Tracks in the Snow

record, which might seem to him to require explanation. Here he appealed to me (and I confess I backed him up) as to whether he had not approached me in precisely the same way. Mr. Thalberg appeared to pass again under the spell of his eccentric visitor’s childlike innocence, and sat patiently but with an air of increasing discomfort while Callaghan ran on: “You see, in your case, Mr. Thalberg, it’s not only your presence at Long Wilton, which was for golf of course, wasn’t it?⁠—only you went away because of the snow. There is that correspondence with a Dutch legal gentleman at Batavia which occurred a little afterwards, or a little before was it? And there were the messages which I think you sent (though perhaps that was not you) to Bagdad. Of course I shall easily understand if you do not care to enlighten me for the purpose of my memoirs which no one may care to read. Pray tell me if it is so. I daresay it’s enough for you that your correspondence and movements will of course be fully explained at the trial.” “What trial?” exclaimed Thalberg, quite aghast. It was Callaghan’s turn to be astonished. Was it possible that Mr. Thalberg had not heard the news, which was already in two or three evening papers, that there was a warrant out for the arrest of Vane-Cartwright, and that it was rumoured that he had been arrested in an attempt to escape from the country.

In Mr. Thalberg’s countenance increased anguish now struggled ludicrously with the suspicion, which even he could not wholly put aside, that he was being played upon in some monstrous way. He began some uncertain words and desisted, and looked to his clerk appealingly. That gentleman (not, I believe, the same that had fallen under the sway of Callaghan’s faithful servant) seemed the incarnation of the most solid respectability. He was, I should judge, of the age at which he might think of retiring upon a well-earned competence, and he gave Thalberg no help, desiring, I should think, to hear the fullest explanation of the startling and terrible hint which had been thrown out before him against his master’s character. While Thalberg sat irresolute, Callaghan drew a bow at a venture. “At least, Mr. Thalberg,” he said, “I thought you might like to tell me the results of your interview with Dr. Verschoyle when you went to Homburg to see him.” “Sir,” said Thalberg, making a final effort, “do you imagine that I shall tell you what passed at an interview to which I went upon my client’s business.” “Thank you, Mr. Thalberg,” said Callaghan. “I am interested to know that you went to Homburg on your client’s business (I thought it might have been for the gout), and that you did see Dr. Verschoyle, for I had not known that till you told me. I did know, however, about that correspondence with Madrid in the Spanish Consul’s cipher, and I knew that the enquiries you made through him were really addressed to an influential person at Manilla.”

At this point Mr. Thalberg abruptly went over, with horse, foot and artillery, to the enemy. He assured Callaghan of his perfect readiness to answer fully any questions he might ask about his relations with Vane-Cartwright, and if he might he would tell him how they began.

This is what it came to. Thalberg had been partner to a lawyer who was Longhurst’s solicitor. In the early part of 1882, when Longhurst had spent a month in England, he had consulted Thalberg’s partner about some matters that troubled him in regard to his partnership with Vane-Cartwright. Thalberg could not remember (so at least he said) the precise complaint which Longhurst had laid before his partner, except that it related to Vane-Cartwright’s having got concessions and acquired property for himself which Longhurst considered (without foundation, as Thalberg supposed) should have belonged to the partnership. Nor did Thalberg know the advice which had been given Longhurst. He had heard no more of him beyond the mere report that he had been drowned, till, after his death, Vane-Cartwright, whom Thalberg had not previously known, came to London and employed the firm to find out various members of Longhurst’s family who were still living, and to whom he now behaved with great generosity. Since then Thalberg had been, as we knew, solicitor of a company which Vane-Cartwright had founded, and had occasionally done for him private law work of a quite unexciting nature. But in the middle of January of last year, 1896, Thalberg had been instructed by Vane-Cartwright to make for him with the utmost privacy certain enquiries. One was of a person in Bagdad, as to the identity and previous history of a certain Mr. Bryanston; one concerned a certain Dr. Kuyper, a physician and scientist in Batavia, who, it was ascertained, was now dead. Another was, as Callaghan knew, addressed to a correspondent in Madrid, but Thalberg declared that this enquiry went no further than to ascertain the name and address of the person who then filled the office of Public Prosecutor or, I think, Minister of Justice in the Philippines. I ventured to ask the name; it was a name that I had seen before in those notes of Peters’. Lastly, there was an enquiry in regard to Dr. Verschoyle. Thalberg had been instructed if possible to obtain an interview with this gentleman before a certain date. The purpose of the interview, he declared, was to obtain from him some notes and journals which would be of use in the foundation of a new mission in the Philippines, under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, a project in which Vane-Cartwright appeared, he said, to be keenly interested (and indeed it was the fact that he had previously patronised missionary societies). The object of Thalberg’s visit to Long Wilton was this. He had been told to repair there without fail by the date