CHAPTER XVII.
"Dices laborantes in uno
Penelopen vitreamque Circen."--HORAT.
Mrs. Crane found Poole in his little sitting-room, hung round with prints
of opera-dancers, prize-fighters, race-horses, and the dog Billy. Samuel
Dolly was in full dress. His cheeks, usually so pale, seemed much
flushed. He was evidently in a state of high excitement, bowed extremely
low to Mrs. Crane, called her Countess, asked if she had been lately on
the Continent and if she knew Madame Caumartin, and whether the nobility
at St. Petersburg were jolly, or stuck-up fellows, who gave themselves
airs,--not waiting for her answer. In fact his mind was unquestionably
disordered.
Arabella Crane abruptly laid her hand on his shoulder. "You are going to
the gallows," she said suddenly. "Down on your knees, and tell me all,
and I will keep your secret, and save you; lie, and you are lost!"
Poole burst into tears, and dropped on his knees as he was told.
In ten minutes Mrs. Crane knew all that she cared to know, possessed
herself of Losely's letters, and, leaving Poole less light-headed and
more light-hearted, she hastened to Uncle Sam at the Gloucester Coffee-
house. "Take your nephew, out of town this evening, and do not let him
from your sight for the next six months. Hark you, he will never be a
good man; but you may save him from the hulks. Do so. Take my advice."
She was gone before Uncle Sam could answer. She next proceeded to the
private house of the detective with whom she had before conferred; this
time less to give than to receive information. Not half an hour after
her interview with him, Arabella Crane stood in the street wherein was
placed the showy house of Madame Caumartin. The lamps in the street were
now lighted; the street, even at day a quiet one, was comparatively
deserted. All the windows in the Frenchwoman's house were closed with
shutters and curtains, except on the drawing-room floor. From those the
lights within streamed over a balcony filled with gay plants; one of the
casements was partially open. And now and then, where the watcher stood,
she could just catch the glimpse of a passing form behind the muslin
draperies, or hear the sound of some louder laugh. In her dark-gray
dress and still darker mantle, Arabella Crane stood motionless, her eyes
fixed on those windows. The rare foot-passenger who brushed by her
turned involuntarily to glance at the countenance of one so still, and
then as involuntarily to survey the house to which that countenance was
lifted. No such observer so incurious as not to hazard conjecture what
evil to that house was boded by the dark lurid eyes that watched it with
so fixed a menace. Thus she remained, sometimes, indeed, moving from her
post, as a sentry moves from his, slowly pacing a few steps to and fro,
returning to the same place, and again motionless; thus she remained for
hours. Evening deepened into night; night grew near to dawn: she was
still there in that street, and still her eyes were on that house. At
length the door opened noiselessly; a tall man tripped forth with a gay
light step, and humming the tune of a gay French chanson. As he came
straight towards the spot where Arabella Crane was at watch, from her
dark mantle stretched forth her long arm and lean hand and seized him.
He started and recognized her.
"You here!" he exclaimed, "you!--at such an hour,--you!"
"Ay, Jasper Losely, here to warn you. To-morrow the officers of justice
will be in that accursed house. To-morrow that woman--not for her worst
crimes, they elude the law, but for her least by which the law hunts her
down--will be a prisoner,--no, you shall not return to warn her as I warn
you" (for Jasper here broke away, and retreated some steps towards the
house); "or, if you do, share her fate. I cast you off."
"What do you mean?" said Jasper, halting, till with slow steps she
regained his side. "Speak more plainly: if poor Madame Caumartin has got
into a scrape, which I don't think likely, what have I to do with it?"
"The woman you call Caumartin fled from Paris to escape its tribunals.
She has been tracked; the French government have claimed her--ho!--you
smile. This does not touch you?"
"Certainly not."
"But there are charges against her from English tradesmen; and if it be
proved that you knew her in her proper name,--the infamous Gabrielle
Desmarets; if it be proved that you have passed off the French billets de
banque that she stole; if you were her accomplice in obtaining goods
under her false name; if you, enriched by her robberies, were aiding and
abetting her as a swindler here,--though you may be safe from the French
law, will you be safe from the English? You may be innocent, Jasper
Losely; if so, fear nothing. You may be guilty: if so, hide, or follow
me!"
Jasper paused. His first impulse was to trust implicitly to Mrs. Crane,
and lose not a moment in profiting by such counsels of concealment or
flight as an intelligence so superior to his own could suggest. But
suddenly remembering that Poole had undertaken to get the bill for L1,000
by the next day,--that if flight were necessary, there was yet a chance
of flight with booty,--his constitutional hardihood, and the grasping
cupidity by which it was accompanied, made him resolve at least to hazard
the delay of a few hours. And, after all, might not Mrs. Crane
exaggerate? Was not this the counsel of a jealous woman? "Pray," said
he, moving on, and fixing quick keen eyes on her as she walked by his
side, "pray, how did you learn all these particulars?"
"From a detective policeman employed to discover Sophy. In conferring
with him, the name of Jasper Losely as her legal protector was of course
stated; that name was already coupled with the name of the false
Caumartin. Thus, indirectly, the child you would have consigned to that
woman saves you from sharing that woman's ignominy and doom."
"Stuff!" said Jasper, stubbornly, though he winced at her words:
"I don't, on reflection, see that anything can be proved against me.
I am not bound to know why a lady changes her name, nor how she comes by
her money. And as to her credit with tradesmen,--nothing to speak of:
most of what she has got is paid for; what is not paid for is less than
the worth of her goods. Pooh! I am not so easily frightened; much
obliged to you all the same. Go home now; 't is horridly late. Good-
night, or rather good-morning."
"Jasper, mark me, if you see that woman again; if you attempt to save or
screen her,--I shall know, and you lose in me your last friend, last
hope, last plank in a devouring sea!"
These words were so solemnly uttered that they thrilled the heart of the
reckless man. "I have no wish to screen or save her," he said, with
selfish sincerity. "And after what you have said I would as soon enter
a fireship as that house. But let me have some hours to consider what
is best to be done."
"Yes, consider--I shall expect you to-morrow."
He went his way up the twilight streets towards a new lodging he had
hired not far from the showy house. She drew her mantle close round her
gaunt figure, and, taking the opposite direction, threaded thoroughfares
yet lonelier, till she gained the door, and was welcomed back by the
faithful Bridget.
