A Double Knot Part 90

"Port, eh? Ah, yes! my throat's like a limekiln;" and, following Lord Henry into the dining-room, the butler placed fresh gla.s.ses, and the financier gulped down a couple as quickly as he could.

"Why, it's an age since we met," said Lord Henry.

"Good job for you," said Elbraham, mopping his red face and bald head.

"Clo's a regular devil. Is she here?"

"Here!" said Lord Henry. "Oh no! she has not been here for a long time."

"Then she _has_ bolted!"

"Has what?" cried Lord Henry.

"Bolted, Moorpark--bolted, d.a.m.n her! Left a note for me saying she was going to dine with her sister, and I took the bait, till, thinking it a good opportunity to go and look over her jewels, hang me if they weren't all gone!"

"Her jewels gone?"

"Yes; and that made me suspicious. I went down directly and was going to ring, when I ran up against our b.u.t.tons."

"Ran up against your b.u.t.tons?" said Lord Henry wonderingly.

"Yes: the page-boy--with the large travelling-case in his hand. 'Hullo, you sir,' says I, 'what have you got there?'

"'A case missus said I was to take to Cannon Street Station, sir, and meet her there; and I've been waiting about for ever so long and couldn't see her, sir, so I thought I'd better bring it back!'

"'Quite right, my boy,' I says. 'Give it to me. There, be off down!'

"Well, sir, as soon as I was alone, I ripped up the bag, for it was locked; and hang me if it hadn't got in all her jewels--every blessed thing: diamonds and sapphires and rubies and emeralds and pearls; thousands and thousands of pounds' worth, for she would go it in jewels; and when I offended her I used to have to make it up by giving her something new. That woman cost me a pot of money, Moorpark, 'pon my soul she did, for I never s.h.i.+lly-shallied. If she was upset I always bought her something new."

"But, really, I don't understand all this!" said Lord Henry feebly.

"Wait a bit. She had meant to take her jewels with her, and the idiot of a boy blundered the thing, somehow, and instead of her having them I have the whole blessed lot. For I pitched the cases in the iron safe where I keep my papers, locked 'em up, came on here to see after her, and there's the keys!"

He slapped his pocket, and looked at Lord Henry as he spoke.

"I never expected it," said Elbraham coolly; "it was her dodge."

"Then where do you expect she is?"

"Why, bolted, man; gone to the devil--or with the devil, that black-looking rascal Malpas; and a deuced good job too!"

"But this is very dreadful!" said Lord Henry.

"It would have been if she had got away with all those stones," said Elbraham, helping himself to more wine. "But she was done there. By Jingo! what a cat-and-dog life we have led!"

"But, my dear sir!" cried Lord Henry, hardly able to conceal his disgust; "what steps are you going to take to save her?"

"Save her? save her?" said Elbraham. "She don't want any saving."

"Oh yes, from such a terrible fall. It may not yet be too late!"

"Save her?" cried Elbraham, with a hoa.r.s.e chuckle. "Why, Moorpark, you don't know her. Keep it dark from your wife, who is a good one. You drew the best lot. There's no saving Clo; she's bad to the core, and I'm devilish glad she's gone, for I shall get a little peace now."

"But you are going to pursue her?" said Lord Henry.

"Pursue her! What for? To have her scratch my eyes out, and that black scoundrel Malpas punch my head? No, thankye--deuced good port this!

She's gone, and jolly go with her! I wash my hands of her now."

"But this is terrible, Elbraham."

"Terrible? Why, it's bliss to me; she'd have killed me. I used to be a bit jealous at first; but I had to get over that, for she was always flirting with someone."

"But you must fetch her back, Elbraham!" exclaimed Lord Henry excitedly.

"Think of the family credit!"

"Family credit!" cried Elbraham. "Why, they hadn't got none--poor as Job, and n.o.body would trust them."

"The family honour, then, sir," said Lord Henry sternly.

"Family honour's best without her. Jolly good riddance of bad rubbish, I say! She's gone, and she won't come back; and as for hunting for her, why, it would be disgracing your wife to do so."

"But really--" began Lord Henry.

"Bah! Moorpark, you leave that to me; I'm a business man, and know what's what. But, I say, it's a lark, isn't it?"

"I don't understand you," said Lord Henry, who could not conceal his disgust for the contemptible little wretch before him.

"Why, about those jewels. My! how fine and mad she'll be! It's about the best thing I ever knew. She won't get 'em now."

Elbraham laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and then he wiped his eyes.

"I say, Moorpark, I ought to be devilishly cut up, you know, about this; but the fact is, I'm devilish glad. I shall look nasty and make a show about being all wrong, you know, for one's credit's sake; but it ain't my fault. I couldn't help it; she had it all her own way. And the money she has spent--my!"

Elbraham helped himself to some more port, while Lord Henry sat and tapped the table with his carefully cared-for nails.

"I'm not going to cry over spilt milk, Moorpark, I can tell you! She's gone, and, as I said before, a good riddance!"

It was a good riddance for Lord Henry Moorpark when Elbraham went, which he did at last, after stubbornly refusing either to take or to allow any steps to be taken in pursuit of Clotilde.

"No," he said, after his sixth gla.s.s of port. "I won't spend the price of a Parl'y ticket on her; and I don't know as I shall bother myself about divorce proceedings. What's the good? Malpas hasn't a penny in the world, so there'd be no costs; and as to being free, that's what her ladys.h.i.+p would like. But, I say, Moorpark."

"Yes?"

"What a sell about those jewels!"

He said it again as Lord Henry saw him into his carriage, and the next day he settled himself down in his sanctum with a very big cigar stuck between his lips, giving him the aspect of a very podgy swordfish that had burnt the tip of its weapon. Before him was a huge leather bill-case gorged with slips of bluish paper, every one of which, as he took it carefully out, bore a stamp in one corner, a reference to so many months after date, and was written across and signed. Many of them were endorsed with sign-manuals as well; and these slips of paper he quietly examined as he took them out of one pocket of the great case and then thrust them into another.

By degrees an observer, had he been present, would have noticed that the pockets in which these slips were placed varied according to their dates, and that for the most part they were examined and replaced in the most unemotional manner; but every now and then as Elbraham took one out he laid it on the table, drew violently at his cigar, emitted a tremendous cloud of smoke, and burst into a hoa.r.s.e series of chuckles.

Then he rubbed his hands and laughed again in an unpleasant, silent manner, twisting about in his pivoted library chair.