Whereupon the sporting gentleman and lady, first taking a quiet peep into Benjamin"s bag to make sure that it contained nothing compromising, pa.s.sed the examiner with a smile of conscious innocence, and, after an interval for refreshment at the buffet, took their seats in the train for Paris.
Meanwhile poor Quelch was taken before a pompous individual with an extra large moustache and a double allowance of gold lace on his cap and charged not only with defrauding the revenue, but with forcibly resisting an officer in the execution of his duty. The accusation being in French, Quelch did not understand a word of it, and in his ignorance took it for granted that he was accused of stealing the strange bag and its contents. Visions of imprisonment, penal servitude, nay, even capital punishment, floated before his bewildered brain. Finally the official with the large moustache made a speech to him in French, setting forth that for his dishonest attempt to smuggle he must pay a fine of a hundred francs. With regard to the a.s.sault on the official, as said official was not much hurt, he graciously agreed to throw that in and make no charge for it. When he had fully explained matters to his own satisfaction he waited to receive the answer of the prisoner; but none was forthcoming, for the best of reasons. It finally dawned on the official that Quelch might not understand French, and he therefore proceeded to address him in what he considered to be his native tongue.
"You smoggle--smoggle seegar. Zen it must zat you pay amende, hundred francs. You me understand? Hundred francs--pay! pay! pay!"
At each repet.i.tion of the last word he brought down a dirty fist into the palm of the opposite hand immediately under Quelch"s nose.
"Hundred francs--Engleesh money, four pound."
Quelch caught the last words, and was relieved to find that it was merely a money payment that was demanded of him. But he was little better off, for, having but a few shillings in his pocket, to pay four pounds was as much out of his power as if it had been four hundred. He determined to appeal to the mercy of his captors. "Not got," he said, apologetically, with a vague idea that by speaking very elementary English he came somehow nearer to French, "That all," he continued, producing his little store and holding it out beseechingly to the official. "_Pas a.s.sez_, not enouf,"
growled the latter. Quelch tried again in all his pockets, but only succeeded in finding another threepenny piece. The officer shook his head, and, after a brief discussion with his fellows, said, _"Comment-vous appelez-vous, monsieur?_ How do you call yourself?"
With a vague idea of keeping his disgrace from his friends, Quelch rashly determined to give a false name. If he had had a few minutes to think it over he would have invented one for the occasion, but his imagination was not accustomed to such sudden calls, and, on the question being repeated, he desperately gave the name of his next-door neighbour, Mr. Henry Fladgate. "Henri Flodgett," repeated the officer as he wrote it down.
"_Et vous demeurez?_ You live where?" And Quelch proceeded to give the address of Mr. Fladgate, 11 Primrose Terrace. "_Tres bien._ I send teleg-r-r-amme. _Au violon!_" And poor Benjamin was ignominiously marched to the local police station.
Meanwhile Quelch"s arrangements at home were scarcely working as he had intended. The estimable Mrs. Widger, partly by reason of her deafness and partly of native stupidity, had only half understood his instructions about the letters. She knew she was to stamp them and she knew she was to post them, but the dates in the corners might have been runic inscriptions for any idea they conveyed to her obfuscated intellect. Accordingly, the first time she visited her usual house of call, which was early on the morning of Good Friday, she proceeded, in her own language, to "get the dratted things off her mind" by dropping them both into the nearest pillar-box.
On the following day, therefore, Mrs. Quelch at Lawestoft was surprised to find on the breakfast-table _two_ letters in her Benjamin"s handwriting. Her surprise was still greater when, on opening them, she found one to be a graphic account of a visit to the Zoological Gardens on the following Monday. The conclusion was obvious: either Benjamin had turned prophet, and had somehow got ahead of the almanac, or he was "carrying on" in some very underhand manner. Mrs. Quelch decided for the latter alternative, and determined to get to the bottom of the matter at once. She cut a sandwich, put on her bonnet, and, grasping her umbrella in a manner which boded no good to any one who stayed her progress, started by the next train for Liverpool Street.
On reaching home she extracted from the weeping Widger, who had just been spending the last of Benjamin"s five shillings, and was far gone in depression and gin and water, that her "good gentleman"
had not been home since Thursday night. This was bad enough, but there was still more conclusive evidence that he was up to no good, in the shape of his tall hat, which hung, silent accuser, on the last peg in the pa.s.sage.
Having pumped Mrs. Widger till there was no more (save tears) to be pumped out of her, Mrs. Quelch, still firmly grasping her umbrella, proceeded next door, on the chance that her neighbour, Mrs. Fladgate, might be able to give her some information. She found Mrs. Fladgate weeping in the parlour with an open telegram before her. Being a woman who did not stand upon ceremony, she read the telegram, which was dated from Dieppe and ran as follows: "Monsieur Fladgate here detained for to have smuggle cigars. Fine to pay, one hundred franc. Send money and he will be release."
"Oh, the men, the men!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Quelch, as she dropped into an arm-chair. "They"re all alike. First Benjamin, and now Fladgate! I shouldn"t wonder if they had gone off together."
"You don"t mean to say Mr. Quelch has gone too?" sobbed Mrs.
Fladgate.
"He has taken a shameful advantage of my absence. He has not been home since Thursday evening, and his hat is hanging up in the hall."
"You don"t think he has been m-m-murdered?"
"I"m not afraid of _that_," replied Mrs. Quelch, "it wouldn"t be worth anybody"s while. But what has he got on his head? that"s what I want to know. Of course, if he"s with Mr. Fladgate in some foreign den of iniquity, that accounts for it."
"Don"t foreigners wear hats?" inquired Mrs. Fladgate, innocently.
"Not the respectable English sort, I"ll bet bound," replied Mrs.
Quelch; "some outlandish rubbish, I dare say. But I thought Mr.
Fladgate on his Scotch journey." (Mr. Fladgate, it should be stated, was a traveller in the oil and colour line.)
"So he is. I mean, so he ought to be. In fact I expected him home to-day. But now he"s in p-p-prison, and I may never see him any m-mo-more." And Mrs. Fladgate wept afresh.
"Stuff and nonsense!" retorted Mrs. Quelch.
"You"ve only to send the money they ask for, and they"ll be glad enough to get rid of him. But I wouldn"t hurry; I"d let him wait a bit--you"ll see him soon enough, never fear."
The prophecy was fulfilled sooner than the prophet expected. Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when a cab was heard to draw up at the door, and a moment later Fladgate himself, a big, jovial man, wearing a white hat very much on one side, entered the room and threw a bundle of rugs on the sofa.
"Home again, old girl, and glad of it! Mornin", Mrs. Quelch," said the new-comer.
Mrs. Fladgate gazed at him doubtfully for a moment, and then flung her arms round his neck, ejaculating, "Saved, saved!"
"Martha," said Mrs. Quelch, reprovingly, "have you no self-respect?
Is _this_ the way you deal to so shameful a deception?" Then, turning the supposed offender, "So, Mr. Fladgate, you have escaped from your foreign prison."
"Foreign, how much? Have you both gone dotty, ladies? I"ve just escaped from a third-cla.s.s carriage on the London and Northwestern.
The s.p.a.ce is limited, but I never heard it called a foreign prison."
"It is useless to endeavour to deceive us," said Mrs. Quelch, sternly. "Look at that telegram, Mr. Fladgate, and deny it if you can. You have been gadding about in some vile foreign place with my misguided husband."
"Oh, Quelch is in it too, is he? Then it _must_ be a bad case.
But let"s see what we have been up to, for, "pon my word, I"m quite in the dark at present."
He held out his hand for the telegram, and read it carefully.
"Somebody"s been having a lark with you, old lady," he said to his wife. "You know well enough where I"ve been--my regular northern journey, and nowhere else."
"I don"t believe a word of it," said Mrs. Quelch, "you men are all alike--deceivers, every one of you."
"Much obliged for your good opinion, Mrs. Quelch. I had no idea Quelch was such a bad lot. But, so far as I am concerned, the thing"s easily tested. Here is the bill for my bed last night at Carlisle. Now if I was in Carlisle and larking about at Dieppe at the same time, perhaps you"ll kindly explain how I managed it."
Mrs. Quelch was staggered, but not convinced. "But if--if you were at Carlisle, where is Benjamin, and what does this telegram mean?"
"Not being a wizard, I really can"t say; but concerning Quelch, we shall find him, never fear. When did he disappear?"
Mrs. Quelch told her story, not forgetting the mysterious letter.
"I think I see daylight," said Fladgate. "The party who has got into that mess is Quelch, and, being frightened out of his wits, he has given my name instead of his own. That"s about the size of it!"
"But Benjamin doesn"t smoke; and how should he come to be at Dieppe?"
"Went for a holiday, I suppose. As for smoking, I shouldn"t have thought he was up to it; but with that sat-upon sort of man--begging your pardon, Mrs. Quelch--you never know where he may break out.
Worms will turn, you know, and sometimes they take a wrong turning."
"But Benjamin would never dare--"
"That"s just it. He daren"t do anything when you"ve got your eye on him. When you haven"t perhaps he may, and perhaps he mayn"t. The fact is, you hold up his head too tight, and if he jibs now and then you can"t wonder at it."
"You have a very coa.r.s.e way of putting things, Mr. Fladgate. Mr.
Quelch is not a horse, that I am aware of."
"We won"t quarrel about the animal, my dear madam, but you may depend upon it, my solution"s right. A hardened villain, like myself, say, would never have got into such a sc.r.a.pe, but Quelch don"t know enough of the world to keep himself out of mischief. They"ve got him in quod, that"s clear, and the best thing you can do is to send the coin and get him out again."
"Send money to those swindling Frenchmen? Never! If Benjamin is in prison I will fetch him out myself."
"You would never risk that dreadful sea pa.s.sage!" exclaimed Mrs.
Fladgate. "And how will you manage the language? You don"t understand French."
"Oh, I shall do very well," said the heroic woman. "They won"t talk French to _me_!"