Armadale

'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 half-penny 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 color 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 color 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 marriage—if it was a marriage 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 traveling 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?'