The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
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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 today 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 tomorrow.”
“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