Vibert turned suddenly from the fire as he concluded the sentence, and saw his brother stretched on the sofa, quite unconscious of his presence, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHARGED WITH FELONY.
The remarkable circumstances attending the arrest of Vibert Trevor, his high connections, and the official position which his father had for many years held, made the affair in which he was implicated cause a very great sensation in the upper ranks of London society. Never before had the police-court in which Vibert was for the second time to appear been so crowded by the wearers of fashionable bonnets, sable muffs, and ermine tippets. Never before had so many carriages (some of them bearing coronets) blocked up the narrow avenues to the magistrate’s court. The police had some difficulty in clearing a way for aristocratic ladies through crowds of roughs assembled to see “a gent in the hands of the bobbies!” Expectation was on the tiptoe. To many of Vibert’s gay companions—the young men with whom he had played at billiards, the pretty girls with whom he had danced—the sight of him standing at the bar to answer a charge of passing forged notes, gave a thrill of excitement more delightful than could have been afforded by the most sensational novel, or the most charmingly tragical play.
Information was circulated amidst the mixed throng, where news was eagerly passed from mouth to mouth, that the police at Liverpool had been unsuccessful in their attempts to discover and arrest the person who had called himself Colonel Standish. No person of that name, no one answering to the description given of his person, had inquired after the box of jewels at the place to which Vibert was to have sent it. No individual called Standish had taken his passage in any vessel about to sail for America. The police were eagerly on the alert, but had, it was said, discovered no clue that could lead to the arrest of the principal criminal.
“The monkey who used the cat’s paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, has got clear off to the jungle,” observed a fashionable-looking young man, who had been one of Vibert’s most particular friends. “Poor Grimalkin is caught with the nuts in his claws, and will have something to bear in addition to the pain of the burning!” The speaker, as he ended the remark, raised his gold eye-glass to his eyes, to enable him to see more distinctly every nervous twitch on the face of poor Vibert, who, attended by his father, uncle, and brother, at that moment approached the bar.
“Ah! how changed the poor boy looks—how shamefaced!” whispered Alice to a companion; for Alice was there in her fashionable hat with its scarlet feather. “To think that I should have danced and talked nonsense with one who is standing where all the low thieves and pickpockets stand!” The little lady rose on tiptoe to have a better view over the shoulders of those in front of her; but had the grace to hope that the poor prisoner would not turn his eyes in her direction. There was no danger of his so doing, the wretched youth could not raise his eyes from their fixed stare on the floor.
“Vibert’s brother looks more ill than the prisoner does,” observed the companion of Alice; “he has a bandage on his head. One would think that Bruce had been brought to the bar for prize-fighting, or for leading the roughs in a row!”