United States or South Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Burt and Undercliff were conversing in a low voice, and Burt was saying he felt sure Wardlaw's spies had detected Robert Penfold, and that Robert would be arrested and put into prison as a runaway convict. "Go to Scotland Yard this minute, Mr. Burt," said Helen, eagerly. "What for?" "Why, you must take the commission to arrest him. You are our friend." Burt slapped his thigh with delight.
He went back to his hansom round the corner, and drove at once to Arthur Wardlaw's house with the information. Helen noted down Michael Penfold's address in her diary, and would have gone to him that evening, but she was to dine tete-a-tete with her father. Next day she went down to 3 Fairfield Cottages at half past four. On the way her heart palpitated, for this was a very important interview.
I was being spied on as before, but now there were so many at the business that they could not all conceal their tracks. Every now and then I had a glimpse of a black shoulder or leg, and Colin, whom I kept on the leash, was half-mad with excitement. I had seen all I wanted, and went home with a preoccupied mind. I sat long on Wardlaw's garden-seat, trying to puzzle out the truth of this spying.
And what was more, Robert succeeded in infusing his own delicacy, his own compunctions on the subject into the men and youths who had profited in the past by Wardlaw's rough self-devotion. So that if, through much that went on now, he could only be a spectator, at least he was not allowed to feel himself an alien or forgotten.
'It is written on paper in a strange tongue. Turn your head to the bush, and see, I will hold it inside the bowl, that you may read it. I did as I was told, and found myself looking at a dirty half-sheet of notepaper, marked by the Kaffir's thumbs. Some words were written on it in Wardlaw's hand; and, characteristically, in Latin, which was not a bad cipher.
The detective ran his eye hastily over the report, which we slightly condense. On comparing the forged note with genuine specimens of John Wardlaw's handwriting, no less than twelve deviations from his habits of writing strike the eye; and every one of these twelve deviations is a deviation into a habit of Arthur Wardlaw, which is an amount of demonstration rarely attained in cases of forgery.
Robert Penfold has been accused of forging John Wardlaw's name; to prove this was a calumny, I put Penfold over my door instead of Wardlaw. The city of London will understand that, gentlemen, believe me." "Mr. Wardlaw," said Robert, "you are a just, a noble " He could say no more. "Ah, sir," said Michael, "if the young gentleman had only been like you!" "Mention his name no more to me.
This apartment was so situated, and the frames of the plate-glass windows so well made and substantial, that, let a storm blow a thousand ships ashore, it could not be felt, nor heard, in Wardlaw's inner office. But appearances are deceitful; and who can wall out a sea of troubles, and the tempests of the mind?
"Well, miss, you told me you wanted to know the truth." "Of course I want to know the truth." "Then the truth is that you are watched by order of Mr. Wardlaw." Burt continued his report. "A shabby-like man called on you yesterday." "Yes; it was Mr. Hand, Mr. Wardlaw's clerk. And, oh, Mr. Burt, that wretched creature came and confessed the truth.
He had also counted upon getting news of the Proserpine. But not a word had reached Lloyd's as yet. At this very crisis came the panic of '66. Overend and Gurney broke; and Wardlaw's experience led him to fear that, sooner or later, there would be a run on every bank in London. Now he had borrowed 80,000 pounds at one bank, and 35,000 pounds at another.
Word Of The Day