“It might seem curious to you, sir, but I’ve seen a good deal of professional gentlemen in my time, and it didn’t strike me as very uncommon. Gentlemen have their own reasons for what they do, and the more particular they are from a professional point of view the more convenient they may find it to make a little alteration in their names now and again.”
Mrs. Dugget looked at him with a significant shrewdness, which gave her the air of a female Mephistopheles, a creature deeply versed in all things evil.
“Did your curiosity prompt you to try and verify your suspicions?” he asked.
The old woman looked at him searchingly before she answered, as if trying to discover what value there might be for him in any information she had it in her power to give or to withhold. So far she had been carried along by her inherent love of gossip, stimulated by the wish to stand well with her daughter’s employer, and perhaps with a view to such small amenities as a pound of tea or a bottle of whisky. But at this point something in Theodore’s earnest manner suggested to her that her knowledge of his kinsman’s life might have a marketable value, and she therefore became newly reticent.
“It doesn’t become me to talk about a gentleman like Mr. Dalbrook, your namesake and blood relation, too, sir,” she said, folding her rheumatic hands meekly. “I’m afraid I’ve made too free with my tongue already.”
Theodore did not answer her immediately. He took a letter-case from his breast-pocket, and slowly and deliberately extracted two crisp bank-notes from one of the divisions. These he opened and spread calmly and carefully on the table, smoothing out their crisp freshness, which crackled under his hand.
There is something very pleasant in the aspect of a new bank-note; money created expressly, as it were, for the first owner; virgin wealth, pure and uncontaminated by the dealings of the multitude. These were only five-pound notes, it is true, the lowest in the scale of English paper-money—in the eye of a millionaire infinitesimal as the grains of sand on the sea-shore—yet to Mrs. Dugget those two notes lying on the table in front of her suggested vast wealth. It is doubtful if she had ever seen two notes together in the whole of her previous experience. Her largest payment was a quarter’s rent, her largest receipt had been a quarter’s wages. She had managed to save a little money in the course of her laborious days, but her savings had been accumulated in sovereigns and half-sovereigns, which had been promptly transferred to the savings bank. Bank-notes to her mind were the symbols of surplus wealth.
“Now, I am not going to beat about the bush, Mrs. Dugget,” said Theodore, with a matter-of-fact air. “I have a great respect for my kinsman, Lord Cheriton, who has been a kind friend to me. You may be assured, therefore, that if I am curious about his past life, I mean him no harm. I have reasons of my own, which it is not convenient for me to explain, for wanting to know all about his early struggles, his friends, and his enemies. I feel perfectly sure that you followed up your discovery of those envelopes—that you took the trouble to find Myrtle Cottage, and to ascertain the kind of people who lived there.” Her face told him that he was right. “If you choose to be frank with me, and tell me all you can, those two five-pound notes are very much at your service. If you prefer to hold your tongue, I can only wish you good afternoon, and try to make my discoveries unaided, which will not be very easy after a lapse of over twenty years.”
“I don’t want to keep any useful information from you, sir, provided you’ll promise not to let anything I may tell you get to Lady Cheriton’s ears. I shouldn’t like to make unhappiness between man and wife.”
“I promise that Lady Cheriton shall not be made unhappy by any indiscretion of mine.”