“I am going to see her in the course of this week,” he said, in answer to a further question from Lady Glencora, who, chancing to meet him in society, had again addressed him on the subject. He lacked the courage to tell Lady Glencora to mind her own business and to allow him to do the same. Had she been a little less great than she was—either as regarded herself or her husband—he would have done so. But Lady Glencora was the social queen of the party to which he belonged, and Mr. Palliser was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would some day be Duke of Omnium.
“As you are great, be merciful, Lord Fawn,” said Lady Glencora. “You men, I believe, never realise what it is that women feel when they love. It is my belief that she will die unless you are reunited to her. And then she is so beautiful!”
“It is a subject that I cannot discuss, Lady Glencora.”
“I daresay not. And I’m sure I am the last person to wish to give you pain. But you see—if the poor lady has done nothing to merit your anger, it does seem rather a strong measure to throw her off and give her no reason whatever. How would you defend yourself, suppose she published it all?” Lady Glencora’s courage was very great—and perhaps we may say her impudence also. This last question Lord Fawn left unanswered, walking away in great dudgeon.
In the course of the week he told his sister of the interview which he had promised, and she endeavoured to induce him to postpone it till a certain man should arrive from Scotland. She had written for Mr. Andrew Gowran—sending down funds for Mr. Gowran’s journey—so that her brother might hear Mr. Gowran’s evidence out of Mr. Gowran’s own mouth. Would not Frederic postpone the interview till he should have seen Mr. Gowran? But to this request Frederic declined to accede. He had fixed a day and an hour. He had made an appointment;—of course he must keep it.
LVII
Humpty Dumpty
The robbery at the house in Hertford Street took place on the 30th of January, and on the morning of the 28th of February Bunfit and Gager were sitting together in a melancholy, dark little room in Scotland Yard, discussing the circumstances of that nefarious act. A month had gone by, and nobody was yet in custody. A month had passed since that second robbery; but nearly eight weeks had passed since the robbery at Carlisle, and even that was still a mystery. The newspapers had been loud in their condemnation of the police. It had been asserted over and over again that in no other civilised country in the world could so great an amount of property have passed through the hands of thieves without leaving some clue by which the police would have made their way to the truth. Major Mackintosh had been declared to be altogether incompetent, and all the Bunfits and Gagers of the force had been spoken of as drones and moles and ostriches. They were idle and blind, and so stupid as to think that, when they saw nothing, others saw less. The major, who was a broad-shouldered, philosophical man, bore all this as though it were, of necessity, a part of the burden of his profession;—but the Bunfits and Gagers were very angry, and at their wits’ ends. It did not occur to them to feel animosity against the newspapers which abused them. The thieves who would not be caught were their great enemies; and there was common to them a conviction that men so obstinate as these thieves—men to whom a large amount of grace and liberty for indulgence had accrued—should be treated with uncommon severity when they were caught. There was this excuse always on their lips—that had it been an affair simply of thieves, such as thieves ordinarily are, everything would have been discovered long since;—but when lords and ladies with titles come to be mixed up with such an affair—folk in whose house a policeman can’t have his will at searching and browbeating—how is a detective to detect anything?
Bunfit and Gager had both been driven to recast their theories as to the great Carlisle affair by the circumstances of the later affair in Hertford Street. They both thought that Lord George had been concerned in the robbery;—that, indeed, had now become the general opinion of the world at large. He was a man of doubtful character, with large expenses, and with no recognised means of living. He had formed a great intimacy with Lady Eustace at a period in which she was known to be carrying these diamonds about with her, had been staying with her at Portray Castle when the diamonds were there, and had been her companion on the journey during which the diamonds were stolen. The only men in London supposed to be capable of dealing advantageously with such a property were Harter and Benjamin—as to whom it was known that they were conversant with the existence of the diamonds, and known, also, that they were in the habit of having dealings with Lord George. It was, moreover, known that Lord George had been closeted with Mr. Benjamin on the morning after his arrival in London. These things put together made it almost a certainty that Lord George had been concerned in the matter. Bunfit had always been sure of it. Gager, though differing much from Bunfit as to details, had never been unwilling to suspect Lord George. But the facts known could not be got to dovetail themselves pleasantly. If Lord George had possessed himself of the diamonds at Carlisle—or with Lizzie’s connivance before they reached Carlisle—then, why had there been a second robbery? Bunfit, who was very profound in his theory, suggested that the second robbery was an additional plant,
