No Name Wilkie Collins (e book reader android TXT) 📖

I succeed in finding my master, let that person get the money if that person can. A course to follow in this matter has presented itself to my mind since I received your letter, but my ignorance of details of business and intricacies of law leaves me still uncertain whether my idea is capable of ready and certain execution. I know no professional person whom I can trust in this delicate and dangerous business. Is your large experience in other matters large enough to help me in this? I will call at your office tomorrow at two o’clock, for the purpose of consulting you on the subject. It is of the greatest importance, when I next see Mr. Noel Vanstone, that he should find me thoroughly prepared beforehand in this matter of the will.

“Your much obliged servant,

“Virginie Lecount.”

XII From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth

“Serle Street, October 29th.

“Dear Miss Garth⁠—I have only a moment to assure you of the sorrow with which I have read your letter. The circumstances under which you urge your request, and the reasons you give for making it, are sufficient to silence any objection I might otherwise feel to the course you propose. A trustworthy person, whom I have myself instructed, will start for Allonby today, and as soon as I receive any news from him, you shall hear of it by special messenger. Tell Miss Vanstone this, and pray add the sincere expression of my sympathy and regard.

“Faithfully yours,

“William Pendril.”

XIII From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount

“Dark’s Buildings. November 1st.

“Dear Madam⁠—I have the pleasure of informing you that the discovery has been made with far less trouble than I had anticipated.

“Mr. and Mrs. Noel Vanstone have been traced across the Solway Firth to Dumfries, and thence to a cottage a few miles from the town, on the banks of the Nith. The exact address is Baliol Cottage, near Dumfries.

“This information, though easily hunted up, has nevertheless been obtained under rather singular circumstances.

“Before leaving Allonby, the persons in my employ discovered, to their surprise, that a stranger was in the place pursuing the same inquiry as themselves. In the absence of any instructions preparing them for such an occurrence as this, they took their own view of the circumstance. Considering the man as an intruder on their business, whose success might deprive them of the credit and reward of making the discovery, they took advantage of their superiority in numbers, and of their being first in the field, and carefully misled the stranger before they ventured any further with their own investigations. I am in possession of the details of their proceedings, with which I need not trouble you. The end is, that this person, whoever he may be, was cleverly turned back southward on a false scent before the men in my employment crossed the Firth.

“I mention the circumstance, as you may be better able than I am to find a clue to it, and as it may possibly be of a nature to induce you to hasten your journey.

“Your faithful servant,

“Alfred de Bleriot.”

XIV From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot

“November 1st.

“Dear Sir⁠—One line to say that your letter has just reached me at my lodging in London. I think I know who sent the strange man to inquire at Allonby. It matters little. Before he finds out his mistake, I shall be at Dumfries. My luggage is packed, and I start for the North by the next train.

“Your deeply obliged

“Virginie Lecount.”

The Fifth Scene

Baliol Cottage, Dumfries.

I

Toward eleven o’clock, on the morning of the third of November, the breakfast-table at Baliol Cottage presented that essentially comfortless appearance which is caused by a meal in a state of transition⁠—that is to say, by a meal prepared for two persons, which has been already eaten by one, and which has not yet been approached by the other. It must be a hardy appetite which can contemplate without a momentary discouragement the battered eggshell, the fish half stripped to a skeleton, the crumbs in the plate, and the dregs in the cup. There is surely a wise submission to those weaknesses in human nature which must be respected and not reproved, in the sympathizing rapidity with which servants in places of public refreshment clear away all signs of the customer in the past, from the eyes of the customer in the present. Although his predecessor may have been the wife of his bosom or the child of his loins, no man can find himself confronted at table by the traces of a vanished eater, without a passing sense of injury in connection with the idea of his own meal.

Some such impression as this found its way into the mind of Mr. Noel Vanstone when he entered the lonely breakfast-parlor at Baliol Cottage shortly after eleven o’clock. He looked at the table with a frown, and rang the bell with an expression of disgust.

“Clear away this mess,” he said, when the servant appeared. “Has your mistress gone?”

“Yes, sir⁠—nearly an hour ago.”

“Is Louisa downstairs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When you have put the table right, send Louisa up to me.”

He walked away to the window. The momentary irritation passed away from his face; but it left an expression there which remained⁠—an expression of pining discontent. Personally, his marriage had altered him for the worse. His wizen little cheeks were beginning to shrink into hollows, his frail little figure had already contracted a slight stoop. The former delicacy of his complexion had gone⁠—the sickly paleness of it was all that remained. His thin flaxen mustaches were no longer pragmatically waxed and twisted into a curl: their weak feathery ends hung meekly pendent over the querulous corners of his mouth. If the ten or twelve weeks since his marriage had been counted by his locks, they might have