CHAPTER X

THE MAN IN CONVICT’S CLOTHES

Alphonse Lambaire was a man of many interests.

In his forty-two years of life he had collected them as another man might collect old prints. That he started forth at the outset, and of perversity chose the shadier walks of life, is a supposition which need not seriously be entertained, for it is not in accordance with the rule of things that a man should deliberately set himself in opposition to the laws of civilization.

All that Amber had said of him was true, and more.

He was a coiner in the sense that, with the notorious Señor Villitissi, and the no less notorious companions of that sometime senator, he had to do with the alarming increase in the silver coinage from which the markets of the world suffered.

It is a known fact that one “batch” of coins which was distributed in Spain brought the rate of exchange from twenty-eight pesetas ten to thirty-one pesetas in a month.

There was nothing about him which suggested the strutting villain of melodrama, yet he was a well-defined type of criminal.

Whitey--Cornelius Josiah White, to give him the only name which ever appeared to have a resemblance to a real name employed by him--was a lesser man in point of originality, greater when measured by the standards of daring and crude villainy.

Whitey said as much one afternoon, about a week after the interview.

“What you want, Lambaire, is Dash,” he said. “When the least little bit of trouble comes along, instead of Swelling up to it, you get Shrunk.”

Lambaire grunted something.

He was in no mood for psychology.

They were on their way to Warwick Gardens for a final interview with Sutton and his sister.

“After Amber’s ‘give away,’” Whitey went on, “you’d have chucked the whole business; you would, Lambaire! You’d have chucked it for a hook like Amber ... your big schemes too, Imperial I call ’em ... along comes a feller fresh from gaol, a swell thief, and you start looking round for Exits-in-case-of-Emergency.”

“I was afraid Sutton would turn me down.”

“Bosh!” said Whitey unsympathetically, “he couldn’t turn you down without turning down himself: don’t you know that chaps of his age will do anything to prove they are right?”

“Well, the girl isn’t convinced,” objected Lambaire.

“And never will be,” said Whitey, “you’re the Devil to her.” Lambaire’s face went unaccountably black at this frank expression, and Whitey, who had forgotten more about human nature than Lambaire was ever likely to learn, was wise enough to leave the subject unpursued.

They were admitted to the house and ushered into Sutton’s room.

The youth sat amidst a litter of catalogues, maps, and samples of equipment. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe, and was obviously and most absurdly pleased with himself.

He greeted his visitors with a cheerful smile.

“Come in, and find a place to sit down if you can,” he invited. “I will let Cynthia know that you are here.” He leant back and pushed a bell by the side of the fireplace.

“We had better fix up the question of the chart,” he said; “that confounded man Amber has upset everything; you know how suspicious women are, and the dear girl suspects you good people of all sorts of sinister plans.”

He laughed heartily at the joke of it.

A servant appeared at the door and he sent a message to his sister.

“I have succeeded in persuading her,” he went on, “to let me have the chart.”

Lambaire breathed an inward sigh of relief, and the twinkling eyes of Whitey danced with glee.

“It will surprise you to learn that, save for a momentary glimpse, even I have never seen it,” he said, “and really, after all the bother that has been made about the thing, I shall be disappointed if it is not the most lucid of documents.”

Cynthia Sutton came into the room at that moment.

She favoured Lambaire with a distant bow, and ignored the extravagant politeness of Whitey, who was the only one of the party that stood.

Lambaire, with an eye for the beautiful, and having for the first time leisure to observe her, noted with a pleasant feeling of surprise that she was more than ordinarily pretty. Her features were perfectly modelled, her eyes were large and grey, she was slender and tall, and her every movement betrayed her supple grace.

For the first time, Lambaire viewed her as a woman, and not as an antagonist, and he enjoyed the experience.

She stood by the table where her brother sat, her hands behind her, looking down at him gravely.

Whitey derived no small amount of satisfaction from the fact that from where he sat he saw that in one hand she held an envelope of a large size. He guessed that therein was the chart which had been the subject of so much discussion.

This proved to be the case, for without preamble, she produced two sheets of paper. The first was a discoloured and stained little map, drawn on thick cartridge paper.

It was blistered by heat, and bore indications of rough treatment. The second sheet was clean, and this she placed before her brother.

He looked at it wonderingly, then raised his eyes to the girl’s face with a puzzled air.

“Yes,” she said, as in answer to his unspoken question, “this is a copy, but I have brought the original that you may compare it.” She laid the discoloured plan by its side. “The copy is a perfect one,” she said.

“But why on earth do you want a copy?”

For answer she slipped the original into the envelope again.

“The copy is for you,” she said, “the original I shall keep.”

Sutton was too pleased to secure the plan to care overmuch whether it was the original or a copy. As he pored over it insensibly the two men were drawn to the table.

“It is a rum-looking map--my father seems to have gone in a half-circle.”

“What I can’t understand is this dotted line,” said the youth, and indicated a straight line that formed the base of an obtuse triangle, the other two sides being formed by the travellers’ route.

“I think this is a favourable moment to make an explanation,” said Lambaire in his gentlest voice. He addressed himself to the girl, who shifted her gaze from her brother’s face to his.

“On the occasion of my last visit here,” he continued, “there was a painful scene, which was not of my seeking. A man I can only describe as a--a----”

“Dangerous bloke--fellow,” said Whitey, correcting himself in some confusion.

“A dangerous fellow,” repeated Lambaire, “who made wild and reckless charges against my honesty. That man, who has been an inmate of every gaol----”

“I do not think you need go into particulars of Mr. Amber’s career.”

There was the faintest touch of pink in her cheeks as she changed the course of Lambaire’s speech.

“As you wish.” He was irritated, for he was a man of no very great gift of speech, and he had come prepared with his explanation. “I only wish to say this, that the man Amber spoke the truth--though his----”

“Deductions?” suggested Whitey _sotto voce_.

“Though his deductions were wrong: the compass your father used was a faulty one.”

The girl’s eyes did not leave his face.

“It was a faulty one,” continued Lambaire, “and it was only yesterday that I discovered the fact. There were four compasses made, two of which your father had, and two I kept locked up in my safe.”

“Why was that?” questioned the girl.

“That is easily explained,” responded the other eagerly. “I knew that even if Mr. Sutton succeeded, another expedition would be necessary, and, as a business man, I of course bought in a businesslike manner--one buys these instruments cheaper----”

“By taking a quantity,” murmured Whitey.

“In a sense,” continued Lambaire impressively, “that precaution of mine has made this expedition of your brother’s possible. We are now able to follow in your father’s track--for we shall work by the compass he used.”

He felt that his explanation was all that was necessary. More than this, he half believed all that he had said, and felt an inexplicable sense of satisfaction in the realization of his forethought.

Cynthia said nothing. She had gone beyond the place where she felt the duty or inclination to oppose her brother’s will. It could be said with truth that her brother and his project had faded into the background, for there had come a newer and a more astounding interest into her life.

She did not confess as much to herself. It was the worst kind of madness.

A convict--with not even the romantic interest of a great conviction. A mean larcenist, for all the polish of his address, and the gay humour of those honest eyes of his.

Her brother would go to the coast in search of the River of Stars. Possibly he might find it: she was sufficiently blessed with the goods of this world not to care whether he did or not. She would like her father’s judgment vindicated, but here again she had no fervency of desire to that end.

Her father had been a vague shadow of a man, with little or no concern with his family. His children, during the rare periods he stayed in the same house with them, had been “noises” to be incontinently “stopped.”

All her love had been lavished on her brother; her struggles, in the days before the happy legacy had placed her beyond the need for struggling, had been for his comfort and ease. She had been willingly blind to his follies, yet had been frantic in her efforts to check those follies from degenerating into vices.... She remembered she had been on the verge of tears the first time she met Amber, and almost smiled at the recollection.

Francis would go out, and would come back again alive: she had no doubt about this: the tiny ache in her heart had an origin foreign to the question of her brother’s safety.

All this passed through her mind, as she stood by the table pretending to listen to a conversation which had become general.

She became alert when Lambaire returned to a forbidden subject.

“I don’t know why he has interfered,” he was saying, answering a question Sutton had addressed to him; “that night he came into the Whistlers----” A warning caught from Whitey brought him on to another tack. “Well, well,” he said benevolently, “it is not for us to judge the poor fellow, one doesn’t know what temptations assail a man: he probably saw an opportunity for making easy money,” another cough from Whitey, and he pulled out his watch. “I must be getting along,” he said, “I have to meet a man at Paddington: would you care to come? I have one or two other matters to talk over with you.”

Sutton accepted the invitation with alacrity.

What impelled Cynthia Sutton to take the step she did it is difficult to say. It may have been the merest piece of feminine curiosity, a mischievous desire to hinder the free exchange of ideas; the chances are that another explanation might be found, for as Sutton left the room to change his coat she turned to Lambaire and asked:

“What is Mr. Amber’s history?”

Lambaire smiled and glanced significantly at Whitey.

“Not a very nice one--eh, Whitey?”

Whitey shook his head.

“I am a little interested,” she said; “should I be a bother to you if I walked with you to Paddington--it is a beautiful afternoon?”

“Madam,” said the gratified Lambaire, “I shall be overjoyed. I feel that if I can only gain your confidence--I was saying this morning, wasn’t I, Whitey?”

“You were,” said the other instantly.

“I was saying, ‘Now if I could only get Miss Cynthia----’”

“Miss Sutton,” said Cynthia.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Sutton, to see my point of view....”

“I won’t promise that,” she said with a smile, as her brother returned.

He was inclined to be annoyed when she walked ahead with his patron, but his annoyance was certainly not shared by Lambaire, who trod on air.

“... Yes, I’m afraid Amber is a bad egg--a wrong ’un, ye know. He’s not Big.”

Her heart sank as she recognized the echo of her own thoughts. It was absurd that the mediocrity of Amber’s criminal attainments should fill her with numb despair, but so it was.

“No, he’s not Big--although,” said Lambaire hastily, “I’ve no sympathy for the Big Mob.”

“With the----?”

She was puzzled.

“With the Big Mob--the high-class nuts--you know what I mean--the----” He looked round helplessly for Whitey.

“I think I understand,” she said.

They walked on in silence for another five minutes.

“Do you think that if some good influence were brought to bear on a man like Mr. Amber----”

“No, absolutely no, miss,” said Lambaire emphatically, “he’s the sort of man that only gaol can reform. A friend of mine, who is Governor of Clemstead Gaol, told me that Amber was one of the most hardened prisoners he’d ever had--there’s no hope for a man like that.”

Cynthia sighed. In a vague way she wondered how it came about that such a man as she judged Lambaire to be, should have friends in the prison service.

“A bad lot,” said Lambaire as they turned into the station.

On the platform Cynthia took her brother aside, whilst the other two were making inquiries regarding the arrival of a train.

“I shall go back to the house--I suppose you are determined to go through with this expedition?”

“Of course,” irritably; “for Heaven’s sake, Cynthia, don’t let us go into this matter again.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and was about to make some remark, when Lambaire came hurrying along the platform, his face eloquent of triumph.

“Look here,” he said, and beckoned.

Wondering what could have animated this lymphatic man, she followed with her brother.

She turned a corner of the station building, then came to a sudden stop, and went white to the lips.

Under the care of two armed warders were a dozen convicts in the ugly livery of their servitude.

They were chained wrist to wrist, and each handcuff was fastened to the next by a steel chain.

Conspicuous in the foremost file was Amber, bright, cheerful, unaffected by this ignominious situation.

Then he saw the girl, and his eyes dropped and a scarlet flush came to his tanned cheek.

“My Lambaire,” he murmured, “I owe you one for this.”