Chapter XIII The Sealed Packet
Mr. Double did not hurry after his client, but gave him a good ten minutes’ start, while he made Samuel search the blue-bag for some imaginary papers, and then, bidding him shoulder his hated burden, went forth, much reassured by the absence of commotion in the Square.
The posse had collected outside the house, and eyed the lawyer and his clerk suspiciously. There was a moment of expectation as they recognized the companions of their quarry, but Double and his satellite were not molested, and at a short distance they separated, and Samuel pursued his westward way alone. He did not go far, but leaving his bag in charge of a friendly law-stationer, scurried back to Lincoln’s Inn, and slipping through the constables, ran up-stairs and knocked timidly at the door of Mr. Perry’s private sanctum.
“What do you want here, fellow?” demanded Perry, opening the door and discovering the little, cringing, shabby figure shrinking into the shadow. “This is not the clerk’s office.”
“Could I—can I—speak a word with the—the lord?” stammered Samuel.
Mr. Perry looked very searchingly at him for a minute or so. Then he relaxed a little and made room for him to pass into the room, which he did, smoothing his flaxen wig over his forehead with his moist palm, and evidently in a desperately uneasy frame of mind.
“Do you want to speak to Me?” demanded Lord Beachcombe, in a haughty voice, that sounded so terrible to the clerk, that he could hardly stammer out, “Y—yes.”
“And what have you to say?” inquired Mr. Perry, in a more encouraging tone. “Speak out, man, don’t be frightened; nobody will hurt you.”
“Ah! but he would, if he knew,” quavered Samuel, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
“You mean Mr. Double? I suppose you want to tell us something he is concealing from us, eh? Well, we will protect you from him,” said Mr. Perry magnanimously.
“’Tis not so much him I’m afraid of as the captain,” whispered Samuel, glancing from side to side, as though he expected to see him lurking somewhere about. Then he approached Lord Beachcombe on tiptoe. “What will you give me if I get you those certificates?”
“Damnation!” cried Beachcombe, starting up, black with fury; “are my private affairs known to every quill-driver in the town?”
Samuel turned livid with terror. “I only know where they are,” he whimpered; “I don’t know anything about them.”
“Well, where are they?” demanded Beachcombe threateningly.
A glint of cunning sparkled in Samuel’s eye. “It wouldn’t be any use for me to tell your lordship where they are. No one can get at them but me, and as I shall be suspected, it’s worth a good deal for the risk I run—if the certificates are any use to your lordship.”
“How do you know what certificates these are, if you say you don’t know anything about them?” interposed Mr. Perry.
“Because I heard the captain tell Mr. Double that he could afford to let Lord Beachcombe have everything else, so long as he kept the two certificates back. So he put them where nobody knows but himself and Double and me. And he’ll have them out if I don’t hurry and get there first.”
“You need not be uneasy about that,” said Beachcombe, with a grin of malicious joy. “Captain Freemantle is on his way to Newgate Prison by now, and if those—papers—find their way into my possession, I think it is safe to say that he will never come out except to make the journey to Tyburn.”
“On his way to Newgate?” cried the little clerk, rubbing his hands with glee. “Then, if we can agree on the price, your lordship can have them in an hour.”
“If you bring them to me—without reading them—in an hour, I will give you ten guineas,” said Lord Beachcombe magnificently.
“Ten guineas!” echoed Samuel, with a falling countenance. “They can not be so very important, after all, if that’s all they’re worth.”
“How much did you expect?” demanded Beachcombe, who hated parting with his money, and was still writhing under the agony of having had to disburse so considerable a sum already over this affair.
“Considering the risk, I think I ought to have a hundred pounds,” pleaded Samuel, trembling at his own audacity.
“A hundred devils!” growled Beachcombe; “do you think I am made of money?”
“It’s well worth it, my Lord,” urged Samuel. “You don’t know the risk I run, even if the captain is in jail. And why wouldn’t he get out? He’s been there before and cheated the hangman; he’s as artful as a fox, and has more friends than you and I know of.”
Beachcombe reflected a while. “Well, bring the documents to my house and you shall have the hundred pounds. But if you ever betray the slightest knowledge of them, it will be worse for you than if the captain, as you call him, escaped from prison and came after you with all his friends.”
“They’re in a sealed packet, my Lord, and if I break the seal you can keep your money,” said Samuel, growing bolder, as a confederacy in dishonor brought the haughty peer nearer to his level. Beachcombe signified his acceptance of the compact and walked over to the window, while Mr. Perry gave Samuel instructions how to make sure of the packet falling into no other than the right hands.
“God’s death!” Beachcombe suddenly exclaimed, in so strange a voice, that the others hurried to the window and looked anxiously out to see what had befallen. The street was perfectly quiet. A couple of barristers, with their gowns tucked up, stood talking and laughing, a street vendor shouted the praises of his wares, a slatternly woman, with a baby in her arms and another clinging to her skirt, lounged under the trees opposite, and the group of constables, still expectant, chewed straws and spat them out in the gutter, with the utter absence of hurry so frequently observed in men whose time is owned and paid for by the government. Nothing else was in sight.
“What are those men waiting for?” roared Beachcombe. “Is that scoundrel hiding in this house? Call them in, Perry, and make them search every corner. By Heaven! if you have let him slip through your fingers—”
“Do you mean the captain?” asked the trembling clerk. “He went out half an hour ago, just before me and Mr. Double.”
“And no one stopped him? He passed through the constables unchallenged? It is collusion; they shall hang for it. Give me my hat, Perry—”
Samuel flew to obey, and after a brief search, emerged from beneath a table with a somewhat weather-beaten beaver, turned up with a silver buckle.
Beachcombe dashed it from his hand. “That is not mine!” he shouted; “that is the one that fellow wore when he came in. He has left it behind and taken mine; he has used it as a disguise, and those idiots have been taken in by it—” He flung out of the room, and the next minute was heard furiously cursing and berating the crestfallen constables, who, taking him for their long-awaited prey, sprang upon him as soon as he appeared, and but for the speedy interference of Mr. Perry, would have handled him roughly.
The men fell back in confusion as the situation dawned upon them. This the real lord? Then who was the haughty and self-important personage who had ridden away from them so coolly after issuing orders with such an air of authority?
“You shall sweat for this!” cried Beachcombe. “Where is my horse?”
No one seemed able to answer this question. The men glanced from one to another, and the mysterious crowd that springs up from the roadside when there is any excitement, began to collect. Some one suggested that a gentleman in a black hat and feather had been seen riding out of the Square, on a fine chestnut horse, and a murmur from the crowd confirmed the statement.
By this time, Lord Beachcombe had become speechless with rage. He signed to a passing chair, and getting in bareheaded, pulled the curtains close, and departed without a valedictory greeting.
After a visit to Bow Street which gave promise of a warm quarter of an hour to the constables on their return, Beachcombe hurried to his house, overlooking St. James’ Park, to await Samuel’s visit, and concoct plans by which Robin should not only be arrested, but brought to an ignominious and lingering death. Torture was supposed to have been abolished in those days, but treason was still punishable by drawing and quartering, and while the country was still astir with Jacobite plots, the charge of treason might easily be fastened on any man who could not readily account for his comings and goings.
The day passed slowly, for Lord Beachcombe, shut up in his study, gave orders that no visitor should be admitted except the lawyer’s clerk. Once possessor of the proofs—if proofs they were—of the shadow upon his birth, he could set his heel without fear upon the throat of this miscreant who claimed to be his brother. His brother—! his elder brother—! The shrill cry of the baby-heir smote upon his ear, and goaded him to such a madness of impotent fury that if Samuel could have seen him then and known the cause of the furrow on his brow and the blood upon his bitten lip, he might have made his own terms and become rich for life.
In the afternoon, a groom came to say that his lordship’s horse had been brought to the stable by a ragged boy, who had made off before he could be questioned.
“What condition was he in? Had he been ridden fast or far?” Lord Beachcombe inquired eagerly.
“Hadn’t turned a hair, my Lord,” was the reply; “might ‘a’ been for a canter round the Park.”
Beachcombe went to the stable himself to make inspection, but could discover no mark or sign to enlighten the most sharpsighted. “Oh! if you could speak!” he muttered, as he caressed the glossy coat and deer-like head of his favorite. “If you could tell me where you have been these three hours!”
But there was nothing to be learned; not so much as could be shown by a muddy fetlock. If the horse had been out of town, he had been carefully groomed on his return and every trace of travel removed. His master returned to the house, more morose and vengeful than ever, to while away the hours that slowly passed until it was time to dress for the great entertainment at Marlborough House.
When he descended from his wife’s apartments, where he had gone to display himself in his masquerade dress, he was certainly a magnificent and picturesque figure. His costume, of the period of Charles II., was of white satin, profusely trimmed with exquisite lace, and adorned with dazzling orders and jewels. A wig of long curls softened the harsh outline of his face, and a skilful touch of rouge relieved his swarthy pallor and lent a brilliancy to his dark eyes. His resemblance to Robin was remarkable enough then to have struck the most unobservant.
Over his arm he carried a voluminous domino of scarlet silk, and a mask to match dangled from his jeweled fingers.
He was stepping into his carriage, when a little black figure darted in front of him, and Samuel, bowing to the very ground before this gorgeous apparition, besought a word with him.
“Leave him alone,” cried Beachcombe, as two or three serving-men stepped forward to sweep this insect from their master’s path. “Have you anything important to say to me?” he eagerly inquired.
“Most important, your worship—I mean your Lordship,” replied Samuel. “I’ve got it; only just now, though, and I’ve run every step of the way,” and he showed a corner of the letter hidden in his breast.
“Give it to me,” said Beachcombe, in a low, concentrated voice, and held out his hand for it. But Samuel hung back.
“My Lord—my Lord—” he stammered, clutching the packet like a drowning man grasping a straw, “will you give me my hundred pounds?”
“What, now; before I see the papers? Besides, I’ve not so much about me,” exclaimed Beachcombe. “Why, you imp of the devil, are you afraid to trust me? Here, take my purse and give me that packet. I must have it now, do you hear? And come to me to-morrow for your hundred guineas.”
And before Samuel could make up his mind what to do, he found himself standing alone with a silken purse, full of golden guineas, in his hand, and the precious packet being whirled away from him in the earl’s chariot.
Lord Beachcombe, with the packet tightly clutched in his hand, gave way to a reverie so pleasant and absorbing that he did not notice a slight additional jar in the jolting of the carriage over the ill-paved street. The cause of the jar was the sudden accession of two outside passengers; one on the box beside the coachman, and the other beside the lackey behind. Each of these functionaries, at the same instant, felt the cold contact of a pistol against his ear, and before they could make any outcry, the carriage was going in a different direction.
A touch of the whip sent the horses forward at breakneck speed. “Keep quiet and you are safe,” said the stranger on the box, and in a moment he slipped over the coachman’s head a bag that served both to gag and blindfold him. The same operation was performed simultaneously upon the footman. Very soon, they turned sharply under an archway, and a heavy gate was slammed behind them.
Leaving the coachman on the box, his captor got off and opened the carriage door.
“Descend here, Lord Beachcombe,” he said, holding up a lantern, which revealed a tall man in a mask and behind him an open door.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” demanded Beachcombe, fumbling at his sword. The masked man, with very little ceremony, hauled him out of the carriage, and disregarding a strenuous resistance, conducted him into a small room, barely furnished and dimly lighted. He then saw that his assailant was almost as richly dressed as himself, and wore a jeweled star and other decorations of great splendor.
“What am I brought here for?” he asked, in a more subdued tone, for as his fear of robbery subsided in these surroundings, the fact that he had many and bitter enemies rose up before him.
“No harm unless you bring it upon yourself,” replied the other. “At worst, an hour or two’s detention and solitude and the loan of your invitation to the duchess’ masquerade.”
“Your voice sounds familiar to me,” said Lord Beachcombe. “Will you not remove your mask, now that we are alone?” The other hesitated. “Is it worth while to keep up this mystery, Captain Freemantle? You see I recognize you.”
“Since you know me, it is not worth while,” replied Robin, unmasking. As he did so, Beachcombe whipped out his sword and rushed upon him. Robin had no time to arm himself, but dodging the onslaught with the agility of a cat, closed upon his assailant with a clever wrestling trick that threw him upon his back half-stunned, and before he could recover, had his hands securely tied behind his back with his gold-fringed sash.
“You would have it!” said Robin. “Now I can—” his eye fell upon a packet that had fallen from Beachcombe’s hand, with the superscription upward:
“To Mistress Larkyn, “In care of Mine Hostess of “The Fox and Grapes.”
He picked it up and turned it over, examining the unbroken seals, and glancing from time to time at his captive.
“So you found a traitor in the camp,” he said, at last. “Let him beware—but, tush! I know who it is; it can be no other than Samuel. I need not interfere with him; he will find his own way to the gallows soon enough. I’m afraid I shall have to search you, my friend. You may as well take it quietly; you know I’m an expert at discovering hidden treasure.”
Lord Beachcombe, however, would not submit quietly, so Robin bound him securely to a chair and instituted a rigorous search, which revealed nothing except the emblazoned note of invitation to the ball. So, warning his prisoner that any outcry would lead to rough treatment from those who were left in charge of him, Robin withdrew, taking with him the packet and the invitation, and also Beachcombe’s sword and the lamp, and leaving him to darkness and reflection.