"Never. I"ve been refused dozens----"
"Then you won"t understand how I felt. I was off my head with joy. I hardly knew what I was doing. I just felt I had to kiss the nearest thing handy. I couldn"t wait. It might have been the ship"s cat. It wasn"t. It was Pilbeam."
"You kissed her?"
"I kissed her. And just at that moment the door of the saloon opened and out came Stella."
"Great Scott!"
"Exactly what I said. It flashed across me that to Stella, dear girl, not knowing the circ.u.mstances, the thing might seem a little odd. It did. She broke off the engagement, and I got out the dinghy and rowed off. I was mad. I didn"t care what became of me. I simply wanted to forget. I went ash.o.r.e. I--It"s just on the cards that I may have drowned my sorrows a bit. Anyhow, I don"t remember a thing, except that I can recollect having the deuce of a sc.r.a.p with somebody in a dark street and somebody falling, and myself falling, and myself legging it for all I was worth. I woke up this morning in the Casino gardens. I"ve lost my hat."
I dived for the paper.
"Read," I said. "It"s all there."
He read.
"Good heavens!" he said.
"You didn"t do a thing to His Serene Nibs, did you?"
"Reggie, this is awful."
"Cheer up. They say he"ll recover."
"That doesn"t matter."
"It does to him."
He read the paper again.
"It says they"ve a clue."
"They always say that."
"But--My hat!"
"Eh?"
"My hat. I must have dropped it during the sc.r.a.p. This man, Denman Sturgis, must have found it. It had my name in it!"
"George," I said, "you mustn"t waste time. Oh!"
He jumped a foot in the air.
"Don"t do it!" he said, irritably. "Don"t bark like that. What"s the matter?"
"The man!"
"What man?"
"A tall, thin man with an eye like a gimlet. He arrived just before you did. He"s down in the saloon now, having breakfast. He said he wanted to see you on business, and wouldn"t give his name. I didn"t like the look of him from the first. It"s this fellow Sturgis. It must be."
"No!"
"I feel it. I"m sure of it."
"Had he a hat?"
"Of course he had a hat."
"Fool! I mean mine. Was he carrying a hat?"
"By Jove, he was carrying a parcel. George, old scout, you must get a move on. You must light out if you want to spend the rest of your life out of prison. Slugging a Serene Highness is _lese-majeste_. It"s worse than hitting a policeman. You haven"t got a moment to waste."
"But I haven"t any money. Reggie, old man, lend me a tenner or something. I must get over the frontier into Italy at once. I"ll wire my uncle to meet me in----"
"Look out," I cried; "there"s someone coming!"
He dived out of sight just as Voules came up the companion-way, carrying a letter on a tray.
"What"s the matter!" I said. "What do you want?"
"I beg your pardon, sir. I thought I heard Mr. Lattaker"s voice. A letter has arrived for him."
"He isn"t here."
"No, sir. Shall I remove the letter?"
"No; give it to me. I"ll give it to him when he comes."
"Very good, sir."
"Oh, Voules! Are they all still at breakfast? The gentleman who came to see Mr. Lattaker? Still hard at it?"
"He is at present occupied with a kippered herring, sir."
"Ah! That"s all, Voules."
"Thank you, sir."
He retired. I called to George, and he came out.
"Who was it?"
"Only Voules. He brought a letter for you. They"re all at breakfast still. The sleuth"s eating kippers."
"That"ll hold him for a bit. Full of bones." He began to read his letter. He gave a kind of grunt of surprise at the first paragraph.
"Well, I"m hanged!" he said, as he finished.
"Reggie, this is a queer thing."
"What"s that?"
He handed me the letter, and directly I started in on it I saw why he had grunted. This is how it ran: "My dear George--I shall be seeing you to-morrow, I hope; but I think it is better, before we meet, to prepare you for a curious situation that has arisen in connection with the legacy which your father inherited from your Aunt Emily, and which you are expecting me, as trustee, to hand over to you, now that you have reached your twenty-fifth birthday. You have doubtless heard your father speak of your twin-brother Alfred, who was lost or kidnapped--which, was never ascertained--when you were both babies. When no news was received of him for so many years, it was supposed that he was dead. Yesterday, however, I received a letter purporting that he had been living all this time in Buenos Ayres as the adopted son of a wealthy South American, and has only recently discovered his ident.i.ty. He states that he is on his way to meet me, and will arrive any day now. Of course, like other claimants, he may prove to be an impostor, but meanwhile his intervention will, I fear, cause a certain delay before I can hand over your money to you. It will be necessary to go into a thorough examination of credentials, etc., and this will take some time. But I will go fully into the matter with you when we meet.--Your affectionate uncle, "AUGUSTUS ARb.u.t.t."
I read it through twice, and the second time I had one of those ideas I do sometimes get, though admittedly a chump of the premier cla.s.s. I have seldom had such a thoroughly corking brain-wave.
"Why, old top," I said, "this lets you out."
"Lets me out of half the darned money, if that"s what you mean. If this chap"s not an imposter--and there"s no earthly reason to suppose he is, though I"ve never heard my father say a word about him--we shall have to split the money. Aunt Emily"s will left the money to my father, or, failing him, his "offspring." I thought that meant me, but apparently there are a crowd of us. I call it rotten work, springing unexpected offspring on a fellow at the eleventh hour like this."
"Why, you chump," I said, "it"s going to save you. This lets you out of your spectacular dash across the frontier. All you"ve got to do is to stay here and be your brother Alfred. It came to me in a flash."
He looked at me in a kind of dazed way.
"You ought to be in some sort of a home, Reggie."
"a.s.s!" I cried. "Don"t you understand? Have you ever heard of twin-brothers who weren"t exactly alike? Who"s to say you aren"t Alfred if you swear you are? Your uncle will be there to back you up that you have a brother Alfred."
"And Alfred will be there to call me a liar."
"He won"t. It"s not as if you had to keep it up for the rest of your life. It"s only for an hour or two, till we can get this detective off the yacht. We sail for England to-morrow morning."
At last the thing seemed to sink into him. His face brightened.
"Why, I really do believe it would work," he said.
"Of course it would work. If they want proof, show them your mole. I"ll swear George hadn"t one."
"And as Alfred I should get a chance of talking to Stella and making things all right for George. Reggie, old top, you"re a genius."
"No, no."
"You are."
"Well, it"s only sometimes. I can"t keep it up."
And just then there was a gentle cough behind us. We spun round.
"What the devil are you doing here, Voules," I said.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I have heard all."
I looked at George. George looked at me.
"Voules is all right," I said. "Decent Voules! Voules wouldn"t give us away, would you, Voules?"
"Yes, sir."
"You would?"
"Yes, sir."
"But, Voules, old man," I said, "be sensible. What would you gain by it?"
"Financially, sir, nothing."
"Whereas, by keeping quiet"--I tapped him on the chest--"by holding your tongue, Voules, by saying nothing about it to anybody, Voules, old fellow, you might gain a considerable sum."
"Am I to understand, sir, that, because you are rich and I am poor, you think that you can buy my self-respect?"
"Oh, come!" I said.
"How much?" said Voules.
So we switched to terms. You wouldn"t believe the way the man haggled. You"d have thought a decent, faithful servant would have been delighted to oblige one in a little matter like that for a fiver. But not Voules. By no means. It was a hundred down, and the promise of another hundred when we had got safely away, before he was satisfied. But we fixed it up at last, and poor old George got down to his state-room and changed his clothes.
He"d hardly gone when the breakfast-party came on deck.
"Did you meet him?" I asked.
"Meet whom?" said old Marshall.
"George"s twin-brother Alfred."
"I didn"t know George had a brother.
"Nor did he till yesterday. It"s a long story. He was kidnapped in infancy, and everyone thought he was dead. George had a letter from his uncle about him yesterday. I shouldn"t wonder if that"s where George has gone, to see his uncle and find out about it. In the meantime, Alfred has arrived. He"s down in George"s state-room now, having a brush-up. It"ll amaze you, the likeness between them. You"ll think it is George at first. Look! Here he comes."
And up came George, brushed and clean, in an ordinary yachting suit.
They were rattled. There was no doubt about that. They stood looking at him, as if they thought there was a catch somewhere, but weren"t quite certain where it was. I introduced him, and still they looked doubtful.
"Mr. Pepper tells me my brother is not on board," said George.
"It"s an amazing likeness," said old Marshall.
"Is my brother like me?" asked George amiably.
"No one could tell you apart," I said.
"I suppose twins always are alike," said George. "But if it ever came to a question of identification, there would be one way of distinguishing us. Do you know George well, Mr. Pepper?"
"He"s a dear old pal of mine."
"You"ve been swimming with him perhaps?"