“This,” said the Duchess, “is no news to me.”
“No,” said the money-lender; “but it may be news to your Grace that, though we couldn’t lay our ‘ands on the Captain himself, we got hold of all his luggage. Not much there that was of any marketable value, except a silver-gilt toilet-set. But there was a packet of letters in a Russia writin’-case with a patent lock, all of ’em written in the large-sized, square ’and peculiar to the leadin’ female aristocracy, and signed ‘Ethelwyne,’ or merely ‘E.’”
“And this discovery procures me the pleasure of this interview?” remarked the Duchess. “The letters are mine—you come on the errand of a blackmailer. I have only one thing to wonder at, and that is—why you have not come before?”
“Myself and partner thought, as honorable men of business, it would be better to approach the Captain first,” explained the usurer. “His mother died the week he sailed for Africa, and left him ten thousand pounds. We ’astened to communicate with him, but——”
“But he had been killed meanwhile,” said the Duchess. “You would have had the money he owed—or did not owe—you, and your price for the letters, had you reached him in time; but you did not, and your goods are left upon your hands. Why, as honorable men of business”—her lovely lip curled—“did you not take them at once to the Duke?”
Mr. Moss Rubelius seemed for the first time a little nonplussed. He looked down at his large, shiny boots, and the sight did not appear to relieve him.
“I will be quite plain with your Grace.”
“Pray endeavor!” said the Duchess.
“The letters are—to put it delicately—not compromising enough. They’re more,” said Mr. Rubelius, “the letters a school-girl at Brighton would write to her music-master, supposing him to be young and possessed of a pair of cavalry legs and a moustache. There’s fuel in ’em for a First-Class Connubial Row,” continued Mr. Rubelius, “but not material for a Domestic Upheaval—followed by an Action for Divorce. As a man, no longer, but once in business—for within this last month our firm has dissolved, and myself and my partner have retired upon our means—this is my opinion with regard to these letters in your Grace’s handwriting, addressed to the late Captain Sir H. Delaving: The Duke, I believe, would only laugh at ’em.”
The Duchess started violently, and seemed about to speak.