The Knight Of Gwynne Volume I Part 34

"Just like Beecham being blackballed at the club," said the doctor, with a sarcastic bitterness all his own.

"With that, of course, we cannot be charged," said Heffernan. "Why was he put up without our being apprised of it? The blackballing was Bagenal Daly's doing--"

"So I heard," interrupted the other; "they told me that; and here, look here, here's Daly's bond for four thousand six hundred. Maybe he won't be so ready with his bank-notes as he was with his black ball--ay!"

"But, to go back to the affair of the House--"

"We won't go back to it, sir, if it's the same to you. I 'm glad, with all my heart, the folly is over,--sorra use I could see in it, except the expense, and there's plenty of that. The old families, as they call them, can't last forever, no more than old houses and old castles; there's an end of everything in time, and if Hickman waits, maybe his turn will come as others' did before him. Where 's the Darcys now, I 'd like to know?--" Here he paused and stammered, and at last stopped dead short, an expression of as much confusion as age and wrinkles would permit covering his hard, contracted features.

"You say truly," said Heffernan, finis.h.i.+ng what he guessed to be the sentiment,--"you say truly, the Darcys have run their race; when men's inc.u.mbrances have reached the point that his have, family influence soon decays. Now, this business of Gleeson's--" Had he fired a shot close to the old man's ear he could not have startled him more effectually than by the mention of this name.

"What of Gleeson?" said he, drawing in his breath, and holding on the chair with both hands.

"You know that he is gone,--fled away no one knows where?"

"Gleeson! Honest Tom Gleeson ran away!" exclaimed Hickman; "no, no, that's impossible,--I'd never believe that."

"Strange enough, sir, that the paragraphs here have not convinced you,"

said Heffernan, taking up the newspaper which lay on the table, and where the mark of snuffy fingers denoted the very pa.s.sage in question.

"Ay! I did n't notice it before," muttered the doctor, as he took up the paper, affecting to read, but in reality to conceal his own confusion.

"They say the news nearly killed Darcy; he only heard it when going into the House last night, and was seized with an apoplectic fit, and carried home insensible." This latter was, it is perhaps needless to say, pure invention of Heffernan, who found it necessary to continue talking as a means of detecting old Hickman's game. "Total ruin to that family of course results. Gleeson had raised immense sums to pay off the debts, and carried all away with him."

"Ay!" muttered the doctor, as he seemed greatly occupied in arranging his papers on the table.

"You 'll be a loser too, sir, by all accounts," added Heffernan.

"Not much,--a mere trifle," said the doctor, without looking up from the papers. "But maybe he's not gone, after all; I won't believe it yet."

"There seems little doubt on that head," said Heffernan; "he changed three thousand pounds in notes for gold at Ball's after the bank was closed on Tuesday, and then went over to Finlay's, where he said he had a lodgment to make. He left his great-coat behind him, and never came back for it. I found that paper--it was the only one--in the breast pocket."

"What is it? what is it?" repeated the old man, clutching eagerly at it.

"Nothing of any consequence," said Heffernan, smiling; and he handed him a printed notice, setting forth that the United States barque, the "Congress," of five hundred tons burden, would sail for New York on Wednesday, the 16th instant, at an hour before high water. "That looked suspicious, didn't it?" said Heffernan; "and on inquiry I found he had drawn largely out of, not only the banks in town, but from the provincial ones also. Now, that note addressed to yourself, for instance--"

"What note?" said Hickman, starting round as his face became pale as ashes; "give it to me--give it at once!"

But Heffernan held it firmly between his fingers, and merely shook his head, while, with a gentle smile, he said, "The banker who intrusted this letter to my hands was well aware of what importance it might prove in a court of justice, should this disastrous event demand a legal investigation."

The old doctor listened with breathless interest to every word of this speech, and merely muttered at the close the words, "The note, the note!"

"I have promised to restore the paper to the banker," said Heffernan.

"So you shall,--let me read it," cried Hickman, eagerly; and he clutched from Heffernan's fingers the doc.u.ment, before the other had seemingly determined whether he would yield to his demand.

"There it is for you, sir," said the doctor; "make what you can of it;"

and he threw the paper across the table.

The note contained merely the words, "Ten thousand pounds." There was no signature or any date, but the handwriting was Gleeson's.

"Ten thousand pounds," repeated Heffernan, slowly; "a large sum!"

"So it is," chimed in Hickman, with a grin of self-satisfaction, while a consciousness that the mystery, whatever it might be, was beyond the reach of Heffernan's skill, gave him a look of excessive cunning, which sat strangely on features so old and time-worn.

"Well, Mr. Hickman," said Heffernan, as he arose to take leave, "I have neither the right nor the inclination to pry into any man's secrets.

This affair of Gleeson's will be sifted to the bottom one day or other, and that small transaction of the ten thousand pounds as well as the rest. It was not to discuss him or his fortunes I came here. I hoped to have seen Mr. O'Reilly, and explained away a very serious misconception.

Lord Castlereagh regrets it, not for the sake of the loss of Mr.

O'Reilly's support, valuable as that unquestionably is, but because a wrong interpretation would seem to infer that the conduct of the Treasury bench was disingenuous. You will, I trust, make this explanation for me, and in the name of his Lords.h.i.+p."

"Faith, I won't promise it," said old Hickman, looking up from a long column of figures which he was for some minutes poring over; "I don't understand them things at all; if Bob wanted to be a lord, 't is more than ever I did,--I don't see much pleasure there is in being a gentleman. I know, for my part, I 'd rather sit in the back parlor of my little shop in Loughrea, where I could have a chat over a tumbler of punch with a neighbor, than all the grandeur in life."

"These simple, unostentatious tastes do you credit before the world, sir," said Heffernan, with a well put-on look of admiration.

"I don't know whether they do or not," said Hickman, "but I know they help to make a good credit with the bank, and that's better--ay!"

Heffernan affected to relish the joke, and descended the stairs, laughing as he went; but scarcely had he reached his carriage, however, than he muttered a heavy malediction on the sordid old miser whose iniquities were not less glaring because Con had utterly failed to unravel anything of his mystery.

"To Lord Castlereagh's," said he to the footman, and then lay back to ponder over his late interview.

The n.o.ble Secretary was not up when Con arrived, but had left orders that Mr. Heffernan should be shown up to his room whenever he came.

It was now about five o'clock in the afternoon, and Lord Castlereagh, wrapped up in a loose morning-gown, lay on the bed where he had thrown himself, without undressing, on reaching home. A debate of more than fifteen hours, with all its strong and exciting pa.s.sages, had completely exhausted his strength, while the short and disturbed sleep had wearied rather than refreshed him. The bed and the table beside it were covered with the morning papers and open letters and despatches, for, tired as he was, he could not refrain from learning the news of the day.

"Well, my Lord," said Heffernan, with his habitual smile, as he stepped noiselessly across the floor, "I believe I may wish you joy at last,--the battle is gained now."

"Heigho!" was the reply of the Secretary, while he extended two fingers of his hand in salutation. "What hour is it, Heffernan?"

"It is near five; but really there 's not a creature to be seen in the streets, and, except old Killgobbin airing his pocket-handkerchief at the fire, not a soul at the Club. Last night's struggle has nearly killed every one."

"Who is this Mr. Gleeson that has run off with so much money,--did you know him?"

"Oh, yes, we all knew 'honest Tom Gleeson.'"

"Ah! that was his sobriquet, was it?" said the Secretary, smiling.

"Yes, my Lord, such was he,--or such, at least, was he believed to be, till yesterday evening. You know it's the last gla.s.s of wine always makes a man tipsy."

"And who is ruined, Heffernan,--any of our friends?"

"As yet there's no saying. Drogheda will lose something considerable, I believe; but at the banks the opinion is that Darcy will be the heaviest loser of any."

"The Knight?"

"Yes, the Knight of Gwynne."

"I am sincerely sorry to hear it," said Lord Castlereagh, with an energy of tone he had not displayed before; "if I had met half-a-dozen such men as he is, I should have had some scruples--" He paused, and at the instant caught sight of a very peculiar smile on Heffernan's features; then, suddenly changing the topic, he said, "What of Nickolls,--is he shot?"

"No, my Lord, there was no meeting. Bagenal Daly, so goes the story, proposed going over to the Isle of Man in a row-boat."