II
Clement wanted to say that even lawyers went mad sometimes, but the little man hurled himself along.
“I’m a lawyer. I’m her lawyer. I’m your lawyer, too—one of them. That’s luck. When I saw you come out of the train with her, saw that you knew her, I noted that down as a piece of luck. You see I knew you were all right. Knew that through business—oh, I’m a partner of Rigby & Root.”
“My lawyers!” cried Clement.
“Yes! Yes! Haven’t I been telling you that? We’re her lawyers, too. When I saw you together, I said to myself, ‘Good, that’s a second line of defense. If I fail to bring her to reason I fall back on Clement Seadon—Mr. Clement Seadon. He’ll be my second line. Good fellow. Good family. Young, attractive, handsome to the eye. Has wits. Has capacity. Has a brain in his head. Has pluck and physical strength, too. Can carry a thing through in spite of danger.’ ...”
As he said that, his rapid eye glinted on Clement. He was staccato, but he was not stupid. Clement stiffened. He was the type of clean, young Anglo-Saxon who did stiffen at the hint of danger. The type that goes about quietly, calmly avoiding trouble—but is not really heartbroken when trouble comes along. The little lawyer saw Clement stiffen, he chuckled internally and continued his express monologue.
“That’s what I said to myself when I saw you. I said, ‘Mr. Clement Seadon has all the qualities necessary. An admirable second line of defense. And well-off, too. Rich. He’s not an adventurer hunting heiresses.’ That’s what I said when I saw you. And I went off to Heloise Reys’ cabin and tried to bring her to reason. Oh, I strove. I strove. I talked my best.”
He stopped and waved his umbrella in a gesture of hopelessness.
“You strove, and strove—and then had to fall back on your second line,” said Clement, helping him out.
Clement’s mind was in a curious condition. He realized that all this was madder than anything had any right to be—and yet he was rather intrigued, rather interested. He could not have told why. The fact that the little man was a lawyer, and his own lawyer at that, may have been the reason. Or it may have been that suggestion of danger, of adventure, called to that instinct lying dormant in the young of Clement’s race. Whatever it was, mad though he felt the whole business to be, he sat and listened.
The lawyer said, “You are right. I could do nothing with her. I failed. I could not bring her to reason. She is so quixotic. So headstrong. She has the wrongest sense of what is right.... And then I have no proofs. Only fears, only suspicions. I couldn’t clinch the matter with her. I couldn’t bring home anything to her.”
“And what were you trying to bring home to her?” demanded Clement, who really thought he was entitled to some explanation.
“Bring home to her? The truth about that scamp. I was trying to make her see that she should not go out to Canada to marry him.”
Clement gasped. Also he felt a little stab of pain. Heloise was certainly most extraordinarily attractive.
“Marry him? Marry whom? Haven’t you just been insisting that she should marry me?”
“Of course,” shouted the little man. “That’s it. That’s what I’m driving at.”
“But what are you driving at?” gasped Clement. “First you tell me to get her to marry me, then you tell me she is going to marry some one else.”
“Perfectly true,” said the little man. “She is making this journey to Canada to marry some one else, a man named Henry Gunning.”
Clement fell back, too, staggered for thought. “Are you a lawyer,” he demanded, “or are you an apostle of the Mormons?”
The little lawyer rushed over to Clement and caught him by the lapel of his coat. “No! no! no!” he cried. “Please do understand. It is this hurry that has made everything so complicated. She is going to Canada to marry Henry Gunning. But she must not marry him. She must be prevented. That’s what I want you to do. I want you to make her marry you in order that she won’t marry Gunning.”
“And why shouldn’t she marry the man she wants to?” Clement demanded.
“Because,” said the lawyer, speaking earnestly and impressively, “because it’s a swindle. She’s got into the hands of rogues, of swindlers, of criminals. Of that I am sure. The whole thing is terribly evil. And she must be saved. You must save her.”
Clement was about to answer. There was a knock on the cabin door. Clement called, “Come in.”
The door opened about a foot. An evil and repulsive face looked in. The little eyes in the ugly face swiveled all round the cabin in a swift, furtive glance. They took in Clement; they took in the little lawyer. A palish tongue licked purple, dry lips. A husky voice croaked, “Beg pardin, sir!”
The little lawyer snapped, “What do you want, man?”
“Beg pardin,” said the hoarse voice again. “Just looking round ter see if all visitors is ashore. Bedroom steward, sir.”
The fully opened door revealed the white coat and bobbly trousers of a veritable bedroom steward.
“All right, my man,” said the little lawyer, “I’m going ashore in a minute.”
“Ha,” said the steward, coming in with the satisfaction on his face such as policemen wear when they catch an authentic burglar. “Should be ashore. Orders is that all visitors sh’d be ashore. Come this way, sir. Quick, please, sir.”
“I’m going ashore in a minute,” said the little lawyer.
“Orders, sir. Gotter be now, sir.”
“Get out of this,” snapped the lawyer. “I’ll go ashore before the ship sails, never you fear.”
The steward came forward with an air of menace in his bearing.
“You go ashore, now, see. Them’s me orders, an’ I’ve got to see that it’s done—can’t stop arguing.”
“I don’t want you to,” said the little man decisively. “Particularly as Captain Heavy is the person you should argue with. If Captain Heavy was wrong in saying I could stop aboard, I think you should be the one to tell him, not me.”
“Ca’pen Heavy.... Why didn’t you say that ’efore?” snarled the man. He went sullenly out of the cabin. The little lawyer waited for a minute, then he slipped out, too. He darted up the little alleyway that led to the main passage along the deck. Clement heard him say in a tart voice:
“My good man, I know my way off this ship—you needn’t hang about here waiting to conduct me off.”
In a moment he was back with Clement, talking rapidly again, but this time in a noticeably lowered voice.
“He’s one of them. I thought he was. You’ll have to be on your guard against that steward.”
“One of whom?” asked Clement, trying to keep pace with the happenings. “One of the rogues, do you mean? Good heavens! are you telling me there is a sort of Villains’ Gang of them aboard this ship?”
“I don’t say it,” said the little man grimly, “but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it were so. It’s a big thing, a terribly big thing, my friend, this marriage of Heloise. It is a matter of a million pounds sterling and more.”