Authors: Rafael Sabatini
Mr. Templeton looked at the young man before him with eyes of real commiseration. He was entirely duped, and in his heart he regretted that for a moment he could have doubted Rotherby's
integrity of purpose.
"Sir," he said, "I offer you my sympathy—my profoundest sympathy; and you, my lady.
"As for this South Sea Company affair, well—I am empowered by Lord Carteret to treat only of the other matter, and to issue or not a warrant for the apprehension of the person you are
detaining, after I have investigated the grounds upon which his arrest is urged. Nevertheless, sir, I think I can say—indeed, I think I can promise—that in consideration of your
readiness to deliver up these letters, and provided their nature is as serious as you represent, and also in consideration of this, your most signal proof of loyalty, Lord Carteret will not wish to
increase the load which already you have to bear."
"Oh, sir!" cried Rotherby in the deepest emotion, "I have no words in which to express my thanks."
"Nor I," put in Mr. Caryll, "words in which to express my admiration. A most excellent performance, Rotherby. I had not credited you with so much ability."
Mr. Templeton frowned upon him again. "Ye betray a singular callousness, sir," said he.
"Nay, sir; not callousness. Merely the ease that springs from a tranquil conscience."
Her ladyship glanced across at him, and sneered audibly. "You hear the poisonous traitor, sir. He glories in a tranquil conscience, in spite of this murderous matter to which he stood
committed."
Rotherby turned aside to take the letters from the desk. He thrust them into Mr. Templeton's hands. "Here, sir, is a letter from King James to my father, and here is a letter from my father to
King James. From their contents, you will gather how far advanced are matters, what devilries are being hatched here in his majesty's dominions."
Mr. Templeton received them, and crossed to the window that he might examine them. His countenance lengthened. Rotherby took his stand beside his mother's chair, both observing Mr. Caryll, who,
in his turn, was observing Mr. Templeton, a faint smile playing round the corners of his mouth. Once they saw him stoop and whisper something in Hortensia's ear, and they caught the upward glance
of her eyes, half fear, half question.
Mr. Green, by the door, stood turning his hat in his hands, furtively watching everybody, whilst drawing no attention to himself—a matter in which much practice had made him perfect.
At last Templeton turned, folding the letters. "This is very grave, my lord," said he, "and my Lord Carteret will no doubt desire to express in person his gratitude and his deep sense of the
service you have done him. I think you may confidently expect to find him as generous as you hope."
He pocketed the letters, and raised a hand to point at Mr. Caryll. "This man?" he inquired laconically.
"Is a spy of King James's. He is the messenger who bore my father that letter from the Pretender, and he would no doubt have carried back the answer had my father lived."
Mr. Templeton drew a paper from his pocket, and crossed to the desk. He sat down, and took up a quill. "You can prove this, of course?" he said, testing the point of his quill upon his
thumb-nail.
"Abundantly," was the ready answer. "My mother can bear witness to the fact that 'twas he brought the Pretender's letter, and there is no lack of corroboration. Enough, I think, would be
afforded by the assault made by this rogue upon Mr. Green, of which, no doubt, you are already informed, sir. His object—this proved object—was to possess himself of those papers that
he might destroy them. I but caught him in time, as my servants can bear witness, as they can also bear witness to the circumstance that we were compelled to force an entrance here, and to use
force to him to obtain the letters from him."
Mr. Templeton nodded. "'Tis a clear case, then," said he, and dipped his pen.
"And yet," put in Mr. Caryll, in an indolent, musing voice, "it might be made to look as clear another way."
Mr. Templeton scowled at him. "The opportunity shall be afforded you," said he. "Meanwhile—what is your name?"
Mr. Caryll looked whimsically at the secretary a moment; then flung his bomb. "I am Justin Caryll, Sixth Earl of Ostermore, and your very humble servant, Mr. Secretary."
The effect was ludicrous—from Mr. Caryll's point of view—and yet it was disappointing. Five pairs of dilating eyes confronted him, five gaping mouths. Then her ladyship broke into a
laugh.
"The creature's mad—I've long suspected it." And she meant to be taken literally; his many whimsicalities were explained to her at last. He was, indeed, half-witted, as he now proved.
Mr. Templeton, recovering, smote the table angrily. He thought he had good reason to lose his self-control on this occasion, though it was a matter of pride with him that he could always
preserve an unruffled calm under the most trying circumstances. "What is your name, sir?" he demanded again.
"You are hard of hearing, sir, I think. I am Lord Ostermore. Set down that name in the warrant if you are determined to be bubbled by that fellow there and made to look foolish afterwards with
my Lord Carteret."
Mr. Templeton sat back in his chair, frowning; but more from utter bewilderment now than anger.
"Perhaps," said Mr. Caryll, "if I were to explain, it would help you to see the imposture that is being practiced upon you. As for the allegations that have been made against me—that I am
a Jacobite spy and an agent of the Pretender's—" He shrugged, and waved an airy hand. "I scarce think there will remain the need for me to deny them when you have heard the rest."
Rotherby took a step forward, his face purple, his hands clenched. Her ladyship thrust out a bony claw, clutched at his sleeve, and drew him back and into the chair beside her. "Pho! Charles,"
she said; "give the fool rope, and he'll hang himself, never doubt it—the poor, witless creature."
Mr. Caryll sauntered over to the sécretaire, and leaned an elbow on the top of it, facing all in the room.
"I admit, Mr. Secretary," said he, "that I had occasion to assault Mr. Green, to the end that I might possess myself of the papers he was seeking in this desk."
"Why, then——" began Mr. Templeton.
"Patience, sir! I admit so much, but I admit no more. I do not, for instance, admit that the object—the object itself—of my search was such as has been represented."
"What then? What else?" growled Rotherby.
"Ay, sir—what else?" quoth Mr. Templeton.
"Sir," said Mr. Caryll, with a sorrowful shake of the head, "I have already startled you, it seems, by one statement. I beg that you will prepare yourself to be startled by another." Then he
abruptly dropped his languor. "I should think twice, sir," he advised, "before signing that warrant, were I in your place; to do so would be to render yourself the tool of those who are plotting my
ruin, and ready to bear false witness that they may accomplish it. I refer," and he waved a hand towards the countess and his brother, "to the late Lord Ostermore's mistress and his natural son,
there."
In their utter stupefaction at the unexpectedness and seeming wildness of the statement, neither mother nor son could find a word to say. No more could Mr. Templeton for a moment. Then,
suddenly, wrath fully: "What are you saying, sir?" he roared.
"The truth, sir."
"The truth?" echoed the secretary.
"Ay, sir—the truth. Have ye never heard of it?"
Mr. Templeton sat back again. "I begin to think," said he, surveying through narrowing eyes the slender graceful figure before him, "that her ladyship is right—that you are mad;
unless—unless you are mad of the same madness that beset Ulysses. You remember?"
"Let us have done," cried Rotherby in a burst of anger, leaping to his feet. "Let us have done, I say! Are we to waste the day upon this Tom o' Bedlam? Write him down as Caryll—Justin
Caryll—'tis the name he's known by; and let Green see to the rest."
Mr. Templeton made an impatient sound, and poised his pen.
"Ye are not to suppose, sir," Mr. Caryll stayed him, "that I cannot support my statements. I have by me proofs—irrefragable proofs of what I say."
"Proofs?" The word seemed to come from every, member of that little assembly—if we except Mr. Green, whose face was beginning to betray his uneasiness. He was not so ready as the others to
believe that Mr. Caryll was mad. For him, the situation asked some other explanation.
"Ay—proofs," said Mr. Caryll. He had drawn the case from his pocket again. From this he took the birth-certificate, and placed it before Mr. Templeton, "Will you glance at that,
sir—to begin, with?"
Mr. Templeton complied. His face became more and more grave. He looked at Mr. Caryll; then at Rotherby, who was scowling, and at her ladyship, who was breathing hard. His glance returned to Mr.
Caryll.
"You are the person designated here?" he inquired.
"As I can abundantly prove," said Mr. Caryll. "I have no lack of friends in London who will bear witness to that much."
"Yet," said Mr. Templeton, frowning, perplexed, "this does not make you what you claim to be. Rather does it show you to be his late lordship's——"
"There's more to come," said Mr. Caryll, and placed another document before the secretary. It was an extract from the register of St. Etienne of Maligny, relating to his mother's death.
"Do you know, sir, in what year this lady went through a ceremony of marriage with my father—the late Lord Ostermore? It was in 1690, I think, as the lady will no doubt confirm."
"To what purpose, this?" quoth Mr. Templeton.
"The purpose will be presently apparent. Observe that date," said Mr. Caryll, and he pointed to the document in Mr. Templeton's hand.
Mr. Templeton read the date aloud—"1692"—and then the name of the deceased—"Antoinette de Beaulieu de Maligny. What of it?" he demanded.
"You will understand that when I show you the paper I took from this desk, the paper that I obtained as a consequence of my violence to Mr. Green. I think you will consider, sir, that if ever
the end justified the means, it did so in this case. Here was something very different from the paltry matter of treason that is alleged against me."
And he passed the secretary a third paper.
Over Mr. Templeton's shoulder, Rotherby and his mother, who—drawn by the overpowering excitement that was mastering them—had approached in silence, were examining the document with
wide-open, startled eyes, fearing by very instinct, without yet apprehending the true nature of the revelation that was to come.
"God!" shrieked her ladyship, who took in the meaning of this thing before Rotherby had begun to suspect it. "'Tis a forgery!"
"That were idle, when the original entry in the register is to be seen in the Church of St. Antoine, madam," answered Mr. Caryll. "I rescued that document, together with some letters which my
mother wrote my father when first he returned to England—and which are superfluous now—from a secret drawer in that desk, an hour ago."
"But what is it?" inquired Rotherby huskily. "What is it?"
"It is the certificate of the marriage of my father, the late Lord Ostermore, and my mother, Antoinette de Maligny, at the Church of St. Antoine in Paris, in the year 1689." He turned to Mr.
Templeton. "You apprehend the matter, sir?" he demanded, and recapitulated. "In 1689 they were married; in 1692 she died; yet in 1690 his lordship went through a form of marriage with Mistress
Sylvia Etheridge, there."
Mr. Templeton nodded very gravely, his eyes upon the document before him, that they might avoid meeting at that moment the eyes of the woman whom the world had always known as the Countess of
Ostermore.
"Fortunate is it for me," said Mr. Caryll, "that I should have possessed myself of these proofs in time. Does it need more to show how urgent might be the need for my suppression—how
little faith can be attached to an accusation levelled against me from such a quarter?"
"By God——" began Rotherby, but his mother clutched his wrist.
"Be still, fool!" she hissed in his ear. She had need to keep her wits about her, to think, to weigh each word that she might utter. An abyss had opened in her path; a false step, and she and
her son were irrevocably lost—sent headlong to destruction. Rotherby, already reduced to the last stage of fear, was obedient as he had never been, and fell silent instantly.
Mr. Templeton folded the papers, rose, and proffered them to their owner. "Have you any means of proving that this was the document you sought?" he inquired.
"I can prove that it was the document he found." It was Hortensia who spoke; she had advanced to her lover's side, and she controlled her amazement to bear witness for him. "I was present in
this room when he went through that desk, as all in the house know; and I can swear to his having found that paper in it."
Mr. Templeton bowed. "My lord," he said to Caryll, "your contentions appear clear. It is a matter in which I fear I can go no further; nor do I now think that the secretary of state would
approve of my issuing a warrant upon such testimony as we have received. The matter is one for Lord Carteret himself."
"I shall do myself the honor of waiting upon his lordship within the hour," said the new Lord Ostermore. "As for the letter which it is alleged I brought from France—from the
Pretender,"—he was smiling now, a regretful, deprecatory smile, "it is a fortunate circumstance that, being suspected by that very man Green, who stands yonder, I was subjected, upon my
arrival in England, to a thorough search at Maidstone—a search, it goes without saying, that yielded nothing. I was angry at the time, at the indignity I was forced to endure. We little know
what the future may hold. And today I am thankful to have that evidence to rebut this charge."
"Your lordship is indeed to be congratulated," Mr. Templeton agreed. "You are thus in a position to clear yourself of even a shadow of suspicion."
"You fool!" cried she who until that hour had been Countess of Ostermore, turning fiercely upon Mr. Templeton. "You fool!"
"Madam, this is not seemly," cried the second secretary, with awkward dignity.