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Updated: June 4, 2025
Charles withered me with a fierce scowl of undisguised contempt. "Wentworth," he said once more, "you are a fool!" Then he relapsed into silence. "But you declined to sell out," I said. He gazed at me fixedly. "Is it likely," he asked at last, "I would tell you if I meant to sell out? or that I'd sell out openly through Finglemore, my usual broker?
Charles held to him with a fierce grip. "Mind he doesn't break away, Sey," he cried. "He's playing his old game! Distrust the man's patter!" "Take care," the prisoner put in. "Remember Dr. Polperro! On what charge do you arrest me?" Charles was bubbling with indignation. "You cheated me at Nice," he said; "at Meran; at New York; at Paris!" Paul Finglemore shook his head.
I asked. Charles reflected a moment. "The same as the one in the note we got with the dust-coat," he answered, at last. "The man is Paul Finglemore!" "You will arrest him?" I asked. "Can I, on this evidence?" "We might bring it home to him." Charles mused for a moment. "We shall have nothing against him," he said slowly, "except in so far as we can swear to his identity.
His manner was defiant, not abject like Charles's. He knew he was at bay, and he turned like a man to face his accusers. We had two or three counts on the charge, and, after some formal business, Sir Charles Vandrift was put into the box to bear witness against Finglemore. Prisoner was unrepresented. Counsel had been offered him, but he refused their aid.
Peter Porter, and booked as such in the Etruria at Liverpool. The day before starting, however, he went down with me to the City for an interview with his brokers in Adam's Court, Old Broad Street. Finglemore, the senior partner, hastened, of course, to receive us. As we entered his private room a good-looking young man rose and lounged out.
It had been worked out as carefully as the Tichborne swindle. Young Finglemore, as the brother of Charles's broker, knew from the outset all about his affairs; and, after a gentle course of preliminary roguery, he laid his plans deep for a campaign against my brother-in-law. Everything had been deliberately designed beforehand.
I looked in the fellow's face: there could be no denying it; Césarine's young man was Paul Finglemore, our broker's brother. "Paul Finglemore," Charles said severely, "otherwise Cuthbert Clay, I arrest you on several charges of theft and conspiracy!" The young man glanced around him. He was surprised and perturbed; but, even so, his inexhaustible coolness never once deserted him.
We went out again, better friends than we had been for months. I hoped, indeed, this pleasant little incident might help to neutralise the possible ill-effects of the ten per cent disclosure, should Finglemore take it into his head to betray me to my employer. As we emerged into the drawing-room, Amelia beckoned me aside towards her boudoir for a moment.
Altogether, their cleverness and trained acumen made up on the whole for Charles's over-certainty, and they succeeded in putting before the jury a strong case of their own against Paul Finglemore. The trial occupied three days. After the first of the three, my respected brother-in-law preferred, as he said, not to prejudice the case against the prisoner by appearing in court again.
Now that they knew Colonel Clay to be really Paul Finglemore, they showed with great cleverness how Paul Finglemore's disappearances and reappearances in London exactly tallied with Colonel Clay's appearances and disappearances elsewhere, under the guise of the little curate, the Seer, David Granton, and the rest of them.
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