The Hunchback of Westminster. Le Queux William

Now he’s in trouble, let him get out of it; but let him be a man over it, and don’t let him bleat about the needs of England when he really means his own greed.”

      “There’s a good deal in what you say,” remarked Lord Cuthbertson, “but not everything. Bear with me a minute, and I will explain. I have no doubt you are under the impression that when Fotheringay went to Mexico he went simply because he’d got a lot of spare cash, and wanted a change, and to bag some big game. As a matter of fact, he had no thought of the sort. He went as a special and a private spy of the Foreign Office; and his business was, under the harmless guise of an enthusiastic sportsman, to investigate certain rumours we had heard as to the discovery of these Jesuit plans of the sacred Lake of Treasure which really belongs to England. Well, he did so, and so cleverly did he manage that he penetrated the very monastery in which they were hidden, and he got at the very prior of the Order – a member of which had held them in his possession. A certain bargain was struck between the prior and himself, but before the Foreign Office could send the big sum of money required to ratify it this Father Alphonse Calasanctius ran away with the documents to England, but was, we have reason to believe, poisoned on his arrival by some compatriot or relative who knew nothing of the value of the manuscripts, and thought only of the forced sale of the goods which you and the earl attended. Therefore I beg you don’t judge your old companion unfairly and harshly. We all of us do many things for England in our public capacity that we should not dare, or even wish, to do for ourselves in our own private business. His sole blunder was to get Zouche to help him, because Zouche is really a villain who would dare any crime or fraud to help his country, Spain. So it, of course, has happened as might have been expected. Zouche has repudiated the earl, and unless you can give us a hand England is going to lose this sacred lake and its millions and Zouche.”

      “He may not necessarily triumph,” I answered.

      “There are probably other people hot on the track of those manuscripts. To-day there have been one or two attempts to make Zouche disgorge from a source which is truly bold and daring and resourceful; I’ll assume, after what you say, it is the earl. Well, let the earl continue his pressure. He may frighten him out of them, but I doubt it – I doubt it very much. Then there is my employer.”

      “You must give that man up, Hugh,” cut in Colonel Napier, who had not hitherto spoken. “He’s a scoundrel of the first water. I know all about him. He escaped from that Mexican monastery at the same time as Father Alphonse Calasanctius, but not before he killed Earl Fotheringay’s companion, young Sutton.”

      “That is false,” suddenly interrupted a strange voice, “and the police of London and Mexico know it, for the deed was done by Calasanctius himself, and not by the novice at all.” And to everybody’s astonishment the doors of my big cupboard were flung open, and there stepped therefrom no less a personage than Don José Casteno himself.

      Chapter Eight.

      Some Grave Suspicions

      For a moment all was confusion. Colonel Napier sprang to his feet with an angry gesture, and even Lord Cyril Cuthbertson rose and crossed over to the place where Fotheringay was sitting near the fire, and consulted him in low and anxious tones.

      Curiously enough, Casteno appeared to be the least perturbed of any of us, although he had made such a dramatic entry. Somehow he seemed to take his position in that conference as a matter of right, and when he saw that none of the others were prepared to talk to him on any terms, but were determined to treat him as a bold, impertinent interloper, he swung round from them and stepped up to my desk, where I sat idly playing with a pen.

      “It is not true that I am the wretch whom Colonel Napier has spoken of,” he said to me very simply, looking me straight in the eyes. “It is not true that I am an enemy of England, such as Lord Cuthbertson has suggested. It is not true that I am engaged in any dishonourable or unpatriotic enterprise; nor was it begun, as they pretend, by my flight from a monastery in Mexico coincident with the disappearance of Father Calasanctius; nor did it include in its train the killing of that exceedingly foolish and indiscreet personage, Sutton. On the contrary, I assert here that all and each of those allegations are false; and what is perhaps the more intolerable is the fact that Lord Cyril knows it, has on his file at the Foreign Office a full report of the affair, coupled with a diplomatic request that the man should be found and returned to his friends.”

      And he turned and faced the Secretary for Foreign Affairs with a striking look of defiance; but that nobleman would not take up his challenge. He merely drew a little closer to the earl, who was now standing listening to him with an expression of the most grave concern, and the shot went wide.

      In no sense disconcerted, however, Don José confronted me again.

      “You see,” he said significantly, “Lord Cuthbertson’s striking change of manner when I am here to face him out. I repeat to you that he dare not deny what I have just told you, although it suited his purpose well enough to blacken my name when I was not here to speak up for myself. The point for you now to consider,” he went on in a lower tone, “is, as a man of honour, not whether you can take up the cause of Lord Cuthbertson but if you can throw me over on such flimsy, unsubstantial talk as this has been.”

      “If he doesn’t, Doris shall never speak to him again,” cut in Colonel Napier, who was an old Anglo-Indian, and nothing if not a most persistent fire-eater.

      Don José turned as swiftly as though he had been stung by a snake. “Colonel, that is not worthy of you,” he cried. “I beg you withdraw it for your own sake, for I warn you most solemnly that before a day has gone you will regret it.”

      “And I, as an Englishman, jealous of my country’s success, refuse,” thundered the old soldier. “Let it be enough that I have spoken. Mr Glynn can make his own choice.” And throwing back his shoulders he stalked impressively out of the room.

      Almost unobserved, too, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Earl Fotheringay had also manoeuvred their steps towards the doorway; and now, when Casteno tried to speak with them, they took advantage of a pause created by the sudden rattle of the colonel’s carriage as he drove towards the Strand to slip out of the room. A minute later there arose the sound of a loud commotion, as of doors banged and of horses urged to a gallop, and both of their broughams followed hard in the old soldier’s wake.

      “You see,” said Don José to me, with a little bitterness, “they are not men big enough to face me out over this matter. They prefer to fling their poisoned darts at me and to leave them to work their own mischief, whilst they scuttle off like naughty children who have thrown some stones through a window and are quite content with the sight of the damage they have done, without a thought of the anguish of the householder. Well, well! all this is the trouble which you will no doubt remember that I, at least, expected and warned you against when I asked you to join forces with me. I must not now rail against my own fate, but I do appeal to you – give me a fair chance, do not desert me.”