An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

XI

THE EPISODE OF THE BERTILLON METHOD

We had a ter­ri­ble pas­sage home from New York. The Cap­tain told us he “knew ev­ery drop of wa­ter in the At­lantic per­son­al­ly”; and he had nev­er seen them so uni­form­ly ob­streper­ous. The ship rolled in the trough; Charles rolled in his cab­in, and would not be com­fort­ed. As we ap­proached the Irish coast, I scram­bled up on deck in a vi­olent gale, and re­tired again some­what pre­cip­itate­ly to an­nounce to my broth­er-​in-​law that we had just come in sight of the Fast­net Rock Light­house. Charles mere­ly turned over in his berth and groaned. “I don’t be­lieve it,” he an­swered. “I ex­pect it is prob­ably Colonel Clay in an­oth­er of his man­ifold dis­guis­es!”

At Liv­er­pool, how­ev­er, the Adel­phi con­soled him. We dined lux­uri­ous­ly in the Louis Quinze restau­rant, as on­ly mil­lion­aires can dine, and pro­ceed­ed next day by Pull­man car to Lon­don.

We found Amelia dis­solved in tears at a do­mes­tic cat­aclysm. It seemed that Césarine had giv­en no­tice.

Charles was scarce­ly home again when he be­gan to be­think him of the least among his in­vest­ments. Like many oth­er wealthy men, my re­spect­ed con­nec­tion is trou­bled more or less, in the back­ground of his con­scious­ness, by a per­vad­ing dread that he will die a beg­gar. To guard against this mis­for­tune–which I am bound to ad­mit no­body else fears for him–he in­vest­ed, sev­er­al years ago, a sum of two hun­dred thou­sand pounds in Con­sols, to serve as a nest-​egg in case of the col­lapse of Gol­con­das and South Africa gen­er­al­ly. It is part of the same ami­able ma­nia, too, that he will not al­low the div­idend-​war­rants on this sum to be sent to him by post, but in­sists, af­ter the fash­ion of old ladies and coun­try par­sons, up­on call­ing per­son­al­ly at the Bank of Eng­land four times a year to claim his in­ter­est. He is well known by sight to not a few of the clerks; and his ap­pear­ance in Thread­nee­dle Street is looked for­ward to with great reg­ular­ity with­in a few weeks of each law­ful quar­ter-​day.

So, on the morn­ing af­ter our ar­rival in town, Charles ob­served to me, cheer­ful­ly, “Sey, I must run in­to the City to-​day to claim my div­idends. There are two quar­ters ow­ing.”

I ac­com­pa­nied him in to the Bank. Even that mighty of­fi­cial, the bea­dle at the door, un­fas­tened the han­dle of the mil­lion­aire’s car­riage. The clerk who re­ceived us smiled and nod­ded. “How much?” he asked, af­ter the stereo­typed fash­ion.

“Two hun­dred thou­sand,” Charles an­swered, look­ing af­fa­ble.

The clerk turned up the books. “Paid!” he said, with de­ci­sion. “What’s your game, sir, if I may ask you?”

“Paid!” Charles echoed, draw­ing back.

The clerk gazed across at him. “Yes, Sir Charles,” he an­swered, in a some­what se­vere tone. “You must re­mem­ber you drew a quar­ter’s div­idend from my­self–last week–at this very counter.”

Charles stared at him fixed­ly. “Show me the sig­na­ture,” he said at last, in a slow, dazed fash­ion. I sus­pect­ed mis­chief.

The clerk pushed the book across to him. Charles ex­am­ined the name close.

“Colonel Clay again!” he cried, turn­ing to me with a de­spon­dent air. “He must have dressed the part. I shall die in the work­house, Sey! That man has stolen away even my nest-​egg from me.”

I saw it at a glance. “Mrs. Quack­en­boss!” I put in. “Those por­traits on the Etruria! It was to help him in his make-​up! You rec­ol­lect, she sketched your face and fig­ure at all pos­si­ble an­gles.”

“And last quar­ter’s?” Charles in­quired, stag­ger­ing.

The clerk turned up the en­try. “Drawn on the 10th of Ju­ly,” he an­swered, care­less­ly, as if it mat­tered noth­ing.

Then I knew why the Colonel had run across to Eng­land.

Charles pos­itive­ly reeled. “Take me home, Sey,” he cried. “I am ru­ined, ru­ined! He will leave me with not half a mil­lion in the world. My poor, poor boys will beg their bread, un­heed­ed, through the streets of Lon­don!”

(As Amelia has land­ed es­tate set­tled up­on her worth a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand pounds, this last con­tin­gen­cy af­fect­ed me less to tears than Charles seemed to think nec­es­sary.)

We made all need­ful in­quiries, and put the po­lice up­on the quest at once, as al­ways. But no re­dress was forth­com­ing. The mon­ey, once paid, could not be re­cov­ered. It is a play­ful lit­tle priv­ilege of Con­sols that the Gov­ern­ment de­clines un­der any cir­cum­stances to pay twice over. Charles drove back to May­fair a crushed and bro­ken man. I think if Colonel Clay him­self could have seen him just then, he would have pitied that vast in­tel­lect in its grief and be­wil­der­ment.

Af­ter lunch, how­ev­er, my broth­er-​in-​law’s nat­ural buoy­an­cy re­assert­ed it­self by de­grees. He ral­lied a lit­tle. “Sey­mour,” he said to me, “you’ve heard, of course, of the Bertillon sys­tem of mea­sur­ing and reg­is­ter­ing crim­inals.”

“I have,” I an­swered. “And it’s ex­cel­lent as far as it goes. But, like Mrs. Glasse’s jugged hare, it all de­pends up­on the ini­tial step. ‘First catch your crim­inal.’ Now, we have nev­er caught Colonel Clay–“

“Or, rather,” Charles in­ter­posed un­kind­ly, “when you _did_ catch him, you didn’t hold him.”

I ig­nored the un­kind­ly sug­ges­tion, and con­tin­ued in the same voice, “We have nev­er se­cured Colonel Clay; and un­til we se­cure him, we can­not reg­is­ter him by the Bertillon method. Be­sides, even if we had once caught him and du­ly not­ed the shape of his nose, his chin, his ears, his fore­head, of what use would that be against a man who turns up with a fresh face each time, and can mould his fea­tures in­to what form he likes, to de­ceive and foil us?”

“Nev­er mind, Sey,” my broth­er-​in-​law said. “I was told in New York that Dr. Frank Bed­der­sley, of Lon­don, was the best ex­po­nent of the Bertillon sys­tem now liv­ing in Eng­land; and to Bed­der­sley I shall go. Or, rather, I’ll in­vite him here to lunch to-​mor­row.”

“Who told you of him?” I in­quired. “_Not_ Dr. Quack­en­boss, I hope; nor yet Mr. Al­ger­non Co­le­yard?”

Charles paused and re­flect­ed. “No, nei­ther of them,” he an­swered, af­ter a short in­ter­nal de­lib­er­ation. “It was that mag­azine ed­itor chap we met at Wren­gold’s.”

“_He’s_ all right,” I said; “or, at least, I think so.”

So we wrote a po­lite in­vi­ta­tion to Dr. Bed­der­sley, who pur­sued the method pro­fes­sion­al­ly, ask­ing him to come and lunch with us at May­fair at two next day.

Dr. Bed­der­sley came–a dap­per lit­tle man, with pent-​house eye­brows, and keen, small eyes, whom I sus­pect­ed at sight of be­ing Colonel Clay him­self in an­oth­er of his clever poly­mor­phic em­bod­iments. He was clear and con­cise. His man­ner was sci­en­tif­ic. He told us at once that though the Bertillon method was of lit­tle use till the ex­pert had seen the crim­inal once, yet if we had con­sult­ed him ear­li­er he might prob­ably have saved us some se­ri­ous dis­as­ters. “A man so in­ge­nious as this,” he said, “would no doubt have stud­ied Bertillon’s prin­ci­ples him­self, and would take ev­ery pos­si­ble means to pre­vent recog­ni­tion by them. There­fore, you might al­most dis­re­gard the nose, the chin, the mous­tache, the hair, all of which are ca­pa­ble of such easy al­ter­ation. But there re­main some fea­tures which are more like­ly to per­sist–height, shape of head, neck, build, and fin­gers; the tim­bre of the voice, the colour of the iris. Even these, again, may be par­tial­ly dis­guised or con­cealed; the way the hair is dressed, the amount of padding, a high col­lar round the throat, a dark line about the eye­lash­es, may do more to al­ter the ap­pear­ance of a face than you could read­ily cred­it.”

“So we know,” I an­swered.

“The voice, again,” Dr. Bed­der­sley con­tin­ued. “The voice it­self may be most fal­la­cious. The man is no doubt a clever mim­ic. He could, per­haps, com­press or en­large his lar­ynx. And I judge from what you tell me that he took char­ac­ters each time which com­pelled him large­ly to al­ter and mod­ify his tone and ac­cent.”

“Yes,” I said. “As the Mex­ican Seer, he had of course a Span­ish in­to­na­tion. As the lit­tle cu­rate, he was a cul­ti­vat­ed North-​coun­try­man. As David Granton, he spoke gen­tle­man­ly Scotch. As Von Leben­stein, nat­ural­ly, he was a South-​Ger­man, try­ing to ex­press him­self in French. As Pro­fes­sor Schleier­ma­ch­er, he was a North-​Ger­man speak­ing bro­ken En­glish. As Eli­hu Quack­en­boss, he had a fine and pro­nounced Ken­tucky flavour. And as the po­et, he drawled af­ter the fash­ion of the clubs, with lin­ger­ing rem­nants of a De­von­shire an­ces­try.”

“Quite so,” Dr. Bed­der­sley an­swered. “That is just what I should ex­pect. Now, the ques­tion is, do you know him to be one man, or is he re­al­ly a gang? Is he a name for a syn­di­cate? Have you any pho­tographs of Colonel Clay him­self in any of his dis­guis­es?”

“Not one,” Charles an­swered. “He pro­duced some him­self, when he was Med­hurst the de­tec­tive. But he pock­et­ed them at once; and we nev­er re­cov­ered them.”

“Could you get any?” the doc­tor asked. “Did you note the name and ad­dress of the pho­tog­ra­pher?”

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, no,” Charles replied. “But the po­lice at Nice showed us two. Per­haps we might bor­row them.”

“Un­til we get them,” Dr. Bed­der­sley said, “I don’t know that we can do any­thing. But if you can once give me two dis­tinct pho­tographs of the re­al man, no mat­ter how much dis­guised, I could tell you whether they were tak­en from one per­son; and, if so, I think I could point out cer­tain de­tails in com­mon which might aid us to go up­on.”

All this was at lunch. Amelia’s niece, Dol­ly Ling­field, was there, as it hap­pened; and I chanced to note a most guilty look steal­ing over her face all the while we were talk­ing. Sus­pi­cious as I had learned to be­come by this time, how­ev­er, I did not sus­pect Dol­ly of be­ing in league with Colonel Clay; but, I con­fess, I won­dered what her blush could in­di­cate. Af­ter lunch, to my sur­prise, Dol­ly called me away from the rest in­to the li­brary. “Un­cle Sey­mour,” she said to me–the dear child calls me Un­cle Sey­mour, though of course I am not in any way re­lat­ed to her–“_I_ have some pho­tographs of Colonel Clay, if you want them.”

“_You_?” I cried, as­ton­ished. “Why, Dol­ly, how did you get them?”

For a minute or two she showed some lit­tle hes­ita­tion in telling me. At last she whis­pered, “You won’t be an­gry if I con­fess?” (Dol­ly is just nine­teen, and re­mark­ably pret­ty.)

“My child,” I said, “why _should_ I be an­gry? You may con­fide in me im­plic­it­ly.” (With a blush like that, who on earth could be an­gry with her?)

“And you won’t tell Aunt Amelia or Aunt Is­abel?” she in­quired some­what anx­ious­ly.

“Not for worlds,” I an­swered. (As a mat­ter of fact, Amelia and Is­abel are the last peo­ple in the world to whom I should dream of con­fid­ing any­thing that Dol­ly might tell me.)

“Well, I was stop­ping at Sel­don, you know, when Mr. David Granton was there,” Dol­ly went on; “–or, rather, when that scamp pre­tend­ed he was David Granton; and–and–you won’t be an­gry with me, will you?–one day I took a snap-​shot with my ko­dak at him and Aunt Amelia!”

“Why, what harm was there in that?” I asked, be­wil­dered. The wildest stretch of fan­cy could hard­ly con­ceive that the Hon­ourable David had been _flirt­ing_ with Amelia.

Dol­ly coloured still more deeply. “Oh, you know Bertie Winslow?” she said. “Well, he’s in­ter­est­ed in pho­tog­ra­phy–and–and al­so in _me_. And he’s in­vent­ed a pro­cess, which isn’t of the slight­est prac­ti­cal use, he says; but its pe­cu­liar­ity is, that it re­veals tex­tures. At least, that’s what Bertie calls it. It makes things come out so. And he gave me some plates of his own for my ko­dak–half-​a-​dozen or more, and–I took Aunt Amelia with them.”

“I still fail to see,” I mur­mured, look­ing at her com­ical­ly.

“Oh, Un­cle Sey­mour,” Dol­ly cried. “How blind you men are! If Aunt Amelia knew she would nev­er for­give me. Why, you _must_ un­der­stand. The–the rouge, you know, and the pearl pow­der!”

“Oh, it comes out, then, in the pho­to­graph?” I in­quired.

“Comes out! I should _think_ so! It’s like lit­tle black spots all over aun­tie’s face. _such_ a guy as she looks in it!”

“And Colonel Clay is in them too?”

“Yes; I took them when he and aun­tie were talk­ing to­geth­er, with­out ei­ther of them notic­ing. And Bertie de­vel­oped them. I’ve three of David Granton. Three beau­ties; _most_ suc­cess­ful.”

“Any oth­er char­ac­ter?” I asked, see­ing busi­ness ahead.

Dol­ly hung back, still red­der. “Well, the rest are with Aunt Is­abel,” she an­swered, af­ter a strug­gle.

“My dear child,” I replied, hid­ing my feel­ings as a hus­band, “I will be brave. I will bear up even against that last mis­for­tune!”

Dol­ly looked up at me plead­ing­ly. “It was here in Lon­don,” she went on; “–when I was last with aun­tie. Med­hurst was stop­ping in the house at the time; and I took him twice, tête-​à-​tête with Aunt Is­abel!”

“Is­abel does not paint,” I mur­mured, stout­ly.

Dol­ly hung back again. “No, but–her hair!” she sug­gest­ed, in a faint voice.

“Its colour,” I ad­mit­ted, “is in places as­sist­ed by a–well, you know, a re­stor­er.”

Dol­ly broke in­to a mis­chievous sly smile. “Yes, it is,” she con­tin­ued. “And, oh, Un­cle Sey, where the re­stor­er has–er–re­stored it, you know, it comes out in the pho­to­graph with a sort of bril­liant iri­des­cent metal­lic sheen on it!”

“Bring them down, my dear,” I said, gen­tly pat­ting her head with my hand. In the in­ter­ests of jus­tice, I thought it best not to fright­en her.

Dol­ly brought them down. They seemed to me poor things, yet well worth try­ing. We found it pos­si­ble, on fur­ther con­fab­ula­tion, by the sim­ple aid of a pair of scis­sors, so to cut each in two that all trace of Amelia and Is­abel was oblit­er­at­ed. Even so, how­ev­er, I judged it best to call Charles and Dr. Bed­der­sley to a pri­vate con­sul­ta­tion in the li­brary with Dol­ly, and not to sub­mit the mu­ti­lat­ed pho­tographs to pub­lic in­spec­tion by their joint sub­jects. Here, in fact, we had five patchy por­traits of the re­doubtable Colonel, tak­en at var­ious an­gles, and in char­ac­ter­is­tic un­stud­ied at­ti­tudes. A child had out­wit­ted the clever­est sharp­er in Eu­rope!

The mo­ment Bed­der­sley’s eye fell up­on them, a cu­ri­ous look came over his face. “Why, these,” he said, “are tak­en on Her­bert Winslow’s method, Miss Ling­field.”

“Yes,” Dol­ly ad­mit­ted timid­ly. “They are. He’s–a friend of mine, don’t you know; and–he gave me some plates that just fit­ted my cam­era.”

Bed­der­sley gazed at them steadi­ly. Then he turned to Charles. “And this young la­dy,” he said, “has quite un­in­ten­tion­al­ly and un­con­scious­ly suc­ceed­ed in track­ing Colonel Clay to earth at last. They are gen­uine pho­tographs of the man–as he is–_with­out_ the dis­guis­es!”

“They look to me most blotchy,” Charles mur­mured. “Great black lines down the nose, and such spots on the cheek, too!”

“Ex­act­ly,” Bed­der­sley put in. “Those are _dif­fer­ences in tex­ture_. They show just how much of the man’s face is hu­man flesh–“

“And how much wax,” I ven­tured.

“Not wax,” the ex­pert an­swered, gaz­ing close. “This is some hard­er mix­ture. I should guess, a com­po­si­tion of gut­ta-​per­cha and in­dia-​rub­ber, which takes colour well, and hard­ens when ap­plied, so as to lie quite even­ly, and re­sist heat or melt­ing. Look here; that’s an ar­ti­fi­cial scar, fill­ing up a re­al hol­low; and _this_ is an added bit to the tip of the nose; and _those_ are shad­ows, due to in­sert­ed cheek-​pieces, with­in the mouth, to make the man look fat­ter!”

“Why, of course,” Charles cried. “In­dia-​rub­ber it must be. That’s why in France they call him le Colonel Caoutchouc!”

“Can you re­con­struct the re­al face from them?” I in­quired anx­ious­ly.

Dr. Bed­der­sley gazed hard at them. “Give me an hour or two,” he said–“and a box of wa­ter-​colours. I _think_ by that time–putting two and two to­geth­er–I can elim­inate the false and build up for you a tol­er­ably cor­rect idea of what the ac­tu­al man him­self looks like.”

We turned him in­to the li­brary for a cou­ple of hours, with the ma­te­ri­als he need­ed; and by tea-​time he had com­plet­ed his first rough sketch of the el­ements com­mon to the two faces. He brought it out to us in the draw­ing-​room. I glanced at it first. It was a cu­ri­ous coun­te­nance, slight­ly want­ing in def­inite­ness, and not un­like those “com­pos­ite pho­tographs” which Mr. Gal­ton pro­duces by ex­pos­ing two neg­atives on the same sen­si­tised pa­per for ten sec­onds or so con­sec­utive­ly. Yet it struck me at once as con­tain­ing some­thing of Colonel Clay in ev­ery one of his many rep­re­sen­ta­tions. The lit­tle cu­rate, in re­al life, did not re­call the Seer; nor did Eli­hu Quack­en­boss sug­gest Count von Leben­stein or Pro­fes­sor Schleier­ma­ch­er. Yet in this com­pound face, pro­duced on­ly from pho­tographs of David Granton and Med­hurst, I could dis­tinct­ly trace a cer­tain un­der­ly­ing like­ness to ev­ery one of the forms which the im­pos­tor had as­sumed for us. In oth­er words, though he could make up so as to mask the like­ness to his oth­er char­ac­ters, he could not make up so as to mask the like­ness to his own per­son­al­ity. He could not whol­ly get rid of his na­tive build and his gen­uine fea­tures.

Be­sides these strik­ing sug­ges­tions of the Seer and the cu­rate, how­ev­er, I felt vague­ly con­scious of hav­ing seen and ob­served _the man him­self_ whom the wa­ter-​colour rep­re­sent­ed, at some time, some­where. It was not at Nice; it was not at Sel­don; it was not at Mer­an; it was not in Amer­ica. I be­lieved I had been in a room with him some­where in Lon­don.

Charles was look­ing over my shoul­der. He gave a sud­den lit­tle start. “Why, I know that fel­low!” he cried. “You rec­ol­lect him, Sey; he’s Fin­gle­more’s broth­er–the chap that didn’t go out to Chi­na!”

Then I re­mem­bered at once where it was that I had seen him–at the bro­ker’s in the city, be­fore we sailed for Amer­ica.

“What Chris­tian name?” I asked.

Charles re­flect­ed a mo­ment. “The same as the one in the note we got with the dust-​coat,” he an­swered, at last. “The man is Paul Fin­gle­more!”

“You will ar­rest him?” I asked.

“Can I, on this ev­idence?”

“We might bring it home to him.”

Charles mused for a mo­ment. “We shall have noth­ing against him,” he said slow­ly, “ex­cept in so far as we can swear to his iden­ti­ty. And that may be dif­fi­cult.”

Just at that mo­ment the foot­man brought in tea. Charles won­dered ap­par­ent­ly whether the man, who had been with us at Sel­don when Colonel Clay was David Granton, would rec­ol­lect the face or recog­nise hav­ing seen it. “Look here, Dud­ley,” he said, hold­ing up the wa­ter-​colour, “do you know that per­son?”

Dud­ley gazed at it a mo­ment. “Cer­tain­ly, sir,” he an­swered briskly.

“Who is it?” Amelia asked. We ex­pect­ed him to an­swer, “Count von Leben­stein,” or “Mr. Granton,” or “Med­hurst.”

In­stead of that, he replied, to our ut­ter sur­prise, “That’s Césarine’s young man, my la­dy.”

“Césarine’s young man?” Amelia re­peat­ed, tak­en aback. “Oh, Dud­ley, sure­ly, you _must_ be mis­tak­en!”

“No, my la­dy,” Dud­ley replied, in a tone of con­vic­tion. “He comes to see her quite reg’lar; he have come to see her, off and on, from time to time, ev­er since I’ve been in Sir Charles’s ser­vice.”

“When will he be com­ing again?” Charles asked, breath­less.

“He’s down­stairs now, sir,” Dud­ley an­swered, un­aware of the bomb­shell he was fling­ing in­to the midst of a re­spectable fam­ily.

Charles rose ex­cit­ed­ly, and put his back against the door. “Se­cure that man,” he said to me sharply, point­ing with his fin­ger.

“_What_ man?” I asked, amazed. “Colonel Clay? The young man who’s down­stairs now with Césarine?”

“No,” Charles an­swered, with de­ci­sion; “Dud­ley!”

I laid my hand on the foot­man’s shoul­der, not un­der­stand­ing what Charles meant. Dud­ley, ter­ri­fied, drew back, and would have rushed from the room; but Charles, with his back against the door, pre­vent­ed him.

“I–I’ve done noth­ing to be ar­rest­ed, Sir Charles,” Dud­ley cried, in ab­ject ter­ror, look­ing ap­peal­ing­ly at Amelia. “It–it wasn’t me as cheat­ed you.” And he cer­tain­ly didn’t look it.

“I dare­say not,” Charles an­swered. “But you don’t leave this room till Colonel Clay is in cus­tody. No, Amelia, no; it’s no use your speak­ing to me. What he says is true. I see it all now. This vil­lain and Césarine have long been ac­com­plices! The man’s down­stairs with her now. If we let Dud­ley quit the room he’ll go down and tell them; and be­fore we know where we are, that slip­pery eel will have wrig­gled through our fin­gers, as he al­ways wrig­gles. He _is_ Paul Fin­gle­more; he _is_ Césarine’s young man; and un­less we ar­rest him now, with­out one minute’s de­lay, he’ll be off to Madrid or St. Pe­ters­burg by this evening!”

“You are right,” I an­swered. “It is now or nev­er!”

“Dud­ley,” Charles said, in his most au­thor­ita­tive voice, “stop here till we tell you you may leave the room. Amelia and Dol­ly, don’t let that man stir from where he’s stand­ing. If he does, re­strain him. Sey­mour and Dr. Bed­der­sley, come down with me to the ser­vants’ hall. I sup­pose that’s where I shall find this per­son, Dud­ley?”

“N–no, sir,” Dud­ley stam­mered out, half be­side him­self with fright. “He’s in the house­keep­er’s room, sir!”

We went down to the low­er re­gions in a sol­id pha­lanx of three. On the way we met Simp­son, Sir Charles’s valet, and al­so the but­ler, whom we pressed in­to the ser­vice. At the door of the house­keep­er’s room we paused, strate­gi­cal­ly. Voic­es came to us from with­in; one was Césarine’s, the oth­er had a ring that re­mind­ed me at once of Med­hurst and the Seer, of Eli­hu Quack­en­boss and Al­ger­non Co­le­yard. They were talk­ing to­geth­er in French; and now and then we caught the sound of sti­fled laugh­ter.

We opened the door. “Est-​il drôle, donc, ce vieux?” the man’s voice was say­ing.

“C’est à mourir de rire,” Césarine’s voice re­spond­ed.

We burst in up­on them, red-​hand­ed.

Césarine’s young man rose, with his hat in his hand, in a re­spect­ful at­ti­tude. It re­mind­ed me at once of Med­hurst, as he stood talk­ing his first day at Mar­vil­li­er’s to Charles; and al­so of the lit­tle cu­rate, in his hum­blest mo­ments as the dis­in­ter­est­ed pas­tor.

With a sign to me to do like­wise, Charles laid his hand firm­ly on the young man’s shoul­der. I looked in the fel­low’s face: there could be no deny­ing it; Césarine’s young man was Paul Fin­gle­more, our bro­ker’s broth­er.

“Paul Fin­gle­more,” Charles said severe­ly, “oth­er­wise Cuth­bert Clay, I ar­rest you on sev­er­al charges of theft and con­spir­acy!”

The young man glanced around him. He was sur­prised and per­turbed; but, even so, his in­ex­haustible cool­ness nev­er once de­sert­ed him. “What, five to one?” he said, count­ing us over. “Has law and or­der come down to this? Five re­spectable ras­cals to ar­rest one poor beg­gar of a cheva­lier d’in­dus­trie! Why, it’s worse than New York. _There_, it was on­ly you and me, you know, old Ten per Cent!”

“Hold his hands, Simp­son!” Charles cried, trem­bling lest his en­emy should es­cape him.

Paul Fin­gle­more drew back even while we held his shoul­ders. “No, not _you_, sir,” he said to the man, haugh­ti­ly. “Don’t dare to lay your hands up­on me! Send for a con­sta­ble if you wish, Sir Charles Van­drift; but I de­cline to be tak­en in­to cus­tody by a valet!”

“Go for a po­lice­man,” Dr. Bed­der­sley said to Simp­son, stand­ing for­ward.

The pris­on­er eyed him up and down. “Oh, Dr. Bed­der­sley!” he said, re­lieved. It was ev­ident he knew him. “If _you’ve_ tracked me strict­ly in ac­cor­dance with Bertillon’s meth­ods, I don’t mind so much. I will not yield to fools; I yield to sci­ence. I didn’t think this di­amond king had sense enough to ap­ply to you. He’s the most gullible old ass I ev­er met in my life. But if it’s _you_ who have tracked me down, I can on­ly sub­mit to it.”

Charles held to him with a fierce grip. “Mind he doesn’t break away, Sey,” he cried. “He’s play­ing his old game! Dis­trust the man’s pat­ter!”

“Take care,” the pris­on­er put in. “Re­mem­ber Dr. Polper­ro! On what charge do you ar­rest me?”

Charles was bub­bling with in­dig­na­tion. “You cheat­ed me at Nice,” he said; “at Mer­an; at New York; at Paris!”

Paul Fin­gle­more shook his head. “Won’t do,” he an­swered, calm­ly. “Be sure of your ground. Out­side the ju­ris­dic­tion! You can on­ly do that on an ex­tra­di­tion war­rant.”

“Well, then, at Sel­don, in Lon­don, in this house, and else­where,” Charles cried out ex­cit­ed­ly. “Hold hard to him, Sey; by law or with­out it, blessed if he isn’t go­ing even now to wrig­gle away from us!”

At that mo­ment Simp­son re­turned with a con­ve­nient po­lice­man, whom he had hap­pened to find loi­ter­ing about near the area steps, and whom I half sus­pect­ed from his furtive smile of be­ing a par­tic­ular ac­quain­tance of the house­hold.

Charles gave the man in charge for­mal­ly. Paul Fin­gle­more in­sist­ed that he should spec­ify the na­ture of the par­tic­ular ac­cu­sa­tion. To my great cha­grin, Charles se­lect­ed from his rogueries, as best with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of the En­glish courts, the mat­ter of the pay­ment for the Cas­tle of Leben­stein–made in Lon­don, and through a Lon­don banker. “I have a war­rant on that ground,” he said. I trem­bled as he spoke. I felt at once that the episode of the com­mis­sion, the ex­po­sure of which I dread­ed so much, must now be­come pub­lic.

The po­lice­man took the man in charge. Charles still held to him, grim­ly. As they were leav­ing the room the pris­on­er turned to Césarine, and mut­tered some­thing rapid­ly un­der his breath, in Ger­man. “Of which tongue,” he said, turn­ing to us bland­ly, “in spite of my kind present of a dic­tio­nary and gram­mar, you still doubt­less re­main in your pris­tine ig­no­rance!”

Césarine flung her­self up­on him with wild de­vo­tion. “Oh, Paul, dar­ling,” she cried, in En­glish, “I will not, I will not! I will nev­er save my­self at _your_ ex­pense. If they send you to prison–Paul, Paul, I will go with you!”

I re­mem­bered as she spoke what Mr. Al­ger­non Co­le­yard had said to us at the Sen­ator’s. “Even the worst of rogues have al­ways some good in them. I no­tice they of­ten suc­ceed to the end in re­tain­ing the af­fec­tion and fi­deli­ty of wom­en.”

But the man, his hands still free, un­wound her clasp­ing arms with gen­tle fin­gers. “My child,” he an­swered, in a soft tone, “I am sor­ry to say the law of Eng­land will not per­mit you to go with me. If it did” (his voice was as the voice of the po­et we had met), “’stone walls would not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’” And bend­ing for­ward, he kissed her fore­head ten­der­ly.

We led him out to the door. The po­lice­man, in obe­di­ence to Charles’s or­ders, held him tight with his hand, but steadi­ly re­fused, as the pris­on­er was not vi­olent, to hand­cuff him. We hailed a pass­ing han­som. “To Bow Street!” Charles cried, un­cer­emo­ni­ous­ly push­ing in po­lice­man and pris­on­er. The driv­er nod­ded. We called a four-​wheel­er our­selves, in which my broth­er-​in-​law, Dr. Bed­der­sley and my­self took our seats. “Fol­low the han­som!” Charles cried out. “Don’t let him out of your sight. Af­ter him, close, to Bow Street!”

I looked back, and saw Césarine, half faint­ing, on the front door steps, while Dol­ly, bathed in tears, stood sup­port­ing the la­dy’s-​maid, and try­ing to com­fort her. It was clear she had not an­tic­ipat­ed this end to the ad­ven­ture.

“Good­ness gra­cious!” Charles screamed out, in a fresh fever of alarm, as we turned the first cor­ner; “where’s that han­som gone to? How do I know the fel­low was a po­lice­man at all? We should have tak­en the man in here. We ought nev­er to have let him get out of our sight. For all we can tell to the con­trary, the con­sta­ble him­self–may on­ly be one of Colonel Clay’s con­fed­er­ates!”

And we drove in trep­ida­tion all the way to Bow Street.