Fiction > Serialisations > London, 1896-1897 - St. Ives > Volume 13

ST. IVES. 411
" True : I had forgotten Clausel." Mr. Romaine stepped to the head of the
stairs, and called down, " Dudgeon ! "
Mr. Dudgeon appeared, and endeavoured to throw into the stiffness of his
salutation a denial that he had ever waltzed with me in the moonlight.
" Where is the man Clausel ? "
" I hardly know, sir, if you would place the wineshop of the Tete d'Or at the
top or the bottom of this street. I presume the top, since the sewer runs in the
other direction. At all events, Mr. Clausel disappeared, about two minutes ago,
in the same direction as the sewer."
Alain sprang up, whistle in hand.
" Put it down," said Mr. Romaine. " The man was cheating you. I can
only hope," he added with a sour smile, '' that you paid him on account with
an I.O.U."
But Alain turned at bay. " One trivial point seems to have escaped you,
master Attorney ; or your courage is more than I give you credit for. The
English are none too popular in Paris as yet, and this is not the most scrupulous
quarter. One blast on this whistle : a cry of ' Espion anglais ! ' and two
Englishmen "
" Say three," Mr. Romaine interrupted, and strode to the door. " Will Mr.
Burchell Fenn be good enough to step upstairs ? "
And here let me cry ' halt ! ' There are things in this world — or that is my
belief — too pitiful to be set down in writing ; and of these Alain's collapse was
one. It may be, too, that Mr. Romaine's British righteousness accorded rather ill
with the weapon he used so unsparingly. Of Fenn I need only say that the
luscious rogue shouldered through the doorway as though he had a public duty to
discharge, and only the contrariness of circumstances had prevented his discharging
it before. He cringed to Mr. Romaine, who held him and the whole nexus of
his villainies in the hollow of his hand : he was even obsequiously eager to denounce
his fellow-traitor. Under a like compulsion, he would (I feel sure) have
denounced his own mother. I saw the sturdy Dudgeon's mouth working like a
bull-terrier's over a shrew mouse. And between them Alain had never a chance.
Not for the first time in this history I found myself all but taking sides with him,
in sheer revulsion against the barbarity of the attack. It seemed it was through
Fenn that Mr. Romaine had first happened on the scent : and the greater rogue
had held back a part of the evidence, and would trade it now — " having been led
astray " — " to any gentleman that would let bygones be bygones." And it was I
at length who interposed, when my cousin was beaten to his knees, and having
dismissed Mr. Burchell Fenn, restored the discussion to a businesslike footing.
The end of it was that Alain renounced all his claims, and accepted a yearly
pension of six thousand francs. Mr. Romaine made it a condition that he should
never set foot again in England ; but seeing that he would certainly be arrested
for debt within twenty-four hours of his landing at Dover, I thought this
unnecessary.
" A good day's work ! " said the lawyer, as we stood together in the street
outside. But I was silent.
" And now, Mr. Anne, if I may have the honour of your company at dinner —
shall we say Tortoni's ? — we will on our way step round to my hotel, the Quatre
Saisuns, behind the Hotel de Ville, and order a caliche and four to be in
readiness.