"You know my wife and daughter?" the Senator asked, sharply. The "tale" was developing on the grand scale, he told himself.
"I have the privilege of knowing Mrs. and Miss Sherman," replied the Duke, flushing under the keen scrutiny to which he was being subjected. "I have also the honor of being their host. They are staying, together with their friends the Sadgroves, at my place in Hertfordshire. I—I came down to meet you in the hope of inducing you to join them there."
"Very good of you. May I ask how you came to make their acquaintance?" asked the Senator, in an arid tone.
"I traveled in the same ship with them from New York, and General Sadgrove, with whom they stayed on arrival, happened to be the uncle of my friend and secretary, Alec Forsyth," Beaumanoir made answer.
An amused twinkle flashed into the Senator's clear eyes. He was quite certain now that the man was an impostor with designs on the three millions. The only spice of truth in the fellow's story, he told himself, probably was that he had sailed in the St. Paul, which would have given him the opportunity of gathering from his wife or Leonie the particulars he was now working on. The Senator had no doubt that if he accompanied this rather poor specimen of a criminal decoy an attempt would be made to relieve him of the bonds—possibly to murder him. It was all a little too thin—especially the dangling of an exalted title as a bait to catch an American. This part of the scheme really annoyed him, as casting on a foible of his fellow-countrymen a reflection which he felt to be not wholly undeserved. The Senator became dangerous.
"Very well, your Grace; if my family is under your roof, it is the right place for me," he said more affably. "I accept your invitation in the spirit in which it is given. I have a matter of three million sterling in securities to get from the bullion-room, and then I'm your man. Kindly wait here."
A grim smile played round the Senator's firm lips when, after going through the needful formalities with the purser, he quitted the steamer's stronghold, carrying the leather despatch-box. He would lead the rascal on, making his mouth water, gently titillate his expectations, and then, having got him fairly on the hooks, hand him over to the police. Delighted with the prospect of thwarting a rogue, he sought his state-room to collect his personal baggage and have it conveyed ashore. The first thing that met his eye on entering the state-room was a letter in his wife's handwriting that had just been delivered.
It bore date of the previous day, and informed him that the writer and Leonie were staying as the guests of the Duke of Beaumanoir at his country seat, Prior's Tarrant. Mrs. Sherman went on to explain the circumstances, so far as she was aware of them, of the invitation, and she wound up with the hope that the Senator would join them immediately on landing. The Duke, who was the embodiment of affability, had cordially expressed that wish, she wrote; without, however, mentioning the Duke's intention of going to Liverpool to meet the Campania.
Senator Sherman read the letter twice, assured himself of the authenticity of the handwriting, examined the postmark, and—made a wry face. It looked as if he had been too hasty in jumping to a conclusion about the young man waiting for him on the hurricane-deck, and he began to regret the curt demeanor he had assumed. He was not quite convinced, however, owing to the absence of any allusion to the Duke meeting him—in itself an extraordinary proceeding. Good republican as he was, the Senator fully appreciated the cleavage of English class distinctions, and he was aware that great nobles do not, as a rule, wait at seaport towns to welcome perfect strangers. It was possible that the depressed individual on deck might, after all, be a criminal who had discovered Mrs. Sherman's visit to the Duke of Beaumanoir and was turning his knowledge to evil account. Still, though caution was called for, his wife's letter invested the man's story with a credibility which it had wholly lacked, and when he rejoined him the Senator's manner was altered accordingly. The Duke having telegraphed for the carriage to meet them at Tarrant Road, they took a cab together to Lime Street station, and were fortunate enough to find a train on the point of starting. It was a corridor express, made up entirely of vestibule cars, and the fact caused the Duke an annoyance which partially revived the Senator's suspicions.
"I don't like this," Beaumanoir said, glancing with what looked very like dismay up and down the well-filled car as they took their seats. "I should have preferred an ordinary first-class compartment that we could have had reserved."