The Haute Noblesse Part 115

"Yes, of course."

"And you heard his voice?"

"Yes."

"Broken French?"

"Yes."

"Now, sir, just think a moment. I have a slight idea. French name-- spoke--"

"We mentioned no name."

"One minute, sir. Spoke French--brother's fellow-clerk and intimate-- gentleman who went off--been staying at the house--long time in the lady's society. What do you say now to its being this Mr Pradelle?"

Uncle Luke gave the table a thump which made the tea-things rattle, and Leslie started from his seat, gazing wildly at the officer, who smiled rather triumphantly.

"Great Heavens!" faltered Leslie, as if a new light had flashed into his darkened mind.

"Of course, sir, this is only a suggestion," said the sergeant. "It is all new to me; but seems likely."

"No," said Uncle Luke emphatically, "no. She would never have gone off with him."

"Very good, gentlemen. I'll see what I can do at once."

"One moment," said Leslie as he slipped some notes into the man's hand.

"You will spare neither time nor money."

"I will not, sir."

"Tell me one thing. What shall you do first?"

"Just the opposite to what you've done, gentlemen," said the officer.

"What do you mean?"

"Go down to Hakemouth by to-night's mail, and work back to town."

"I feel certain," said Leslie, "that he brought her to London to take tickets for France."

"I don't, sir, yet. But even if I did, it's a long bridge from here to Cornwall, and I might find them resting in one of the recesses. You leave it to me, sir. Good-day.

"Humph!" he added as he went out; "plain as a pikestaff. Women are womanly, and I have known instances of a woman sticking to a man for no reason whatever, except that he was a scamp, and sometimes the greater the scamp the tighter the tie. Pradelle's my man, and I think I can put my thumb upon him before long."

"No, Leslie, no. Louy wouldn't look at him. That's not the clue," said Uncle Luke.

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT.

THE NEEDLE IN A BUNDLE OF HAY.

A week of anxiety, with the breaks in it of interviews with Sergeant Parkins, who had very little to communicate; but still that little was cogent.

He had been down to Hakemouth, and by careful inquiry had tracked the missing pair to Plymouth, where he had missed them. But, after the fas.h.i.+on of a huntsman, he made long casts round and picked up the clue at Exeter, where a porter remembered them from what sounded like an altercation in a second-cla.s.s compartment, where a dark young lady was in tears, and the "gent" who was with her said something to her sharply in a foreign tongue. Pressed as to what it was like, he said it sounded as if the gent said "Taisey."

There the sergeant had lost the clue; but he had learned enough to satisfy himself that the fugitives had been making for London, unless they had branched off at Bristol, which was hardly likely.

"Come up to London," said Leslie. "Well, that is what we surmised before we applied to you."

"Exactly, sir; but I have nearly made your surmise a certainty."

"Yes, nearly," said Leslie bitterly.

"We must have time, sir. A hunter does not secure his game by rus.h.i.+ng at it. He stalks it."

"Yes," said Uncle Luke in a.s.sent, "and of course you must be certain.

This is not a criminal matter."

"No, sir, of course not," said the sergeant drily, and with a meaning in his tone which the others did not detect.

"If you are successful in finding their whereabouts, mind that your task ends there. You will give us due notice, and we will see to the rest."

"Certainly, sir; and I have men on the look-out. The bundle of hay is being pretty well tossed over, and some day I hope to see the s.h.i.+ne of the needle among the puzzling dry strands. Good morning."

"Is that man a humbug, sir, or in earnest?"

"Earnest," replied Uncle Luke. "He proved that before."

If the occupants of the hotel room, which seemed to Leslie like a prison, could have read Sergeant Parkins' mind as he went away, they would have thought him in deadly earnest.

"Not a criminal case, gentlemen, eh?" he said to himself. "If it is as I think, it is very criminal indeed, and Mr Pradelle will find it so before he is much older. I haven't forgotten the night on Hakemouth Pier, and that poor boy's death, and I shan't feel very happy till I've squared accounts with him, for if he was not the starter of all that trouble I am no judge of men."

CHAPTER FIFTY NINE.

PRADELLE IS p.r.i.c.kED.

Seeing more and more that if an alteration was to be made in their present position, the change must come from her urging, Louise attacked her brother soon after breakfast the next morning. She was fully convinced that Pradelle was determined to keep them in London for reasons of his own--reasons the bare thought of which brought an indignant flush into her cheek; and it was evident that he was gaining greater influence over his old companion, who was just now in the stage when it would be easy for one of strong mind to gain the mastery. This being so, Louise determined that hers should be the strong will, not Pradelle's. To this end she took three or four of the most likely of her jewels, making a point of carefully wrapping them up, and dwelling upon the task till she caught her brother's attention.

"What are you doing there?" he said.

"Getting ready some things upon which to raise money."

He uttered an impatient e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Leave them till Pradelle comes."