A Traitor's Wooing Part 29

Mr. Mallory heaved a sigh of content, which, coming from him, was not of the kind that is noticed. He had achieved his purpose without betraying a confidence.

"You arranged the hus.h.i.+ng-up process deuced cleverly," the screw manufacturer went on. "All that transpired at the adjourned inquest on Levison, I understand, and at those on Legros and Nugent, was that Nugent, had been engaged in a plot to kidnap Violet, and that it had failed. Some idiot in Parliament might have raised Cain if Bhagwan Singh's connection with it had been made public."

Mr. Mallory smiled. "I was certainly careful not to let the worthy sergeant into the secret of the Maharajah's iniquity," he said. "But we have chiefly Beauchamp here to thank for the veil we have been able to draw over the inner history of the conspiracy. His prompt action in putting to sea, and his judicious handling of Brant after boarding the _Cobra_, crowned my humble efforts with success. The idea of letting Brant and his crew of cut-throats go scot-free, with the advice to finish their voyage and demand payment and explanations from Bhagwan Singh, was a masterpiece which augurs well for our young friend's career. One can imagine the kind of payment that the Maharajah will mete out when he gets that pack of failures into his dominions."

"I had to handle the wicked little demon judiciously to save my own skin," said Reggie modestly. "I had no orders to rove the seas in search of lost heiresses or eloping couples, and my career might have been nipped in the bud if I'd taken the _Cobra_ into Devonport as a prize. My lords of the Admiralty are not kind to independent action by junior officers, and if I had pleaded that I had been ordered to sea by Enid it would hardly have mended matters. But as we are apportioning rewards and punishments, we mustn't forget the real heroine of the piece--Nettle Jimpson, my gunner's best girl. If she hadn't fired that bucketful of cinders into the engines we shouldn't be all sitting here shaking hands with ourselves to-night."

Montague Maynard filled his gla.s.s and drained it incontinently. "Grigg and Wynter, drapers, of Weymouth, ceased to exist as a firm to-day," he remarked oracularly.

"As to how?" demanded Reggie, genuinely puzzled.

"I have bought their business as a little reward for Miss Jimpson," the man of money replied. "She will have the transfer as soon as ever my lawyers can put it through."

"Then you've done his gracious Majesty an ill turn in losing him the most promising acting-gunner in the service," said Reggie. "Ned Parsons, as his wife's princ.i.p.al shop-walker, will be a standing disgrace to you, Mr. Maynard, to the end of your days. His only prospect of safety is that his future spouse is not, from what I saw of her, the sort of person to tolerate flirtations with the girls behind the counter. But while you are making everybody happy with that magic touch of yours, sir, what are you doing for Mr. Lazarus Lowch, the champion juryman. I hear that he was foreman at the other two inquests, as well as finis.h.i.+ng up Levison."

The millionaire laughed boisterously--so boisterously that it devolved upon Mr. Mallory to explain.

"Mr. Lazarus Lowch is as tame as a sucking dove," he said, with mock solemnity. "He has had his claws clipped and has been taken into custody by that sly little mischief-maker, Mademoiselle Louise Aubin."

"Good Lord!" cried Reggie. "Miss Maynard's maid?"

"Yes; she is a very astute young lady, and the only actor in our drama whose actions have been not quite clear to me, except that she was a bone of contention between Pierre Legros and Levison, and also figured as one of Nugent's puppets. Be that as it may, she contrived to get hold of Lowch, who, as you know, is a widower, as he was hanging about outside the police-station ready to get summoned on the two later inquests. She set her cap at him so effectually that he gave the coroner no trouble, and proposed to her the same evening."

"It must have been her figure that fetched him," said Reggie, with the air of a connoisseur. "She's great on _corsage_."

"And the figures in old Lowch's pa.s.s-book fetched her, I expect," roared Montague Maynard, rising. "Come, let's go and cool off on the lawn. It is time some one put a stopper on old Sally Dymmock. She's worrying the love-birds, and demoralizing that girl of yours, Mallory."

THE END