t you? Very good – I’m in a position to tell you. She became Mrs Manuel. It’s no use staring at me, old gentleman. I know it officially. At the latter part of last year, a foreign lady came to our place, with evidence to prove that she had been lawfully married to Captain Manuel, at a former period of his career, when he had visited England for the first time. She had only lately discovered that he had been in this country again; and she had reason to believe that he had married another woman in Scotland. Our people were employed to make the necessary inquiries. Comparison of dates showed that the Scotch marriage8 – if it was a marri
age at all, and not a sham – had taken place just about the time when Miss Gwilt was a free woman again. And a little further investigation showed us that the second Mrs Manuel was no other than the heroine of the famous criminal trial – whom we didn’t know then, but whom we do know now, to be identical with your fascinating friend, Miss Gwilt.’
Mr Bashwood’s head sank on his breast. He clasped his trembling hands fast in each other, and waited in silence to hear the rest.
‘Cheer up!’ pursued his son. ‘She was no more the captain’s wife than you are – and what is more, the captain himself is out of your way now. One foggy day in December last, he gave us the slip, and was off to the Continent, nobody knew where. He had spent the whole of the second Mrs Manuel’s five thousand pounds, in the time that had elapsed (between two and three years) since she had come out of prison – and the wonder was, where he had got the money to pay his travelling expenses. It turned out that he had got it from the second Mrs Manuel herself. She had filled his empty pockets; and there she was, waiting confidently in a miserable London lodging, to hear from him and join him as soon as he was safely settled in foreign parts! Where had she got the money, you may ask naturally enough? Nobody could tell at the time. My own notion is, now, that her former mistress must have been still living, and that she must have turned her knowledge of the Blanchards’ family secret to profitable account at last. This is mere guess-work of course; but there’s a circumstance that makes it likely guess-work, to my mind. She had an elderly female friend to apply to at the time, who was just the woman to help her in ferreting out her mistress’s address. Can you guess the name of the elderly female friend? Not you! Mrs Oldershaw of course!’
Mr Bashwood suddenly looked up. ‘Why should she go back,’ he asked, ‘to the woman who had deserted her when she was a child?’
‘I can’t say,’ rejoined his son, ‘unless she went back in the interests of her own magnificent head of hair. The prison-scissors, I needn’t tell you, had made short work of it with Miss Gwilt’s love-locks, in every sense of the word – and Mrs Oldershaw, I beg to add, is the most eminent woman in England, as Restorer-General of the dilapidated heads and faces of the female sex. Put two and two together; and perhaps you’ll agree with me, in this case, that they make four.’
‘Yes, yes; two and two make four,’ repeated his father, impatiently. ‘But I want to know something else. Did she hear from him again? Did he send for her after he had gone away to foreign parts?’
‘The captain? Why, what on earth can you be thinking of? Hadn’t he spent every farthing of her money? and wasn’t he loose on the Continent out of her reach? She waited to hear from him, I daresay, for she persisted in believing in him. But I’ll lay you any wager you like, she never saw the sight of his handwriting again. We did our best at the office to open her eyes – we told her plainly that he had a first wife living, and that she hadn’t the shadow of a claim on him. She wouldn’t believe us, though we met her with the evidence. Obstinate, devilish obstinate. I daresay she waited for months together before she gave up the last hope of ever seeing him again.’
Mr Bashwood looked aside quickly out of the cab window. ‘Where could she turn for refuge next?’ he said, not to his son, but to himself. ‘What, in heaven’s name, could she do?’
‘Judging by my experience of women,’ remarked Bashwood the younger, overhearing him, ‘I should say she probably tried to drown herself. But that’s only guess-work again – it’s all guess-work at this part of her story. You catch me at the end of my evidence, dad, when you come to Miss Gwilt’s proceedings in the spring and summer of the present year. She might, or she might not, have been desperate enough to attempt suicide; and she might, or she might not, have been at the bottom of those inquiries that I made for Mrs Oldershaw. I daresay you’ll see her this morning, and perhaps, if you use your influence, you may be able to make her finish her own story herself.’
Mr Bashwood, still looking out of the cab window, suddenly laid his hand on his son’s arm.
‘Hush! hush!’ he exclaimed, in violent agitation. ‘We have got there at last. Oh, Jemmy, feel how my heart beats! Here is the hotel.’
‘Bother your heart,’ said Bashwood the younger. ‘Wait here while I make the inquiries.’
‘I’ll come with you!’ cried his father. ‘I can’t wait! I tell you, I can’t wait!’
They went into the hotel together, and asked for ‘Mr Armadale’.
The answer, after some little hesitation and delay, was that Mr Armadale had gone away six days since. A second waiter added, that Mr Armadale’s friend – Mr Midwinter – had only left that morning.
Where had Mr Armadale gone? Somewhere into the country. Where had Mr Midwinter gone? Nobody knew.
Mr Bashwood looked at his son in speechless and helpless dismay.
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Bashwood the younger, pushing his father back roughly into the cab. ‘He’s safe enough. We shall find him at Miss Gwilt’s.’
The old man took his son’s hand and kissed it. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, gratefully. ‘Thank you for comforting me.’
The cab was driven next to the second lodging which Miss Gwilt had occupied, in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.
‘Stop here,’ said the Spy, getting out, and shutting his father into the cab. ‘I mean to manage this part of the business myself.’
He knocked at the house door. ‘I have got a note for Miss Gwilt,’ he said, walking into the passage, the moment the door was opened.
‘She’s gone,’ answered the servant. ‘She went away last night.’
Bashwood the younger wasted no more words with the servant. He insisted on seeing the mistress. The mistress confirmed the announcement of Miss Gwilt’s departure on the previous evening. Where had she gone to? The woman couldn’t say. How had she left? On foot. At what hour? Between nine and ten. What had she done with her luggage? She had no luggage. Had a gentleman been to see her on the previous day? Not a soul, gentle or simple, had come to the house to see Miss Gwilt.
The father’s face, pale and wild, was looking out of the cab window, as the son descended the house-steps. ‘Isn’t she there, Jemmy?’ he asked faintly – ‘Isn’t she there?’
‘Hold your tongue,’ cried the Spy, with the native coarseness of his nature rising to the surface at last. ‘I’m not at the end of my inquiries yet.’
He crossed the road, and entered a coffee-shop situated exactly opposite the house he had just left.
In the box nearest the window two men were sitting talking together anxiously.
‘Which of you was on duty yesterday evening, between nine and ten o’clock?’ asked Bashwood the younger, suddenly joining them, and putting his question in a quick peremptory whisper.
‘I was, sir,’ said one of the men, unwillingly.
‘Did you lose sight of the house? – Yes! I see you did.’
‘Only for a minute, sir. An infernal blackguard of a soldier came in—’
‘That will do,’ said Bashwood the younger. ‘I know what the soldier did, and who sent him to do it. She has given us the slip again. You are the greatest Ass living. Consider yourself dismissed.’ With those words, and with an oath to emphasize them, he left the coffee-shop and returned to the cab.
‘She’s gone!’ cried his father. ‘Oh, Jemmy, Jemmy, I see it in your face!’ He fell back into his own corner of the cab, with a faint wailing cry. ‘They’re married,’ he moaned to himself; his hands falling helplessly on his knees; his hat falling unregarded from his head. ‘Stop them!’ he exclaimed, suddenly rousing himself, and seizing his son in a frenzy by the collar of the coat.
‘Go back to the hotel,’ shouted Bashwood the younger, to the cabman. ‘Hold your noise!’ he added, turning fiercely on his father. ‘I want to think.’
The varnish of smoothness was all off him by this time. His temper was roused. His pride – even such a man has his pride! – was wounded to the quick. Twice had he matched his wits against a wom
an’s; and twice the woman had baffled him.
He got out, on reaching the hotel for the second time; and privately tried the servants with the offer of money. The result of the experiment satisfied him that they had, in this instance, really and truly, no information to sell. After a moment’s reflection, he stopped, before leaving the hotel, to ask the way to the parish church. ‘The chance may be worth trying,’ he thought to himself, as he gave the address to the driver. ‘Faster!’ he called out, looking first at his watch, and then at his father. ‘The minutes are precious this morning; and the old one is beginning to give in.’
It was true. Still capable of hearing and of understanding, Mr Bashwood was past speaking by this time. He clung with both hands to his son’s grudging arm, and let his head fall helplessly on his son’s averted shoulder.
The parish church stood back from the street, protected by gates and railings, and surrounded by a space of open ground. Shaking off his father’s hold, Bashwood the younger made straight for the vestry. The clerk, putting away the books, and the clerk’s assistant, hanging up a surplice, were the only persons in the room when he entered it, and asked leave to look at the marriage Register for the day.