SOMEBODY ELSE AT WORK.
They were shut in together: the detective officer, Mr. Carr, and Lord Hartledon. "You may speak freely before this gentleman," observed Mr. Carr, as if in apology for a third being present. "He knows the parties, and is almost as much interested in the affair as I am."
The detective glanced at Lord Hartledon with his deep eyes, but he did not know him, and took out a note-book, on which some words and figures were dotted down, hieroglyphics to any one's eyes but his own. Squaring his elbows on the table, he begun abruptly; and appeared to have a habit of cutting short his words and sentences.
"Haven't succeeded yet as could wish, Mr. Carr; at least not altogether: have had to be longer over it, too, than thought for. George Gordon: Scotch birth, so far as can learn; left an orphan; lived mostly in London. Served time to medical practitioner, locality Paddington. Idle, visionary, loose in conduct, good-natured, fond of roving. Surgeon wouldn't keep him as assistant; might have done it, he says, had G.G. been of settled disposition: saw him in drink three times. Next turns up in Scotland, assistant to a doctor there; name Mair, locality Kirkcudbrightshire. Remained less than a year; left, saying was going to Australia. So far," broke off the speaker, raising his eyes to Mr. Carr's, "particulars tally with the information supplied by you."
"Just so."
"Then my further work began," continued Mr. Green. "Afraid what I've got together won't be satisfactory; differ from you in opinion, at any rate. G.G. went to Australia; no doubt of that; friend of his got a letter or two from him while there: last one enclosed two ten-pound notes, borrowed by G.G. before he went out. Last letter said been up to the diggings; very successful; coming home with his money, mentioned ship he meant to sail in. Hadn't been in Australia twelve months."
"Who was the friend?" asked Mr. Carr.
"Respectable man; gentleman; former fellow-pupil with Gordon in London; in good practice for himself now; locality Kensington. After last letter, friend perpetually looking out for G.G. G.G. did not make his appearance; conclusion friend draws is he did not come back. Feels sure Gordon, whether rich or poor, in ill-report or good-report, would have come direct to him."
"I happen to know that he did come back," said Mr. Carr.
"Don't think it," was the unceremonious rejoinder.
"I know it positively. And that he was in London."
The detective looked over his notes, as if completely ignoring Mr. Carr's words.
"You heard, gentlemen, of that mutiny on board the ship Morning Star, some three years ago? Made a noise at the time."
"Well?"
"Ringleader was this same man, George Gordon."
"No!" exclaimed Mr. Carr.
"No reasonable doubt about it. Friend of his feels none: can't understand how G.G. could have turned suddenly cruel; never was that. Pooh! when men have been leading lawless lives in the bush, perhaps taken regularly to drinking—which G.G. was inclined to before—they're ready for any crime under the sun."
"But how do you connect Gordon with the ringleader of that diabolical mutiny?"
"Easy enough. Same name, George Gordon: wrote to a friend the ship he was coming home in—Morning Star. It was the same; price on G.G.'s head to this day: shouldn't mind getting it. Needn't pother over it, sir; 'twas Gordon: but he'd never put his foot in London."
"If true, it would account for his not showing himself to his friend—assuming that he did come back," observed Mr. Carr.
"Friend says not. Sure that G.G., whatever he might have been guilty of, would go to him direct; knew he might depend on him in any trouble. A proof, he argues, that G.G. never came back."
"But I tell you he did come back," repeated the barrister. "Strange the similarity of name never struck me," he added, turning to Lord Hartledon. "I took some interest in that mutiny at the time; but it never occurred to me to connect this man or his name with it. A noted name, at any rate, if not a very common one."
Lord Hartledon nodded. He had sat silent throughout, a little apart, his face somewhat turned from them, as though the business did not concern him.
"And now I will relate to you what more I know of Gordon," resumed Mr. Carr, moving his chair nearer the detective, and so partially screening Lord Hartledon. "He was in London last year, employed by Kedge and Reck, of Gray's Inn, to serve writs. What he had done with himself from the time of the mutiny—allowing that he was identical with the Gordon of that business—I dare say no one living could tell, himself excepted. He was calling himself Gorton last autumn. Not much of a change from his own name."
"George Gorton," assented the detective.
"Yes, George Gorton. I knew this much when I first applied to you. I did not mention it because I preferred to let you go to work without it. Understand me; that it is the same man, I know; but there are nevertheless discrepancies in the case that I cannot reconcile; and I thought you might possibly arrive at some knowledge of the man without this clue better than with it."
"Sorry to differ from you, Mr. Carr; must hold to the belief that George Gorton, employed at Kedge and Reck's, was not the same man at all," came the cool and obstinate rejoinder. "Have sifted the apparent similarity between the two, and drawn conclusions accordingly."
The remark implied that the detective was wiser on the subject of George Gorton than Mr. Carr had bargained for, and a shadow of apprehension stole over him. It was by no means his wish that the sharp detective and the man should come into contact with each other; all he wanted was to find out where he was at present, not that he should be meddled with. This he had fully explained in the first instance, and the other had acquiesced in his curt way.
"You are thinking me uncommon clever, getting on the track of George Gorton, when nothing on the surface connects him with the man wanted," remarked the detective, with professional vanity. "Came upon it accidentally; as well confess it; don't want to assume more credit than's due. It was in this way. Evening following your instructions, had to see managing clerk of Kedge and Reck; was engaged on a little matter for them. Business over, he asked me if I knew anything of a man named George Gorton, or Gordon—as I seemed to know something of pretty well everybody. Having just been asked here about George Gordon, I naturally connected the two questions together. Inquired of Kimberly why he suspected his clerk Gorton should be Gordon; Kimberly replied he did not suspect him, but a gentleman did, who had been there that day. This put me on Gorton's track."
"And you followed it up?"
"Of course; keeping my own counsel. Took it up in haste, though; no deliberation; went off to Calne, without first comparing notes with Gordon's friend the surgeon."
"To Calne!" explained Mr. Carr, while Lord Hartledon turned his head and took a sharp look at the speaker.
A nod was the only answer. "Got down; thought at first as you do, Mr. Carr, that man was the same, and was on right track. Went to work in my own way; was a countryman just come into a snug bit of inheritance, looking out for a corner of land. Wormed out a bit here and a bit there; heard this from one, that from another; nearly got an interview with my Lord Hartledon himself, as candidate for one of his farms."
"Lord Hartledon was not at Calne, I think," interrupted Mr. Carr, speaking impulsively.
"Know it now; didn't then; and wanted, for own purposes, to get a sight of him and a word with him. Went to his place: saw a queer old creature in yellow gauze; saw my lord's wife, too, at a distance; fine woman; got intimate with butler, named Hedges; got intimate with two or three more; altogether turned the recent doings of Mr. Gorton inside out."
"Well?" said Mr. Carr, in his surprise.
"Care to hear 'em?" continued the detective, after a moment's pause; and a feeling crossed Mr. Carr, that if ever he had a deep man to deal with it was this one, in spite of his apparent simplicity. "Gorton went down on his errand for Kedge and Reck, writ in pocket for Mr. Elster; had boasted he knew him. Can't quite make out whether he did or not; any rate, served writ on Lord Hartledon by mistake. Lordship made a joke of it; took up the matter as a brother ought; wrote himself to Kedge and Reck to get it settled. Brothers quarrelled; day or two, and elder was drowned, nobody seems to know how. Gorton stopped on, against orders from Kimberly; said afterwards, by way of excuse, had been served with summons to attend inquest. Couldn't say much at inquest, or didn't; was asked if he witnessed accident; said 'No,' but some still think he did. Showed himself at Hartledon afterwards trying to get interview with new lord; new lord wouldn't see him, and butler turned him out. Gorton in a rage, went back to inn, got some drink, said he might be able to make his lordship see him yet; hinted at some secret, but too far gone to know what he said; began boasting of adventures in Australia. Loose man there, one Pike, took him in charge, and saw him off by rail for London."
"Yes?" said Mr. Carr, for the speaker had stopped.
"That's pretty near all as far as Gorton goes. Got a clue to an address in London, where he might be heard of: got it oddly, too; but that's no matter. Came up again and went to address; could learn nothing; tracked here, tracked there, both for Gordon and Gorton; found Gorton disappeared close upon time he was cast adrift by Kimberly. Not in London as far as can be traced; where gone, can't tell yet. So much done, summed up my experiences and came here to-day to state them."
"Proceed," said Mr. Carr.
The detective put his note-book in his pocket, and with his elbows still on the table, pressed his fingers together alternately as he stated his points, speaking less abruptly than before.
"My conclusion is—the Gordon you spoke to me about was the Gordon who led the mutiny on board the Morning Star; that he never, after that, came back to England; has never been heard of, in short, by any living soul in it. That the Gorton employed by Kedge and Reck was another man altogether. Neither is to be traced; the one may have found his grave in the sea years ago; the other has disappeared out of London life since last October, and I can't trace how or where."
Mr. Carr listened in silence. To reiterate that the two men were identical, would have been waste of time, since he could not avow how he knew it, or give the faintest clue. The detective himself had unconsciously furnished a proof.
"Will you tell me your grounds for believing them to be different men?" he asked.
"Nay," said the keen detective, "the shortest way would be for you to give me your grounds for thinking them to be the same."
"I cannot do it," said Mr. Carr. "It might involve—no, I cannot do it."
"Well, I suspected so. I don't mind mentioning one or two on my side. The description of Gorton, as I had it from Kimberly, does not accord with that of Gordon as given me by his friend the surgeon. I wrote out the description of Gorton, and took it to him. 'Is this Gordon?' I asked. 'No, it is not,' said he; and I'm sure he spoke the truth."
"Gordon, on his return from Australia, might be a different-looking man from the Gordon who went to it."
"And would be, no doubt. But see here: Gorton was not disguised; Gordon would not dare to be in London without being so; his head's not worth a day's purchase. Fancy his walking about with only one letter in his name altered! Rely upon it, Mr. Carr, you are mistaken; Gordon would no more dare come back and put his head into the lion's mouth than you'd jump into a fiery furnace. He couldn't land without being dropped upon: the man was no common offender, and we've kept our eyes open. And that's all," added the detective, after a pause. "Not very satisfactory, is it, Mr. Carr? But, such as it is, I think you may rely upon it, in spite of your own opinion. Meanwhile, I'll keep on the look-out for Gorton, and tell you if he turns up."
The conference was over, and Mr. Green took his departure. Thomas Carr saw him out himself, returned and sat down in a reverie.
"It's a curious tale," said Lord Hartledon.
"I'm thinking how the fact, now disclosed, of Gordon's being Gordon of the mutiny, affects you," remarked Mr. Carr.
"You believe him to be the same?"
"I see no reason to doubt it. It's not probable that two George Gordons should take their passage home in the Morning Star. Besides, it explains points that seemed incomprehensible. I could not understand why you were not troubled by this man, but rely upon it he has found it expedient to go into effectual hiding, and dare not yet come out of it. This fact is a very great hold upon him; and if he turns round on you, you may keep him in check with it. Only let me alight on him; I'll so frighten him as to cause him to ship himself off for life."
"I don't like that detective's having gone down to Calne," remarked Lord Hartledon.
Neither did Mr. Carr, especially if Gordon, or Gorton, should have become talkative, as there was reason to believe he had.
"Gordon is in England, and in hiding; probably in London, for there's no place where you may hide so effectually. One thing I am astonished at: that he should show himself openly as George Gorton."
"Look here, Carr," said Lord Hartledon, leaning forward; "I don't believe, in spite of you and the detective, that Gordon, our Gordon, was the one connected with the mutiny. I might possibly get a description of that man from Gum of Calne; for his son was coming home in the same ship—was one of those killed."
"Who's Gum of Calne?"
"The parish clerk, and a very respectable man. Mirrable, our housekeeper whom you have seen, is related to them. Gum went to Liverpool at the time, I know, and saw the remnant of the passengers those pirates had spared; he was sure to hear a full description of Gordon. If ever I visit Hartledon again I'll ask him."
"If ever you visit Hartledon again!" echoed Mr. Carr. "Unless you leave the country—as I advise you to do—you cannot help visiting Hartledon."
"Well, I would almost as soon be hanged!" cried Val. "And now, what do you want me for, and why have you kept me here?"
Mr. Carr drew his chair nearer to Lord Hartledon. They alone knew their own troubles, and sat talking long after the afternoon was over. Mr. Taylor came to the room; it was past his usual hour of departure.
"I suppose I can go, sir?"
"Not just yet," replied Mr. Carr.
Hartledon took out his watch, and wondered whether it had been galloping, when he saw how late it was. "You'll come home and dine with me, Carr?"
"I'll follow you, if you like," was the reply. "I have a matter or two to attend to first."
A few minutes more, and Lord Hartledon and his care went out. Mr. Carr called in his clerk.
"I want to know how you came to learn that the man I asked you about, Gordon, was employed by Kedge and Reck?"
"I heard it through a man named Druitt," was the ready answer. "Happening to ask him—as I did several people—whether he knew any George Gordon, he at once said that a man of that name was at Kedge and Reck's, where Druitt himself had been temporarily employed."
"Ah," said Mr. Carr, remembering this same Druitt had been mentioned to him. "But the man was called Gorton, not Gordon. You must have caught up the wrong name, Taylor. Or perhaps he misunderstood you. That's all; you may go now."
The clerk departed. Mr. Carr took his hat and followed him down; but before joining Lord Hartledon he turned into the Temple Gardens, and strolled towards the river; a few moments of fresh air—fresh to those hard-worked denizens of close and crowded London—seemed absolutely necessary to the barrister's heated brain.
He sat down on a bench facing the water, and bared his brow to the breeze. A cool head, his; never a cooler brought thought to bear upon perplexity; nevertheless it was not feeling very collected now. He could not reconcile sundry discrepancies in the trouble he was engaged in fathoming, and he saw no release whatever for Lord Hartledon.
"It has only complicated the affair," he said, as he watched the steamers up and down, "this calling in Green the detective, and the news he brings. Gordon the Gordon of the mutiny! I don't like it: the other Gordon, simple enough and not bad-hearted, was easy to deal with in comparison; this man, pirate, robber, murderer, will stand at nothing. We should have a hold on him, it's true, in his own crime; but what's to prevent his keeping himself out of the way, and selling Hartledon to another? Why he has not sold him yet, I can't think. Unless for some reason he is waiting his time."
He put on his hat and began to count the barges on the other side, to banish thought. But it would not be banished, and he fell into the train again.
"Mair's behaving well; with Christian kindness; but it's bad enough to be even in his power. There's something in Lord Hartledon he 'can't help loving,' he writes. Who can? Here am I, giving up circuit—such a thing as never was heard of—calling him friend still, and losing my rest at night for him! Poor Val! better he had been the one to die!"
"Please, sir, could you tell us the time?"
The spell was broken, and Mr. Carr took out his watch as he turned his eyes on a ragged urchin who had called to him from below.
The tide was down; and sundry Arabs were regaling their naked feet in the mud, sporting and shouting. The evening drew in earlier than they did, and the sun had already set.
Quitting the garden, Mr. Carr stepped into a hansom, and was conveyed to Grafton Street. He found Lord Hartledon knitting his brow over a letter.
"Maude is growing vexed in earnest," he began, looking up at Mr. Carr. "She insists upon knowing the reason that I do not go home to her."
"I don't wonder at it. You ought to do one of two things: go, or—"
"Or what, Carr?"
"You know. Never go home again."
"I wish I was out of the world!" cried the unhappy man.