“I have nothing to conceal.”
“That is more than anybody knows of himself. It’s a good maxim to keep your own affairs quiet till they’re wanted. In this country everybody is spry enough to learn all about everything. I never see any good in letting them know without a reason. Well;—what did you do when you got there?”
“It was all as you told me.”
“Didn’t I say so? What was the good of bringing me all this way, when, if you’d only believed me, you might have saved me the trouble. Ain’t I to be paid for that?”
“You are to be paid. I have come here to pay you.”
“That’s what you owe for the knowledge. But for coming? Ain’t I to be paid extra for the journey?”
“You are to have a thousand dollars.”
“H’sh!—you speak of money as though everyone has a business to know that you have got your pockets full. What’s a thousand dollars, seeing all that I have done for you!”
“It’s all that you’re going to get. It’s all, indeed, that I have got to give you.”
“Gammon.”
“It’s all, at any rate, that you’re going to get. Will you have it now?”
“You found the tomb, did you?”
“Yes; I found the tomb. Here is a photograph of it. You can keep a copy if you like it.”
“What do I want of a copy,” said the man, taking the photograph in his hand. “He was always more trouble than he was worth—was Ferdy. It’s a pity she didn’t marry me. I’d ’ve made a woman of her.” Peacocke shuddered as he heard this, but he said nothing. “You may as well give us the picter;—it’ll do to hang up somewhere if ever I have a room of my own. How plain it is. Ferdinand Lefroy—of Kilbrack! Kilbrack indeed! It’s little either of us was the better for Kilbrack. Some of them psalm-singing rogues from New England has it now;—or perhaps a right-down nigger. I shouldn’t wonder. One of our own lot, maybe! Oh; that’s the money, is it?—A thousand dollars; all that I’m to have for coming to England and telling you, and bringing you back, and showing you where you could get this pretty picter made.” Then he took the money, a thick roll of notes, and crammed them into his pocket.
“You’d better count them.”
“It ain’t worth the while with such a trifle as that.”
“Let me count them then.”
“You’ll never have that plunder in your fists again, my fine fellow.”
“I do not want it.”
“And now about my expenses out to England, on purpose to tell you all this. You can go and make her your wife now—or can leave her, just as you please. You couldn’t have done neither if I hadn’t gone out to you.”
“You have got what was promised.”
“But my expenses—going out?”
“I have promised you nothing for your expenses going out—and will pay you nothing.”
“You won’t?”
“Not a dollar more.”
“You won’t?”
“Certainly not. I do not suppose that you expect it for a moment, although you are so persistent in asking for it.”
“And you think you’ve got the better of me, do you? You think you’ve carried me along with you, just to do your bidding and take whatever you please to give me? That’s your idea of me?”
“There was a clear bargain between us. I have not got the better of you at all.”
“I rather think not, Peacocke. I rather think not. You’ll have to get up earlier before you get the better of Robert Lefroy. You don’t expect to get this money back again—do you?”
“Certainly not—any more than I should expect a pound of meat out of a dog’s jaw.” Mr. Peacocke, as he said this, was waxing angry.
“I don’t suppose you do;—but you expected that I was to earn it by doing your bidding;—didn’t you?”
“And you have.”
“Yes, I have; but how? You never heard of my cousin, did you;—Ferdinand Lefroy of Kilbrack, Louisiana?”
“Heard of whom?”
“My cousin; Ferdinand Lefroy. He was very well known in his own State, and in California too, till he died. He was a good fellow, but given to drink. We used to tell him that if he would marry it would be better for him;—but he never would;—he never did.” Robert Lefroy as he said this put his left hand into his trousers-pocket over the notes which he had placed there, and drew a small revolver out of his pocket with the other hand. “I am better prepared now,” he said, “than when you had your six-shooter under your pillow at Leavenworth.”
“I do not believe a word of it. It’s a lie,” said Peacocke.
“Very well. You’re a chap that’s fond of travelling, and have got plenty of money. You’d better go down to Louisiana and make your way straight from New Orleans to Kilbrack. It ain’t above forty miles to the southwest, and there’s a rail goes within fifteen miles of it. You’ll learn there all about Ferdinand Lefroy as was our cousin—him as never got married up to the day he died of drink and was buried at San Francisco. They’ll be very glad, I shouldn’t wonder, to see that pretty little picter of yours, because they was always uncommon fond of cousin Ferdy at Kilbrack. And I’ll tell you what; you’ll be sure to come across my brother Ferdy in them parts, and can tell him how you’ve seen me. You can give him all the latest news, too, about his own wife. He’ll be glad to hear about her, poor woman.” Mr. Peacocke listened to this without saying a word since that last exclamation of his. It might be true. Why should it not be true? If in truth there had been these two cousins of the same name, what could be more likely than that his money should be lured out of him by such a fraud as this? But yet—yet, as he came to think of it all, it
