“And when does the next train start?” Guy inquired, all on fire.
The porter, consulting the time-table in the muddle-headed way peculiar to railway porters, and stroking his chin with his hand to assist cerebration, announced, after a severe internal struggle, that the 3.45 down, slow, was the earliest train available.
There was nothing for it then, Guy perceived, but to run home to his rooms, possessing his soul in patience, pack up a few things in his Gladstone bag, and return at his leisure to catch the down train thus unfavourably introduced to his critical notice.
If Guy had dared, to be sure, he might have gone straight to a police-station, and got an inspector to telegraph along the line to stop the thief with his booty at Basingstoke or Salisbury. But Guy didn’t dare. For to interfere with Nevitt now by legal means would be to risk the discovery of his own share in the forgery. And from that risk the startled and awakened young man shrank for a thousand reasons; though the chief among them all was certainly one that never would have occurred to any one but himself as even probable.
He didn’t wish Elma Clifford to know that the man she loved, and the man who loved her, had become that day a forger’s brother.
To be sure, he had only seen Elma once—that afternoon at the Holkers’ garden-party. But, as Cyril himself knew, he had fallen in love with her at first sight—far more immediately, indeed, than even Cyril himself had done. Blood, as usual, was thicker than water. The points that appealed to one brother appealed also to the other, but with this characteristic difference, that Guy, who was the more emotional and less strong-willed of the two, yielded himself up at the very first glance to the beautiful stranger, while Cyril required some further acquaintance before quite giving way and losing his heart outright to her. And from that first meeting forward, Guy had carried Elma Clifford’s image engraved upon his memory—as he would carry it, he believed, to his dying day. Not, to be sure, that he ever thought for a moment of endeavouring to win her away from his brother. She was Cyril’s discovery, and to Cyril, therefore, he yielded her up, as of prior right, though with a pang of reluctance. But now that he stood face to face at last with his own accomplished crime, the first thought that rose in his mind spontaneous was for Elma’s happiness. He must never let Elma Clifford know that the man she loved, and would doubtless marry, was now by HIS act—a forger’s brother.
Three forty-five arrived at last, and Guy set off, all trembling, on his fatal quest. As he sped along, indignant at heart with Nevitt’s black treachery, on the line to Plymouth, he had plenty of time to revolve these things abundantly in his own soul. And when, after a long and dusty drive, he reached Plymouth, late at night, he could learn nothing for the moment about Montague Nevitt’s movements. So he was forced to go quietly for the evening to the Duke of Devonshire Hotel, and there wait as best he might to see how events would next develop themselves.
A day passed away—two days—but nothing turned up. Guy wasted much time in Plymouth making various inquiries before he learnt at last that a man with a queer look about the eyes, and a moustache with waxed ends, had gone down a night or so earlier by the other line to a station at the foot of Dartmoor, by the name of Mambury.
No sooner, however, had he learnt this promising news, than he set off at once, hot at heart as ever, to pursue the robber. That wretch shouldn’t get away scot free with his booty; Guy would follow him and denounce him to the other end of the universe! When he reached Mambury, he went direct to the village inn and asked, with trembling lips, if Mr. Montague Nevitt was at present staying there. The landlord shook his head with a stubborn, rustic negative. “No, we arn’t a-got no gentleman o’ thik there name in the house,” he said; “fact is, zur, to tell ‘ee the truth, we arn’t a-had nobody stoppin’ in the Arms at all lately, ‘cep’ it might be a gentleman come down from London, an’ it was day afore yesterday as he did come, an’ he do call ‘unself McGregor.”
Quick as lightning, Guy suspected Nevitt might be passing under a false name. What more likely, indeed, seeing he had made off with Guy’s three thousand pounds?