The paper was more than a week old. The adjourned inquiry must have been held a day or two ago. Desrolles sat staring at the page in a half stupid wonderment, his brain bemused with absinthe, trying to consider what effect this arrest of John Treverton might exercise upon his own fortunes.
There was no mention of his own name in the report. So far he was entirely ignored. So far he felt himself safe.
Yet there was no knowing what might happen. An investigation of this kind once commenced, might extend its ramifications in the widest directions.
‘It is a pity,’ Desrolles said to himself. ‘The business was so comfortably settled. It must be the parson’s son, that young coxcomb I saw in Devonshire, who has set the thing moving again.’
His life in Paris suited him, it was indeed the only kind of life he cared for; yet so much was he disturbed by the idea of possible revelations to which this new inquiry might lead, that he began to consider the prudence of going further afield.
‘America is the place,’ he said to himself. ‘Some sea-coast city in South America would suit me down to the ground. But that kind of life would only be comfortable with an assured income; and how am I to feel sure of my income if I leave Europe? As to Treverton being in trouble—I can afford to take that coolly. They can’t hang him. The evidence against him is not strong enough to hang a mongrel dog. No, unless other names are brought up, the thing must blow over. But if I put the high seas between Mr. and Mrs. Treverton and me, how can I be sure of my pension? They may snap their fingers at me when I am on the other side of the herring-pond.’
This was a serious consideration, yet Desrolles had a lurking conviction that it would be wise for him to get to America as soon as he could. Paris might suit him admirably, but Paris was unpleasantly near London. The police of the two cities were doubtless in frequent communication.
He went to a shipping office, and got the time bill of the American steamers that were to sail from Havre during the next six weeks. He carried this document about with him for two or three days, and studied it frequently in his quiet moments. He knew the names of the steamers and their tonnage by heart, but he had not yet made up his mind to which vessel he would entrust himself and his fortunes. There was La Reine Blanche, which sailed for Valparaiso in a week’s time. There was the Zenobie, which sailed for Rio Janeiro in a fortnight. He was divided between these two.
He told himself that he must have an outfit of some kind for his voyage. This and his passage would cost at least fifty pounds. Of the hundred which John Treverton had given him he had only sixty remaining.
‘There will not be much left by the time I get to the south,’ he said to himself. ‘But I don’t think Laura will throw me over. Besides, if the money is paid to my account in Shepherd’s Inn—the Trevertons need never know my whereabouts.’