"Now, Freddy, none of your tricks? He's on the square?"
She pointed the key at Bertie, to show the allusion was to him. The young thief took the key away from her.
"He's as square as you! Come along, Ikey! Mother, you stop there till I come back. I want to have a little talk to you."
Taking up one of the candlesticks, the lad led the way out of the room. Bertie staggered, rather than walked, after him.
The house seemed to be very old-fashioned and very large. There were a curious number of staircases, and passages, and turns and twists, and ins and outs, and ups and downs. As Bertie followed his companion's lead it all seemed to him as though it were part of his dream; as though the house was built in the fashion of a maze, and he were bidden to find his way about it blindfold.
At last he found himself in a room, the door of which he was vaguely conscious his companion had unlocked. Although very far from being luxurious, it was better furnished than the one they had left. There was a piece of carpet on the floor; there were two or three substantial-looking chairs, a horsehair couch, an arm-chair, a table, a chest of drawers with a looking-glass on top, and in the corner an old-fashioned four-poster bed with the curtains drawn all round. The closely-drawn dirty dimity curtains made one wonder if it was occupied already, but Freddy showed that it was not by going to it and drawing the curtains aside.
"There's a bed for you, my bonny boy! The Queen ain't got a better bed than that in Buckingham Palace; and if you have got a marquis for a pa, you ain't seen a better one, I know you ain't. That's the captain's bed, that is, and if he was to know I'd made you free of it he'd have a word to say. But as he's gone to see his grandma, and perhaps won't be back for ever so long, we needn't take no count of what he says."
Tired as he was, Bertie was not by any means so prepossessed by the appearance of the bed as his companion seemed to be. It seemed to him just a trifle dirty, and more than a trifle the worse for wear. The beds at Mecklemburg House were even better, while the beds at home were things of beauty and joys for ever compared to this. But still it was a bed, and a bed is a bed; and especially was a bed a bed to him just then.
Freddy waited while he undressed. He even watched him get between the sheets, and drew the curtains when he was there. Then he went and left Bertie to sleep in peace in the captain's room.
And he slept in peace. Just such a dreamless slumber as he had enjoyed in the Kingston "doss-house," and it lasted at least as long. This young gentleman had over-calculated his strength, and had not supposed he would have been so quickly wearied on his journey to the Land of Golden Dreams.
When he awoke it was some minutes before he collected his thoughts sufficiently to understand his whereabouts. The rapidly-occurring incidents of the last day or two had bewildered a brain which was never very bright at best. Putting out his hand, he parted the curtains which hung about him like so many shrouds, and looked out.
The room was filled with daylight; that is to say, as much filled as it probably ever was. The only window was a small one, and at such a height from the ground that Bertie would have needed to stand upon a chair to reach it even.
Had he desired to imitate his escape from his Kingston hosts he would have found very much more difficulty in climbing from the window of the captain's room. But what interested him more than the peculiar position of the window was something which he saw on the chair beside his bed.
This something was some bread and cheese, a couple of saveloys, and some stout in a jug. On the bread was a little scrap of paper. He took it up, and found that on it was written, -
"Sleep it out, old pal!"
This was short, and to the point. It was written on bad paper in worse writing; but what it meant was, probably, that Freddy, entering with refreshments, had found Bertie wrapt in slumber, and being unwilling to disturb him had left him there to sleep it out. Bertie ate and drank, and lying back again upon the captain's bed prepared to act upon the hint. And he did. He woke once or twice in the course of the day, but each time it was only for a minute or two, and each time he turned round and went to sleep again.
But at last he woke for good-or ill, as it turned out, for he woke to be the victim of a series of adventures which were to nearly cost him his life, and which were to show him, better than anything else possibly could have done, that he had been like the silly little child who plays with fire and burns itself with the element it does not understand. He was a young gentleman who required a considerable amount of teaching before he would consent to write himself down an ass; but he was to get much more than the requisite amount of teaching now.
Exactly the same thing happened as at Kingston. He awoke to hear the sound of voices in the room; and now, as then, the speakers were carrying on a conversation without having the slightest idea that they were being overheard.
At first he could not distinguish the words which were being spoken. He only knew that there was some one speaking. At first he took it for granted that the speakers were the lad who had brought him to the house and the old woman he had nicknamed "Mother." But the delusion only lasted for a moment; he quickly perceived that the voices were voices he had never heard before, and that the speakers were two men. He perceived, too, that the day had apparently gone-he had slept it all away-and that the room was lighted by a lamp.
So unconscious were the speakers of there being a listener that they made no attempt to lower their voices; and one in particular spoke with a strain of intense passion in his tones. His were the words which were the first which Bertie heard.
"Fifty thousand pounds! Fifty thousand pounds! Ha, ha, ha!"
The speaker repeated the words over and over again, bursting into a peal of laughter at the end. Another voice replied-a colder and more measured one. The new speaker spoke with a strong nasal accent. Bertie was not wise enough to know that by his speech he betrayed himself to be that new thing in nationalities, a German American.
"Steady, my friend; fifty thousand pounds in jewels are not fifty thousand pounds in cash, especially when the jewels are such as these."
The other went on unheeding.
"Talk about punting on the Stock Exchange! There are precious few punters on the Stock Exchange who pick up fifty thousand pounds and walk off with it at a single coup."
"And, also, there are very few punters on the Stock Exchange who would run the risk of getting penal servitude for life for doing it."
"Yes, there's that to be considered."
"As you say, there's that to be considered."
"Do you think they'd make it penal servitude for life?"
"I think it extremely probable, with your past history and mine."
"Suppose it came to penal servitude for life, what then?"
"Exactly! That is the question to be asked-'What then?'"
"The Countess of Ferndale's jewels! lying on the table in front of me! and in my time I've run the risk of being sent to prison for a pocket-handkerchief."
"But in that case you did not run the risk, my friend, of penal servitude for life, eh?'
"Rosenheim, what are you driving at? Why do you keep harping upon that string? Do you think they'll nab us?"
"They will have a very good try."
"They have tried before and failed."
"They have also tried before and-not failed."
"Fifty thousand pounds! The finest set of jewels in England! insured for fifty thousand pounds-and that's a lot less than they cost-and we've got the insurance policy and the jewels too! Ha! ha! ha! Should we present the policy?"
"We will be generous and return them that. Or, better still, we will keep the policy in case that anything should happen. Holding it, we might make terms with some one. There have such things been done, eh?"
"Fifty thousand pounds! and they cost perhaps a hundred thousand in their time! Did you ever see such a necklace? Those diamonds remind me of fairy tales which I have read-if I were to put the lamp out they'd light the room."
"Yes; but we will not put the lamp out, for fear some of the jewels should be lost-which would be a pity, eh?"
"Did you ever see anything like those diamonds? See how they are flashing in the lamp-light-now look at them!"
Bertie thought that he might as well look too. He peeped through the curtains of the bed to see what was going on. He felt a not unnatural curiosity, for what he had heard had made him open both his eyes and ears. Fifty thousand pounds! The repetition of this sum had a startling effect.
Chapter XVII
TWO MEN AND A BOY
There was a lamp on the table. The fire was lighted in the grate; the table was drawn close up in front of it. The couch was beside the table, and on it a man reclined full length. The head was turned towards Bertie, so that he only had a back view of the person lying down. He could see that he had brown hair, worn rather long, and that he was smoking a cigar, and that was all he could see.
By the table, standing so that his face was turned towards Bertie, was another man-evidently the impetuous speaker. He was about the middle height, slight, yet sinewy, with coal-black hair cut very short, and a dark olive skin, his face being concealed by neither moustache nor beard. He was holding something in his hands, something which he eyed with ravenous eyes. From his position Bertie was not able to perceive what this something was, but he could see that the table was littered with other articles, and that a roll of paper and two boxes of a peculiar shape lay open on the floor.
The dark man was holding the something in his hands in a variety of positions, so that he might get the full effect from different points of view.
"Did you ever see such stones?"
"They are not bad, considering. Their value consists in their number, my dear friend. Separate stones of better quality can be found."
"How much do you say we shall get for it?"
"That remains to be seen. If you ask me how much it cost I should say, probably, altogether, twenty thousand pounds."
Twenty thousand pounds! The dark man was holding in his hand something which cost twenty thousand pounds. Curiosity was too much for Bertie's discretion. The magnitude of the sum had so startling an effect on his bump of inquisitiveness that before he knew it he was trying his best to see what surprising thing it was which had cost twenty thousand pounds. Half-unconsciously he quitted the security of the bed, and standing in his shirt bare-legged on the floor he strained his eyes to see.
Just then the dark man moved into such a position that the unexpected spectator was yet unable to see what it was he held. It was aggravating, but what followed was rather more aggravating still.
"Fancy wearing a thing like that! I wonder how I should look with twenty thousand pounds worth of diamonds round my neck."
He put his hand up to his neck, clasping round it what seemed to Bertie a line of glittering light. Then he turned, probably with the intention of studying the effect in the looking-glass, and, turning, he saw Bertie.
For a moment there was silence-silence so complete that you could have heard much fainter sounds than the fall of the proverbial pin. The man was apparently thunderstruck, as well he might be. He stared at the figure in the shirt as though it were that of one risen from the dead. As for Bertie, his feet seemed glued to the floor, and his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It suddenly dawned upon him that it would have perhaps been better if he had stayed in bed.
The man was the first to regain his self-possession. It was to be a very long time indeed before Bertie was to be again master of his.
"What the something are you?"
At the sound of his companion's voice, the man on the sofa sprang to his feet as though he had been shot. He gave one quick glance; then, snatching up a revolver which lay upon the table, he fired at the frightened boy.
"Rosenheim!"
At the very moment of pulling the trigger the dark man struck up his arm, so that the bullet was buried in the ceiling. But the effect upon Bertie was just as though it had penetrated his heart-he fell like a log.
"He's only a boy. You've shot him."
"I have not shot him. That I will do in a minute or two."
When Bertie recovered from his swoon the dark man was bending over him. His companion was sitting in a chair regarding him with cold, staring eyes-a long, thin man, with a slight moustache and beard, and a peculiarly cruel cast of countenance.
The dark man was the first to address him.
"So you've come too, have you? Perhaps it's a pity, after all. It'll only prolong your misery. Now stand up, put your hands behind your back, and look me in the face."
Bertie did as he was bid, feeling very weak and tottering on his feet. The dark man was perched on the edge of the table, holding a revolver in his hand. His companion, the long, thin man who sat in the chair, held a revolver too. Bertie felt that his position was not an agreeable one. Of one thing he was conscious, that the table was cleared of its contents, and that the roll of paper and boxes which he had noticed on the floor had disappeared.
The dark man commenced the cross-examination, handling his revolver in a way which was peculiarly unpleasant, as though it were a toy which he was anxious to have a little practice with.
"Look me in the face."
Bertie did as he was bid as best he could, though he found it difficult to meet the keen black eyes.
"He needn't look me in the face, or I'll put five shots inside of him."
This was from the long, thin man. Bertie was careful not to show the slightest symptom of a desire to turn that way. The dark man went on.
"Do you know what truth is? If you don't it'll be a pity, because if you tell me so much as the millionth part of a lie I'll empty my revolver into you where you stand."
As if to emphasize this genial threat the dark man pointed his revolver point-blank at his head.
"I'm on that line. I'll empty mine inside him too."
Bertie was conscious that the long, thin man was following his companion's lead. A couple of revolvers were being pointed at him within three feet of his head. He felt more anxious to tell the truth, even though under difficulties, than he had ever been in all his life.
"What's your name?"
"Bertie Bailey."
"What are you doing here?"
"I-I don't know!"
Bertie very certainly didn't. If he could only have undreamt his dreams about the Land of Golden Dreams how happy had he been.
"Oh, you don't know. Who brought you here?"
"Freddy."
"Freddy? Do you mean Faking Fred?"
"If you please, sir, I-I don't know. The old woman called him Freddy."
"Oh, the old woman had a finger in the pie, had she? I'll have a finger in her pie before I've done, and Freddy's too. So you've been sleeping in my bed?"
"Please, sir, I-I didn't know it was your bed."
"Turn round to me."
As this command came from the long, thin man-he had apparently changed his mind about being looked in the face-Bertie turned with the celerity with which a teetotum turns.
"Where do you live?"
"At Upton, sir."
"Where's that?"
"In Berkshire."
"You're not a thief?"
"No-o, sir."
In his present society Bertie positively felt ashamed to own it. He perhaps felt that these gentlemen might resent it as a slight upon their profession.
"Have you run away from home?"
"Ye-es, sir."
"What for?"
"Fu-fun, sir."
"A good thing to run away for."
Bertie felt that it was a bad thing just then, especially if this sort of thing might be looked upon in the light of fun.
"What's your father?"
"A doctor, sir."
"So you're the son of Dr. Bailey, of Upton, in Berkshire?"
"Ye-es, sir."
"Turn round again! – sharp!"
No one could have turned round sharper than Bertie did then. The dark man took up the questioning.
"How long have you been awake?"
"I-I don't know, sir."
"Did you hear what we were talking about?"
"Ye-es, sir."
"What did you hear?"
"I-I don't know."
"That won't do. Out with it! What did you hear?"
The revolver was brought on a level with Bertie's face. With his eyes apparently doing their best to investigate the contents of the barrel he endeavoured to describe what he had heard.
"I-I heard about the Countess of Ferndale's jewels, and-and about fifty thousand pounds."
"Oh! you did, did you? And what did you hear about the Countess of Ferndale's jewels?"
"I heard that you had-stolen them."
"Is that so? You seem to be gifted with uncommonly good hearing, Master Bailey. What else did you hear? Go on."
"I-I heard that they were insured for fifty thousand pounds, and-and that-that you'd stolen the policy."
"Dear me! What a remarkably fine ear this boy must have! Go on, young man!"
Bertie was painfully conscious that these compliments upon his hearing were not to be taken as they were spoken. He earnestly wished that his hearing had not been quite so good, but with that revolver staring him in the face he felt that perhaps it was better on the whole he should go on. Yet the next confession was made with an effort. He felt that his audience would not receive it well.
"I-I-I heard that if-if you were ta-taken you-you would get pe-penal servitude for life."
There was an ominous silence. The words had had exactly the effect he had intuitively expected. It was the long, thin man who spoke.
"Oh! you heard that if we were caught we should get penal servitude for life? And it didn't occur to you that you might help to catch us, eh?"
"No-o, sir."
"It wouldn't. Now wouldn't it occur to you that such a thing as a reward might perhaps be offered, which it might perhaps be worth your while to handle, eh? That such a trifle as five or ten thousand pounds, in the shape of a reward, might come in useful, eh?"
Bertie did not answer. He could not have answered for his life. The fellow's tone seemed to freeze his blood. The dark man put a question.
"Did you hear any names mentioned?"
"Yes, sir."
"What name did you hear mentioned?"
"I heard you call this gentleman Rosenheim, sir."
In an instant a hand was round his neck, which grasped him as though it were made of steel. There was a sudden twist, and Mr. Rosenheim had flung the lad upon his back. The grasp tightened; he began to choke. If Mr. Rosenheim had been allowed to work his own sweet will it would have been over with him there and then. But the dark man interfered.
"What's the use of killing him?"
The answer was hissed rather than spoken.
"I'll tell you what's the use; it is I who will put him away, not he who will put me away, eh?"
"Leave him alone for a minute; I want to speak to you. It's a nuisance, but I don't think it's so bad as you think. Anyhow, I don't see how we're going to gain anything by killing the boy-at least, not in here."
There was a meaning conveyed in the speaker's last few words which Mr. Rosenheim seemed to understand. They looked at each other for a moment, eye to eye. Then Mr. Rosenheim, standing up, loosed his grasp on Bertie's throat, and the lad was free to breathe again.
"Get up; walk to the end of the room, put your hands behind your back, shut your eyes, and stand with your face to the wall. I'm going to cover you with my revolver, and if you move it'll be for the very last time of asking, for I'll shoot you as dead as mutton. Sharp's the word!"
Sharp was the word. Bewildered, half-stunned, panic-stricken as he was, Bertie had still sense enough to know that he had no alternative but to do as he was bid. The dark man meant what he said, and the youthful admirer of Dick Turpin knew it. The ever-ready revolver covered him as he walked quickly down the room, and took up the ignominious position he was ordered to. Hands behind his back, eyes shut, and his face against the wall! It was worse than standing in the corner at Mecklemburg House Collegiate School, and only little boys had been sent into the corner there.
How long he remained standing there he never knew. It seemed to him hours. But time goes slowly when we stand with our hands behind, eyes shut, face to the wall, and know that a revolver is taking deliberate aim at us behind our backs. A minute becomes an hour, and we feel that old age will overtake us prematurely if we stand there long. They say that when a man is drowning his whole life passes in a moment before his eyes. As Bailey stood with his face against the wall he felt something of that feeling too, and if ever there was a veritable Land of Golden Dreams his home at Upton was that land then. If he could only stand again within the shadow of his mother's door, ah, what a different young gentleman he would be!
Certainly, Mr. Rosenheim and his friend took their time. What they said Bertie could not hear, strain his ears how he might. The sound of their subdued whispering added to the terror of the situation. What might they not be resolving? For all he knew, they might be both examining their revolvers with a view of taking alternate pops at him. The idea was torture. As the moments passed and still no sign was made his imagination entered into details. There was a movement behind him. He fancied they were taking their positions. Silence again. He waited for the shooting to begin. He wondered where the first shot would hit him. Somewhere, he fancied, about the region of the left knee. That would probably bring him to the ground, and the second and third shots would hit him where he fell-probably in the side. The fourth and fifth shots would miss, but the sixth would carry away his nose, while the seventh would finish his career. Promiscuous shooting would ensue, the details of which would have no interest for him, but for some occult reason he decided that they would not cease firing until they had put inside him about a couple of pounds of lead.
In the midst of these agreeable speculations it was a relief to hear the dark man's voice.
"Turn round!"
Bertie turned round, with surprising velocity.
"Where are your clothes?"
"I think they're on the bed, sir."
"Put them on! Sharp's the word!"
Sharp always was the word. Bertie had done some quick things in dressing before to-day, but never anything quite so quick as that. Mr. Rosenheim was sitting in the arm-chair, still fondling his revolver, eyeing Bertie with a most uncomfortable pair of eyes. When Bertie found that in his haste he was putting on his trousers hind side foremost Mr. Rosenheim gave a start. Bertie gave one too, a cold shiver went down his back, and the time in which he reversed the garment and got inside his breeches was perhaps the best on record.
The dark man meanwhile was brushing his hat, putting on his overcoat, and apparently preparing himself for a journey. There was a Gladstone bag on the table. Into this he put several articles which he took from the chest of drawers. Bertie had completed his own costume for some little time before either spoke.
It was Mr. Rosenheim who addressed him first.
"Come here!"
Bertie went with remarkable celerity. "For a doctor's son, my friend, you are not too well dressed, eh?"
Bertie hung his head; he was conscious of the defects in his attire. The dark man flung him a clothes-brush.
"Brush yourself, and make yourself presentable. There's a jug and basin behind that curtain; wash yourself and brush your hair."
Bertie did as he was bid; never had he been so docile.
It was the most uncomfortable toilet he had ever made. When he had carefully soaped his face all over, and was about to wash it off again, there was a report. A shot whistled through the air and buried itself in the wall about a foot above his head. He dropped as though it had struck him, and all but repeated his former swoon.
"You can get up, my friend. It is only a little practice I am having."
Bertie got up, but the pleasure of that wash was destroyed for him. Mr. Rosenheim's ideas of revolver practice were so peculiar that he was in momentary terror of his aiming at an imaginary bull's-eye in the centre of his back.
"How long are you going to be? Come here and let me have a look at you."
Though only half-dried, the soap-suds still remaining in the corners of his eyes, Bertie obeyed the dark man's order and stood in front of him. That gentleman still held the too-familiar revolver in his hand. It had long been the secret longing of Bertie's soul to possess one of his own; henceforward he would hate the sight of the too-agile arm for evermore.
"You don't look like a doctor's son. Own up you lied."
"I-I didn't, sir."
"A pretty sort of doctor's son you look! Has your father any money?"
A wild idea entered Bertie's brain. He remembered how Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins had risen to the bait.
"Ye-yes, sir; he's very rich. He'd give a thousand pounds to get me back again."
But this time the bait failed, and signally.
"Oh, he would, would he? Then he must be about the most remarkable fool of a father I ever came across. Don't you try to stuff your lies down my throat, my joker, because I'm a liar myself, and know the smell. You listen to me. You'd better; because if you don't listen to every word, and stick it inside your head, it'll be a case of shooting, though I'm hung for you five minutes after. Do you hear?"
"Ye-yes, sir."
"My name's Captain Loftus. Do you hear that?"
"Ye-yes, sir."
"And I'm your uncle-your Uncle Tom. Do you hear that? I'm your Uncle Tom."
"Ye-yes, sir."
"Don't say 'sir,' say 'Uncle Tom.'"
"Ye-yes, Un-Uncle Tom."
"And don't you stutter and stammer; there's no stuttering and stammering about this."
"This" was the revolver which "Uncle Tom" pointed in his playful way at his nephew.
"And you've been a bad boy, and you've run away from your poor mother, and I'm going to take you back again. You understand?"
"Ye-yes, sir-I mean, Uncle Tom."
"Mind you do mean 'Uncle Tom,' and don't let us have any fooling about it. Do you hear? Don't let's have any fooling about it."
"No-o, Uncle Tom."
How devoutly he hoped that what his "uncle" said was true, and that he was going to be taken back to his mother. But the hope was shattered by the words which followed.
"Now just you listen to me. I've got half a dozen more words to say, and they're the pick of the lot. I'm going to take you with me. You'll be all right so long as you keep your mouth shut; but if you speak a word without permission from me, or if you hint anyhow at the pleasant little conversation we've had here, I'll shoot you on the spot. You see, I'm going to put my revolver into the inside pocket of my coat; it will be always there, and always ready for you, and mind you don't forget it."
Bertie was not likely to forget it. He watched the captain placing the weapon in a convenient inner pocket of his overcoat with an interest too deep for words. Mr. Rosenheim added an agreeable little remark of his own.
"You understand, my friend? You are to dismiss from your mind any little ideas you may have had about the Countess of Ferndale's jewels, or your uncle, Captain Tom Loftus, will practise a little revolver shooting upon you, eh, my friend?"
And Mr. Rosenheim covered the lad with his own revolver. There was such an absolutely diabolical grin upon the gentleman's face that Bertie felt as though his blood had congealed in his veins. The revolver might go off at any moment, and this time it would be a case of hitting. Bertie was persuaded that one more of Mr. Rosenheim's little practice shots would be quite enough for him.
The change from Mr. Rosenheim to Captain Loftus was actually a relief.
"Are you ready?"
"Ye-yes, sir!"
"Sir?"
The "sir" was shouted in a voice of thunder, and the captain's hand moved towards the inner pocket of his coat.
"Un-Uncle Tom, I mean."
"And you better mean it too, and say it, or you'll never say another word. Put your hat on. Catch hold of that Gladstone."
Bertie put his hat on, and took the bag. The captain turned to Mr. Rosenheim.
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye, my friend; I wish you a pleasant journey, and your nephew too."
The captain put his own hat on, took Bertie's hand, led him out of the room, and almost before the lad knew it they were standing in the street. Bertie thanked his stars that at least Mr. Rosenheim was left behind.