"No, dear sir, thank you very much. I am willing to allow that the whole thing was done extremely well, and without causing the smallest suspicion in the mind of little Ally; but you paid me the money because you could not help it, and you will have to pay me a great deal more for that very same reason. You're a very great scoundrel, John Claxton, Esquire; a much greater scoundrel than I am, though I have taken your money, and have not the remotest intention of becoming your agent in Ceylon. You're a cold-blooded villain, sir, carrying out your own selfish ends, and not, like myself, a generous creature, acting upon impulse. Notwithstanding the fact that I have your money in my pocket, I almost grudge you the satisfaction you will experience when, in the course of to-morrow or the next day, you will hear the news which will lead you to imagine that you are rid of me for ever. But I console myself with the reflection, that when I turn up again, as I undoubtedly shall, your disgust will be proportionately intensified.
"There," as he selected two or three papers from a mass before him and carefully tore the rest into pieces, "there is the letter relating to the document which has already done so much for me, and which is to be my philosopher's-stone. I must not run the chances of wetting and spoiling that paper when I take my midnight bath, so I shall hand it over to Mrs. D. when I give her the money to take care of. May as well put a seal on it though, for Mrs. D. is naturally curious, and as jealous as a female Othello. One o'clock; just the time I promised to meet her. Now then, the money in this pocket, the letter in that, and the other papers torn up, and the brandy-bottle emptied. What you may call a clean sweep of the whole concern."
After settling his hat to his satisfaction, and looking at himself in the glass with great complacency, Tom Durham strolled from the room, leaving the door wide open behind him. He nodded familiarly to a waiter whom he passed in the passage, but who, instead of returning the salutation, stared at him in wrathful wonder--they were unaccustomed to such gentry at Radley's--and then he passed into the street. Looking leisurely around him, he made his way back again to the promenade on which he had held his conversation with Alice Claxton, and there, standing by one of the cannon, was another woman, apparently awaiting his arrival. A woman about thirty years of age, with swarthy complexion, bright beady black eyes, and dull blue-black hair. French, without doubt. French in the fashion of her inexpensive garments and the manner in which they were put on; undeniably French in her boots and gloves, in her gait, in the gesture and recognition which she made when she saw Tom Durham approaching her. That estimable gentleman, apparently, was displeased at this gesture, for he frowned when he saw it, and when he arrived at the woman's side, he said, "Don't be so infernally demonstrative, Pauline; I have told you of that before."
"Mais, should I stand like a stone or stock when you come before me?" said the woman, with the slightest trace of a foreign accent. "I was longing to see you, and you came. Is it, then, astonishing--"
"No, all right; don't jaw," said Tom Durham shortly. "Only, in our position it is not advisable to attract more notice than necessary. Well, here you are."
"Yes, I am here."
"All goes well; I told you there was an old gentleman--Claxton by name--connected with Calverley's firm, for which I'm supposed to be going out as agent, from whom I could get a sum of money, and I have got it--he sent it to me."
"Ah, ah, he sent it to you?"
"Yes, by--by a messenger whom he could trust; and this is not by any means the last that I shall have from him. He thinks I am off for the East, and that he is rid of me; but as soon as this sum is spent, he shall know the difference."
"You have made the arrangements about that?"