Checkmate Part 55

"I am told that you possibly are possessed of information which I have long been seeking in vain."

Another nod.

"Monsieur Lebas, the unfortunate little Frenchman who was murdered here in London, was, I believe, in your employment?"

The baron here had a little fit of coughing.

Uncle David accepted this as an admission.

"He was acquainted with Mr. Longcluse?"

"Was he?" says the baron, removing and replacing his pipe quickly.

"Will you, Baron Vanboeren, be so good as to give me any information you possess respecting Mr. Longcluse? It is not, I a.s.sure you, from mere curiosity I ask these questions, and I hope you will excuse the trouble I give you."

The baron took his pipe from his mouth, and blew out a thin stream of smoke.

"I have heard," said he, in short, harsh tones, "since I came to London, nosing but good of Mr. Longcluse. I have ze greadest respect for zat excellent gendleman. I will say nosing bud zat--ze greadest respect."

"You knew him in Paris, I believe?" urges Uncle David.

"Nosing but zat--ze greadest respect," repeats the baron. "I sink him a very worzy gendleman."

"No doubt, but I venture to ask whether you were acquainted with Mr.

Longcluse in Paris?"

"Zere are a gread many beoble in Paris. I have nosing to say of Mr.

Longcluse, nosing ad all, only he is a man of high rebudation."

And on completing this sentence the baron replaced his pipe, and delivered several rapid puffs.

"I took the liberty of enclosing a letter from a friend explaining who I am, and that the questions I should entreat you to answer are not prompted by any idle or impertinent curiosity; perhaps, then, you would be so good as to say whether you know anything of a person named Yelland Mace, who visited Paris some twenty years since?"

"I am in London, Sir, ubon my business, and no one else's. I am sinking of myself, and not about Mace or Longcluse, and I will not speak about eizer of zem. I am well baid for my dime. I will nod waste my dime on dalking--I will nod," he continues, warming as he proceeds; "nosing shall induce me do say one word aboud zoze gendlemen. I dake my oas I'll not, mein Gott! What do you mean by asking me aboud zem?"

He looks positively ferocious as he delivers this expostulation.

"My request must be more unreasonable than it appeared to me."

"Nosing can be more unreasonable!"

"And I am to understand that you positively object to giving me any information respecting the persons I have named?"

The baron appeared extremely uneasy. He trotted to the door on his short legs, and looked out. Returning, he shut the door carefully. His grimy countenance, under the action of fear, a.s.sumes an expression peculiarly forbidding; and he said, with angry volubility--

"Zis visit must end, Sir, zis moment. Donnerwesser! I will nod be combromised by you. But if you bromise as a Christian, ubon your honour, never to mention what I say----"

"Never, upon my honour."

"Nor to say you have talked with me here in London----"

"Never."

"I will tell you that I have no objection to sbeak wis you, _privately_ in Paris, whenever you are zere--now, now! zat is all. I will not have one ozer word--you shall not stay one ozer minude."

He opens the door and wags his head peremptorily, and points with his pipe to the lobby.

"You'll not forget your promise, Baron, when I call? for visit you I will."

"I never forget nosing. Monsieur Arden, will you go or _nod_?"

"Farewell, Sir," says his visitor, too much excited by the promise opened to him, for the moment to apprehend what was ridiculous in the scene or in the brutality of the baron.

CHAPTER LIX.

TWO OLD FRIENDS MEET AND PART.

When he was gone the Baron Vanboeren sat down and panted; his pipe had gone out, and he clutched it in his hand like a weapon and continued for some minutes, in the good old phrase, very much disordered.

"That old fool," he mutters, in his native German, "won't come near me again while I remain in London."

This a.s.surance was, I suppose, consolatory, for the baron repeated it several times; and then bounced to his feet, and made a few hurried preparations for an appearance in the streets. He put on a short cloak which had served him for the last thirty years, and a preposterous hat; and with a thick stick in his hand, and a cigar lighted, sallied forth, square and short, to make Mr. Longcluse a visit by appointment.

By this time the lamps were lighted. There had been a performance of _Saul_, a very brilliant success, although it pleased the baron to grumble over it that day. He had not returned from the great room where it had taken place more than an hour, when David Arden had paid his brief visit. He was now hastening to an interview which he thought much more momentous. Few persons who looked at that vulgar seedy figure, strutting through the mud, would have thought that the thread-bare black cloak, over which a brown autumnal tint had spread, and the monstrous battered felt hat, in which a costermonger would scarcely have gone abroad, covered a man worth a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Man is mysteriously so constructed that he cannot abandon himself to selfishness, which is the very reverse of heavenly love, without in the end contracting some incurable insanity; and that insanity of the higher man const.i.tutes, to a great extent, his mental death. The Baron Vanboeren's insanity was avarice; and his solitary expenses caused him all the sordid anxieties which haunt the unfortunate gentleman who must make both ends meet on five-and-thirty pounds a year.

Though not _sui profusus_, he was _alieni appetens_ in a very high degree; and his visit to Mr. Longcluse was not one of mere affection.

Mr. Longcluse was at home in his study. The baron was instantly shown in. Mr. Longcluse, smiling, with both hands extended to grasp his, advances to meet him.

"My dear Baron, what an unexpected pleasure! I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read your note. So you have a stake in this musical speculation, and though it is very late, and, of course, everything at a disadvantage, I have to congratulate you on an immense success."

The baron shrugs, shakes his head, and rolls his eyes dismally.

"Ah, my friend, ze exbenses are enormous."

"And the receipts still more so," says Longcluse cheerfully; "you must be making, among you, a mint of money."

"Ah! Monsieur Longcluse, id is nod what it should be! zay are all such sieves and robbers! I will never escape under a loss of a sousand bounds."

"You must be cheerful, my dear Baron. You shall dine with me to-day.

I'll take you with me to half a dozen places of amus.e.m.e.nt worth seeing after dinner. To-morrow morning you shall run down with me to Brighton--my yacht is there--and when you have had enough of that, we shall run up again and have a whitebait dinner at Greenwich; and come into town and see those fellows, Markham and the other, that poor little Lebas saw play, the night he was murdered. You must see them play the return match, so long postponed. Next day we shall----"