“The gentleman’s inside the dhrawin-room, surr.”
This from the ex-Royal Irish, who has again presented himself, saluting.
“Don’t yield the Sassenach an inch?” counsels the Major, a little of the old Celtic hostility stirring within him. “If he demand explanations, hand him over to me. I’ll give them to his satisfaction. So, old fellow, be firm!”
“Never fear!” returns Ryecroft, as he steps out to receive the unexpected visitor, whose business with him he fully believes to have reference to Gwendoline Wynn.
And so has it. But not in the sense he anticipates, nor about the scene on which his thoughts have dwelt. George Shenstone is not there to call him to account for angry words, or rudeness of behaviour. Something more serious; since it was the baronet’s son who left Llangorren Court in company with the plain clothes policeman. The latter is still along with him; though not inside the house. He is standing upon the street at a convenient distance; though not with any expectation of being called in, or required for any farther service now, professionally. Holding no writ, nor the right to serve such if he had it, his action hitherto has been simply to assist Mr Shenstone in finding the man suspected of either abduction or murder. But as neither crime is yet proved to have been committed, much less brought home to him, the English policeman has no further errand in Boulogne—while the English gentleman now feels that his is almost as idle and aimless. The impulse which carried him thither, though honourable and gallant, was begot in the heat of blind passion. Gwen Wynn having no brother, he determined to take the place of one, his father not saying nay. And so resolved he had set out to seek the supposed criminal, “interview” him, and then act according to the circumstances, as they should develop themselves.
In the finding of his man he has experienced no difficulty. Luggage labelled “Langham Hotel, London,” gave him hot scent, as far as the grand caravanserai at the bottom of Portland Place. Beyond it was equally fresh, and lifted with like ease. The traveller’s traps re-directed at the Langham “Paris via Folkestone and Boulogne”—the new address there noted by porters and traffic manager—was indication sufficient to guide George Shenstone across the Channel; and cross it he did by the next day’s packet for Boulogne.
Arrived in the French seaport, he would have gone straight on to Paris—had he been alone. But accompanied by the policeman the result was different. This—an old dog of the detective breed—soon as setting foot on French soil, went sniffing about among serjents de ville and douaniers, the upshot of his investigations being to bring the chase to an abrupt termination—he finding that the game had gone no further. In short, from information received at the Custom House, Captain Ryecroft was run to earth in the Rue Tintelleries, under the roof of Major Mahon.
And now that George Shenstone is himself under it, having sent in his card, and been ushered into the drawing-room, he does not feel at his ease; instead greatly embarrassed. Not from any personal fear; he has too much “pluck” for that. It is a sense of delicacy, consequent upon some dread of wrong doing. What, after all, if his suspicions prove groundless, and it turn out that Captain Ryecroft is entirely innocent? His heart, torn by sorrow, exasperated with anger, starting away from Herefordshire he did not thus interrogate. Then he supposed himself in pursuit of an abductor, who, when overtaken, would be found in the company of the abducted.
But, meanwhile, both his suspicions and sentiments have undergone a change. How could they otherwise? He pursued, has been travelling openly and without any disguise, leaving traces at every turn and deflection of his route, plain as fingerposts! A man guilty of aught illegal—much more one who has committed a capital crime—would not be acting thus? Besides, Captain Ryecroft has been journeying alone, unaccompanied by man or woman; no one seen with him until meeting his friend, Major Mahon, on the packet landing at Boulogne!
No wonder that Mr Shenstone, now au fait to all this—easily ascertained along the route of travel—feels that his errand is an awkward one. Embarrassed when ringing Major Mahon’s door bell, he is still more so inside that room, while awaiting the man to whom his card has been taken. For he has intruded himself into the house of a gentleman a perfect stranger to himself—to call his guest to account! The act is inexcusable, rude almost to grotesqueness!