“You are, without any exception, Mr. D’Almayne, the cleverest man, for your years, that I have ever met with in our profession. I don’t say it to flatter you, sir; but I say it because it is my deliberate conviction. One of your strong points is your clear good sense, and it is to that I am now about to appeal. You have, how I cannot divine, got me completely in your power, and, knowing or suspecting all you say you do, it is useless for me to attempt to deceive you; it is clear you can ruin me if you choose; but how will it advantage you to do so? or, rather, how can you expose me without exciting a host of unpleasant inquiries about yourself? I presume you scarcely wish your connection with the gaming-house in J———— Street published to the world at large, nor would you like too much revealed concerning the private history of the directors and general management of the railway company, and yet I don’t see how you could place me in the hands of justice without my enlightening the public on some of these points. As I am sure you are aware of the force of these remarks, I need say no more; but I put it to you, as a sensible man of the world, will it not be better for me to pay you that £1000, which, I dare say, you can remember, I am indebted to you, for ‘value received,’ we’ll say, and for you to forget that you happened to meet me here to-day?” As he spoke, he fixed his sharp cunning glance upon D’Almayne, as though he would fain read his inmost thoughts; but even to such an old hand as Le Roux the gambler, Horace’s expression was a sealed book. But he was not long in doubt as to the effect of his appeal; for in his usual tone of calm sarcasm, Horace replied—
“Cleverly put, Monsieur Le Roux; but there are two important flaws in your argument. In the first place, your offer proves the truth of my suspicions, only that, as you are not usually famous for the liberality of your disposition, its amount satisfies me that I have rather under than overrated the sum of which you have contrived to gain possession. As to any accusations you can bring against me, I care little or nothing for them; they may be true, but you have damaged your own character so deeply that no one will believe you. You may assert that I am part proprietor of the gambling-house, and you may call Guillemard to prove it; I shall deny the fact, and he will back my denial. You will assert, also, that I have got up this nefarious railroad speculation in order to levant with the capital as soon as I could obtain a sufficient amount to gratify my cupidity; I shall reply that you have done what you accuse me of intending to do, and that I have been the means of bringing you to justice. You will adduce, in proof of your assertion, the fact that I introduced you as a director under the feigned name of Vondenthaler; I shall rebut this accusation by declaring that I had always known you as Vondenthaler, which I believe to be your true name; and that your identity with Le Roux, the croupier, was never even suspected by me. Of course, in these instances, I shall be swearing falsely; you, truly; nevertheless, I shall come off with flying colours, and you will be transported. Telle est la vie! Would you oblige me by ringing that bell twice, for the policeman?”
The transition, from the assurance of successful cunning, to self-distrust, anxiety, rage, despair, which flitted across the sharp but expressive face of Le Roux, showed how strongly D’Almayne’s words had agitated him. For a moment, he stood trembling in every limb, clenching his hands until the nails dug into the flesh; then, carried away, by the impulse of his overpowering terror, he flung himself at Horace D’Almayne’s feet, exclaiming—
“For God’s sake, Mr. D’Almayne, have pity on me! I am an old man, sir; older than I seem. I am sixty-five next month; I am, indeed; and I have led such a wretched, miserable life! I have always been somebody’s tool, somebody’s slave. Sir, I have been for years the victim of a monomania: as a very young man, I lost every halfpenny I possessed (and that was enough to have secured me a competence in some respectable line of life) at the gaming-table; and since that time I have been haunted by the idea that, by intensely studying, and constantly calculating the chances, I should discover some infallible system by which I could not only retrieve my losses, but realize a large fortune. Over and over again have I tried, and over again have I failed; until, at last, experience has brought some little wisdom, even to such a miserable fool as I have proved myself, and I have given up all attempts at discovering a system; but, sir, when this last hope failed me, the little honesty I had left deserted me, and you have divined the result. Mr. D’Almayne, I have a wife and three little innocent children at Brussels; they were to join me in America if this attempt (which they only know of as a mercantile speculation) had proved successful. If I am sent out of this country as a convicted felon, it will break my wife’s heart; and my little children will be left to starve. Mr. D’Almayne, for the love of Heaven, have pity, if not on me, on them!”
During this appeal, Horace remained in an easy and fashionable attitude, with his back against the closed door which detained his captive, and the points of his white and taper fingers inserted in his trousers pockets; at its conclusion, he said, in his usual cool and indifferent manner, “I think, my good friend, you began this harangue with a complimentary appeal to my common sense; not wishing to discredit your flattering opinion, let me ask you, is it likely, that, having toiled and schemed for the last twelve months to bring these two projects of the gambling-house and the railroad company into working (and paying) order, I should allow you to go quietly to America, carrying with you the fruits of my labour, forethought, and sagacity, merely because, when your last subterfuge has failed you, you whine out a beggar’s petition about the love of Heaven, and a wife and three children? Bah! it is childish, it is really too absurd! Still, for old acquaintance sake, I do not want to be hard on you; and if you will do exactly as I shall propose, perhaps there may still remain some middle course, by which such an uncomfortable result as transportation for life may be spared you. What say you?” Poor wretch! his crime discovered, its fearful penalty awaiting him, and the “tender mercies of the wicked” his only hope and refuge—with remorse for the past, and despair for the future, rending his very heart asunder—what remained for him but to give himself up, soul and body, as the dupe, tool, and agent of Horace D’Almayne?
Long and earnest was their conference: the valise was opened; money and papers produced and examined; accounts gone into; arrangements for the present, and schemes for the future, discussed and agreed upon. The result may be summed up in a few words: when the New York packet sailed, at eight o’clock that evening, Le Roux had taken possession of his berth, with his valise considerably lightened; and Horace D’Almayne, having seen his associate safely out of the country, departed by the last train which left for London, some ten thousand pounds richer than he had been on his arrival that morning in the good city of Liverpool!
CHAPTER LIX.—HORACE WEATHERS THE STORM.
Mr. Crane obtained nothing by his visit to the city, except a bad cold, caught in a draughty omnibus, in which he rode because he was too stingy to indulge himself with a cab; all the men he wished to see were out of town, or attending some special appointment, and no information could he obtain in regard to the security of his property invested in the “Direct Overland Route to India Railway” shares, so he returned home in a worse temper than any in which Kate had yet seen him, and led her such a life of misery, during the evening, by means of a process termed, in the patois of back kitchens and washhouses, “nagging” at her, that when she retired to her own room, at ten o’clock, she was so utterly worn out, that she sat down and cried, from sheer nervous depression. If Arthur Hazlehurst could have seen her then, he would scarcely have recognized in that shrinking, trembling, spirit-broken woman, the proud, cold, haughty, beautiful Kate, who had won his heart but to trample on it in her career of worldly ambition;—if he had heard her broken, faltering prayer that death might soon relieve her from the daily, hourly martyrdom of striving to render respect and obedience to a man whom she did not hate, only because hate involves some degree of equality, and Mr. Crane she too utterly despised,—if Arthur could have witnessed her total prostration, mental and bodily, he would scarcely have retained his hard thoughts of her, although the gentler ones which might have replaced them, would, in their way, have been exquisitely painful to him.