“Desperate business, indeed! What nonsense is this? There’s nothing desperate about it, nothing whatever. Here’s the affair in a nutshell: you wait in your room till the clock strikes midnight; then you kick off your shoes, steal downstairs in the dark, and make your way to the study. Then you open the slide of your dark lantern and proceed to manipulate your picklocks. After a minute or two the lock yields to your coaxing; you open the drawer and there lies the key you want, ready to your hand. Five minutes later the bonds are yours. By half-past twelve you are not merely back in your own room, but in bed and asleep. Voilà tout! Desperate business, quotha!”
For sole reply Luigi shrugged his shoulders and spread out the palms of his hands with one of those indescribable gestures which an Englishman may perhaps caricature, but cannot even passably imitate.
Although Captain Verinder had had no intimation to that effect, he was quite aware that his visit was expected to come to an end some time between breakfast and luncheon. Accordingly, as soon as the former meal was over, he proceeded to make his adieux. Having said goodbye to Lady Pell and Miss Thursby, he turned to Sir Gilbert, who had already rung the bell and ordered the dog-cart to be brought round, and who now accompanied him as far as the entrance hall, with Luigi bringing up the rear. While waiting they chatted about the weather and other indifferent topics. Presently the dog-cart drove up and Luigi flung wide the door. Then Sir Gilbert, drawing himself up and putting on his most grandiose manner, said, “We shall look to see you again at Withington Chase before very long, Captain Verinder.” It was vague and yet sufficiently courteous. Then, as the Captain bowed and murmured his thanks: “I need scarcely tell you how very much obliged I am to you for the care and attention you have lavished on my grandson during the time he has been under your charge, and, as a proof that such is the case, I trust you will do me the favour of accepting this trifling recognition at my hands.”
As the Baronet turned back into the house after favouring Verinder with a parting wave of the hand as the latter was being driven off, he muttered to himself: “I can’t help it, I really can’t, but I do not like that man. Of course it’s the sheerest prejudice on my part, and, knowing it to be such, I am all the more bound to do my best to get the better of it.”
When Captain Verinder opened the envelope which the Baronet had pressed into his hand at parting, he found inside it a cheque for thirty guineas. “A thousand thanks, my dear Sir Gilbert!” he exclaimed with a chuckle. “I don’t mind how often you employ me on the same terms. You are obliged to me for the care and attention I have lavished on your grandson, eh? What a pity, in one sense, it is that one dare not enlighten you about the little Brussels episode!”
In accordance with the plan agreed upon between himself and his nephew, the Captain took the first train up to town, but only to return to Mapleford in the course of the forenoon of the following day, bringing with him a set of picklocks, a dark lantern and an old portmanteau. He again took up his quarters at the Crown and Cushion hotel, where Luigi called upon him in the course of the afternoon. Then was the purpose for which the portmanteau had been brought from London made manifest, which was to enable Verinder to give his nephew an object-lesson in the art of lock-picking, in which the latter proved himself no inapt pupil.
The day was Saturday, and it was decided that the attempt should be made the following night, because it was an understood thing at the Chase that on Sundays the house should be shut up and every one retire an hour earlier than on week-day nights. Supposing that all should go off successfully, Luigi would conceal the stolen securities in his own room till the morrow, taking the first opportunity that should offer to make his way with them to the Crown and Cushion, where his uncle would relieve him of them, and at once hurry off to London, there to negotiate the sale of them through that “safe channel” of which he had previously made mention to his nephew. The Captain did not let Luigi go without once more impressing on him that, if he only carried out to the letter the instructions laid down for him and did not lose his nerve, he ran absolutely no risk of detection. On the other hand, should the scheme, through some blunder on his part, prove abortive, he must be prepared to accept the consequences. In that case, the whole discreditable transaction with Mr. Henriques, and what gave rise to it, would inevitably be brought to Sir Gilbert’s notice, with a result which it was impossible to foresee, but which, in any case, must prove nothing short of disastrous.
Never before had Luigi Rispani spent so miserable a Sunday, and yet it came to an end all too soon for him.
At the usual hour everybody retired; indeed, Luigi had crept away some time before without bidding goodnight to anyone. With his ulster wrapped round him—for the autumn nights were chilly—and lighted by a solitary candle, he sat shivering and quaking in his bedroom, waiting for the stroke of midnight. It came, after what seemed an interminable time, a thin tinkle of sound from the old case-clock on the gallery staircase. With the last stroke he stood up, dropped the ulster off his shoulders, and slipped his feet out of his patent shoes. Then he unlocked his portmanteau and took therefrom the bunch of picklocks, the dark lantern, and a travelling flask filled with brandy, into the cup of which he poured a liberal measure of the spirit and drank it off without drawing breath. Then he set light to the wick of the lantern, shut the slide, and put it into one of the pockets of his velvet lounging jacket, and the picklocks into the other. That done, he blew out the candle, crossed to the door, opened it and stood listening intently for fully a couple of minutes. Then he stepped out into the pitch-dark corridor and drew the door to after him. Traversing the corridor with noiseless footsteps, he emerged on the gallery which overlooked the entrance hall. Here he paused to listen again, but darkness and silence had the mansion to themselves. It was the work of a minute to cross the gallery, pass swiftly down the broad old stairs and so into the right-hand corridor on the ground floor, the second door in which was that of Sir Gilbert’s study. By this time Luigi’s heart was palpitating at such a rate that he was compelled to pause for a few moments with his fingers on the handle of the door till its beatings had slackened. Then he pushed open the door and went in.
Again he waited, scarcely breathing, while one might have counted six slowly. Then, drawing forth his lantern, he pushed the slide halfway back and shot a gleam of light around. All the familiar features of the room were there just as he had seen them last.