A Rogue's Conscience

Chapter I

Mr. James Mortimer and Mr. Alexander Ross were hiding from justice. This was a condition of things to which Mr. Mortimer had grown accustomed, but Mr. Ross had never until now felt what it was to be personally inquired after by the police. Mr. Mortimer found the chase exhilirating, and, so long as it did not come too near, he positively enjoyed it. He was one of those irresponsible and frivolous people who live in the passing moment only, and the shifts and dodges of retreat and hiding provided him with a keen amusement. They gave him a new interest in life, and he was proud of his own resource and ingenuity. James, in a glorious dressing-gown of sage green plush and slippers to match, lolled in a seedy old arm-chair in a ramshackle chamber at the top of a tall house in the Bloomsbury district.

He had grown a silvery beard and moustache, and looked refined and venerable. Mr. Ross sat opposite with a newspaper across his knees, and an expression altogether disconsolate. He also had changed the fashion of his countenance, and he wore a great mahogany-coloured mous tache. His old-fashioned frame of whiskers had been allowed to encroach upon his cheeks and chin. He fingered these novel appendages with a dissatisfied look, and rose to stare at him self in a mirror. A rap sounded at the door, and he gave a start, which betrayed the state of nervous terror in which he lived. " It's only Daly," said James, reassuringly. " Come in, Daly." In response to this call a slim little man lounged into the room and closed the door behind him. He was very neatly attired, with glittering patent-leather boots, a frock suit of uniform dark grey, and a wideawake hat which sat picturesquely on one side.

He wore a little moustache and a peaked beard, but his cheeks were hairless. His eyes were quietly alert, and distinctively American. They gave a racial and characteristic air to the whole countenance. " Well," said James, inquiringly, " I suppose it's over ? " " Yes," said the new-comer, leaning both hands on a walking cane he carried, and bending over it with a look of carefully testing its flexibility. " It's over, Professor. It's all over. I've come straight here from the Old Bailey." " What have they given him ? " Ross asked. The new arrival looked up, glanced from Ross to James, and back again, and answered, with a sudden flourish of the cane, — " Life ! " " Guid heavens ! " Rose gasped, and dropped feebly into the chair he had just vacated. " Poor old Johnny ! " said Mortimer. " Poor old Varndike.

He let out nothing, I suppose i? " 3.. o A ROGUE S CONSCIENCE " No, sir. He took it game as a pebble. He didn't know me, of course, but he waved good-bye to one or two folks in court, and went out smiling. Made a very good show indeed. I thought his last appearance mighty creditable to him — mighty credit able, gentlemen." " Life is heavy," said Mortimer. " I looked for twelve or fourteen years — but life 1 " " Well," the other answered, " the Re corder made a song about it. 'Here,' said he, ' is a noted criminal caught by the leg, and safely stowed away at Portland. By the aid of friends outside who have command of funds he escapes from gaol. He embarks upon an enterprise of a character dangerous in the extreme to the public welfare. Paper belonging to the Bank of England is stolen. Fraudulent notes are printed on that paper.

Many thousands of pounds' worth of these notes are foisted on the public. The prisoner has been engaged in this nefarious enterprise, and his confederates are still at large. The sentence of the Court will let them know what they have to look to when they come here. The legitimate enterprises of honest society have got to be protected.' That was the burden of the story, gentlemen, and, from the Recorder's point of view, I guess it's natural." Mr. Ross buried his face in both hands and groaned aloud. Mortimer took up a silver cigar-case from the table beside him and offered it to the bringer of news. They both smoked gravely and in silence for a time. " You've made up your mind to try the United States ? " said the American after this pause. " Yes," said James. " I shall take the berths you booked for the City of Paris A' "/shall not," cried Ross, breaking in with a groan of fear and anger.

" What's this for a disguise ? " he asked, indicating the growth about his lips and chin. " I'm as well known as the cross of St. Paul's. I'd not be in the streets an hour before I'd find myself a prisoner. I feel it in my bones. Eh, sirs ! Ef I'd guessed at the anguish I've endured I'd have kept my hands from crime." " Yes, yes," James answered, soothingly. " You're a little hipped just now, and it's only natural. But when you're across the Atlantic you'll be like another man." " I'll never get there," said Mr. Ross. " I'll be recognized, and taken, sure as death. I'm just disposed to go out, and anticipate the arrival o' doom. I'd rather fall with dignity than be plucked back by the tails like a schoolboy that's running away from the rod." " My dear sir," said James, " when I have done with you, you will be no more recog nizable than I shall, except for that incurable vice of a Scotch accent, which is quite beyond mending.

This quiet lying-by for a quarter of a year has been tedious, I admit, but it has served our turn. In the art of disguise I acknowledge no master, but I always use the aid of Nature when circum stances give me time. Now we have each grown a serviceable beard and moustache, and these afford a genuine groundwork for future operations. So far as you are con cerned, I have perfected my design, and I may as well put it into practice now. Our friend Daly will, perhaps, afford us the advantage of his criticism. Come to me, sir, and I will treat you barberously. London owns no better hairdressser." He placed a chair in the middle of the room with a flourish, and waved Mr. Ross towards it. Then he pirouetted into an adjoining chamber, and came back with a clean sheet and a dressing-bag. He dex terously swathed his subject in the sheet, tucking it in at his neck, and spreading it out about his feet to make a carpet.

He went through these movements with an air of comedy briskness, in his effort to shake off the depressing influence of the news he had just received. Taking off his dressing-gown, and girding himself with a towel by way of apron, he drew a pair of scissors and a comb from the dressing-bag, and fell back a step or two with his head on one side. The American seated himself astride upon a chair, with his arms resting on the back of it, and prepared to look on and give judgment. James began to work, combing out the bushy red fringe which surrounded the shining dome of Mr. Ross's baldness. " Ef iver I win through this," said Mr. Ross, "I'll keep the safe side o' the hedge. I'll let this be a warnin' till me." " Very natural," said James, working away industriously. "I used to feel like that." " Ah'm no a harrdened villain yet," said Mr. Ross.

" No, no," James answered ; " you're not hardened yet, but you'll mend with practice." This was not the sort of answer Mr. Ross expected, and it put him to silence for a minute or two. He was trying to hoodwink his own conscience. He felt that if he could only manage to feel sincerely moral, he would be the safer from the chances of arrest. " Eh ! " he said, by-and-by. " There's a vast deal o' truth in the moeralists. I'm thinkin' o' Sir Walter." He declaimed, with a sorrowful emphasis, — " Oh, what a tahnlged wtb we weave, When first we prahctise to deceive ! " " It's ower true," he said. " It's just over whelmin' in its verity." " Yes," said James. " Sir Walter was a clever man." Mr. Ross groaned again, and sank into silence, whilst Mortimer went on with the task he had imposed upon himself.

Under a heavy application of brown cosmetique Mr. Ross's bushy fringe of hair went straight and lank, and its original colour was hidden. Then from either side the darkened wisps were drawn over the glossy space of baldness, obscuring it entirely, and were fastened down with a gluey paste which French hairdressers call fixatif. " I've no idea what you're doin' there," said Mr. Ross, " but I'm feeling like a fly-trap." The American observer, with his head criti cally balanced, smiled approval on Mortimer. " Good, sir," he said, languidly ; " Good, with a big G." " Throw back your head, if you please," said James. Mr. Ross obeyed, and the scissors, in deft fingers, took off the frame of whiskers in which his face had been for so many years enclosed. Then James mixed a fine, creamy lather, and shaved him clean, except for a peaked chin beard and the re cently-grown moustache.

These he also darkened, and finally he trimmed close the heavy eyebrows under which Mr. Ross's keen eyes had lurked in ambush, and hid the tint of what was left with an artistic touch of the cosmetique. Then, having surveyed his sub ject from all sides, he drew away the sheet, and made a burlesque bow. The American beat his cane upon the table, and cried, " Bravo, bravo, bravo ! Bravissimo ! " Mr. Ross walked to the looking-glass, and not being one-twentieth part prepared for the transformation which met him there, glanced once at his own reflection, and recoiled with a clumsy bound. "Yon's not I ! " he cried, in an excess of astonishment. " I had the good fortune to deal with a marked type," said James. "Its materials lent themselves to the production of another type, equally marked, and no less natural.

You must refrain from speech in the presence of those to whom you are known, but with that precaution you may go anywhere. I appeal to Mr. Daly." " Professor," said Mr. Daly, " you are a dandy. Alike in conception and in execution, the work is a signal and shining success." " Ay ! " said Ross, returning to the mirror ; " it's remarkable. I'd defy my own clerks to recognize me. I'd defy the vary wife o' my boasom." Mr. Ross was just as elated as he had been depressed. He con sulted his own reflection again and again with a look of triumph, but as his new as pect became more familiar to him he began to recognize his own features under the disguise, and to feel a shade of doubt. " I'm no so sure," he murmured, peering at himself this way and that. " I'm no so sure." " I'm sure enough for two," James answered.

" Oh, by the way," said Daly, " I've got two little parcels for you. They arrived just as I was startin' to see the last of the dear old Colonel, an' I forgot to send 'em up to you. I'll tote 'em along right now." The American left the room, closing the door behind him, and he had no sooner gone than Mortimer arose and began to wander about the room in a concerned and fidgety manner, taking up a trifle here and there, and inspecting it with needless scrutiny, puting it down again with a fretful emphasis, and examining something else with the same unnecessary minuteness. " What's the matter ? " asked Ross. "M — m," said James. "I hardly know. I've always trusted Daly." He paused to listen, and the footsteps of the man he spoke of were heard on the unclothed stone steps of the lower flight of stairs.

" I have always trusted him, and somehow — " " Man," said Ross, in sudden agitation, " everything's in his hands. If he's not staunch we're lost. Have ye ony reason — ? " " No-o," Mortimer answered, lingering on the word doubtfully. " But I'm a queerish sort of fellow, and I'm subject to presenti ments and influences, and all manner of odd things. The most curious part of the busi ness is that I always find some real reason for them. I've always trusted Daly till this minute, and now, I don't in the least know why, I doubt him." "Is that rizzonable ? " asked Ross, who was pale at the bare thought of treason. " A sort of cold wave," said James, not answering the question, but following his with him, may "I Say back 13 A ROGUE'S CONSCIENCE own thoughts. "A kind of warning it." "Man," cried Ross, "ef ye doubt don't tell him a word of any purpose ye have." " On the contrary," James replied, mean to be extremely communicative. no more at present. He is coming again."

Chapter II

Daly turned the handle of the door, and shouldered his way into the room with a parcel under either arm. " Here you are, Professor ! " he said, laying his burden on the table. " I reckon I know what they are. This is from the theatrical costumier's, and this is from one of our own folks, who just made it to order and asked no questions." He began to untie one parcel as he spoke, and Mortimer smilingly busied himself about the other. Ross, a good deal shaken by the late brief colloquy with his partner, stood looking on, and did his best to seem uncon cerned. The first parcel to be opened proved to contain a suit of light horse-hair padding, such as is worn by an artist on the stage who desires to pourtray a man of plumper figure than his own. " Yes," said Mortimer, holding it up and looking at it at arms' length ; " that will do very nicely.

It is not exaggerated at all, but it will make a difference." Daly had untied the second parcel and displayed a short-sleeved jacket of light canvas, with padded arms and shoulders, and pockets of uniform size, wherever pockets could be placed, and all close together. " Ah ! " said Daly ; " it's easy to see what that's for. You're a smart man, Professor — a real smart man you are." " And what do you think it is for ? " asked James, inspecting his own faultless finger nails, and smiling. " Well," said Daly, " it looks to me as if you'd get a tidy lot of that valuable paper left." He turned the curious garment over. " Twenty-one pockets. In each pocket you could stow something over a hundred of the flimsies, eh ? Wear the common padding on the railway journey and the v'yage, and keep the valuables locked up in the cabin trunk.

Common paddin's a great deal easier, lighter, an' cooler, eh ? Then on the last night com mon paddin' goes overboard through a port hole, and on dressin' next morning the packed valuables are substituted — the outline ofthe figger is preserved — and you walk by the Customs man spry, cheerful, and unconscious, and worth, at a moderate estimate, a hundred thousand dollars. Eh ? " Mr. Ross stood aghast, but James laughed cheerfully. " That," he said, " is precisely the arrange ment. It has your approval ? " " Professor," said Daly, " I think it gaudy. You are all round the most thoughtful man I know." " I am really very much flattered," James answered. " I make these little matters something of a hobby, and I like to have them neat and workmanlike. I'm a great believer in family characteristics, and all my people have been remarkable for love of detail.

According to the men who pretend to read the hand, that special characteristic goes with long fingers. In that particular I certainly justify the science." He held out his beautiful white hands for c A ROGUE'S CONSCIENCE inspection, turning them about with an obvious admiration of their delicacy and fineness. " I love a good hand," he said. " It is the one mark of a gentleman— the one unfailing sign of breeding." " So I've always heard," Daly responded. " I suppose you've settled what names you travel under ? " " Oh, yes," cried James. " I fall back on my old French business. Fortunately, I speak the language like a native. I travel as Monsieur de Melan, and my friend is plain Macfarlane. You see his get-up. My own will be portly and early middle-aged. I shall have these black, I think," he went on, indicating his hair and beard.

" Leave a few white hairs, you know. That takes away the suspicion of a dye. White on the temples also. That looks benevolent. Silvery hair on the temples is rather a becoming thing in a well-preserved man." " Ah ! " said Daly ; " that'll come out nice, I should say. Is there anything I can do for you ? I have an appointment in half an hour's time." " Nothing, thank you," James answered, and Mr. Daly took his leave. " Great Scott ! " he said, turning at the door. " You're alive, Professor ! I don't know your equal." " You're very kind," James answered, rather fatuously ; " but perhaps you're right." Mr. Daly laughed, and the door closed behind him. James turned a face of strange meaning on his companion, and the two listened to the retreating footsteps on the un clothed stone stair. " Ef ye suspect the man," Ross whispered, before their sound had died away, " why expose your plans ?

" " Because I believe that genial little person has treasured every detail, and will make his report in good time, and because I don't intend that his description shall apply." " But, man alive ! " cried Ross, in a suppressed and agitated voice, " if he's bent that way, what's to prevent him doin' the thing this hour ? " " His own interest," James answered, coolly enough. " We promised him a bonus of a thousand pounds if he gave us shelter until such time as we were ready to go. We have paid for a very equivocal accommodation such a price as would have satisfied the landlord of a palace, and the caterer of a first-class restaurant in the pick of the season. Say he clears twelve pounds a week by us so long as we stop here." " It's more than that, by a long chalk," said Ross. " That is something," James argued ; " and in any case he will wait for the thousand."

"But ye've trusted him till now," Ross urged. " Why doubt him at the final minute ? " " My dear fellow," James answered, in his very best fine-gentleman manner, which always made Ross a little afraid of him, " I don't pretend to know. But when once a man has given me a cold shiver I give him a wide berth. You see, sir, that when a man is what people call a scoundrel he runs some danger. All men, I find, estimate all other men by themselves. I never betrayed a partner, but that is not my form of 19 c scoundrelism ; and I am not only a scoundrel, but a philosopher. I will do, for gain and an easy life, what a great many other people will not do. So will you." Mr. Ross was about to protest, but thought better of the impulse. " Mr. Daly may be ready to do what I should think abominable, just as you and I are ready to do what other people think abominable.

Forms of rascality vary. Forms of virtue appear to vary. Man is a curious animal, Mr. Ross, and a bit of a puzzle ; but the key which most commonly unlocks him is self interest." " D'ye think we're safe in the mean while ? " Ross asked. " And can we get away ? " "We are perfectly safe at present," James answered ; " and we will get away when we are ready." From the moment when he had experienced that curious shiver of which he had complained, James, in spite of all his seeming carelessness and simplicity, had been making the shrewdest study of Mr. Daly. When a man is a rogue he lives in terror, and terror is a wonderful tutor. A life-long anxiety had sharpened James's wits, and he watched as few men know how to watch. All through that childish nonsense about his beautiful hands, and whilst he made the pretended revelations of his plans, he had kept, with a face of perfect innocence, the keenest outlook on the man who he had begun to think might be an adversary.

Perhaps the cold shiver in itself was a bit of a pretence. His doubt may have begun earlier. It is most probable that he had never trusted the man altogether, for a thoroughpaced rogue does not often trust anybody ; but, in any case, he was wholly on his guard now, and he had noticed one or two things. When his host had offered that question about the names which were to be assumed, he had seemed a trifle too little interested in his own query, and when James elaborated his answer with misleading detail he had seemed to the observant eyes which dwelt upon him to be slyly resolved upon remembering everything. That might be fancy, but it might not. The chance involved freedom or imprisonment, and even trifles looked important. From the night of Colonel Varndike's arrest until now Mr. Ross had never dared to venture abroad, but James had visited the streets pretty freely after dark.

Before his beard had more than a few days' growth he had gone out in search of a friend whom he particularly wished to find, and had then attired himself as a nigger minstrel, in black, shining face and hands, a striped mon strosity of a coloured linen coat, and enormous cardboard collars. He had carried a banjo and smoked a new clay pipe, and had looked as little like his polished self as the mind of man could fancy. Some weeks later on, with half an inch of stubbly beard, he had dropped back into the tramp guise in which we first beheld him. Later still, when beard and moustache were long and pliable enough to be manipulated, he had gone out in two or three different disguises — as a tanned seaman with gold wire earrings, and carrying a parrot in a cage ; as a lame foreigner with a crutch ; as anybody whose outward semblance took his fancy.

In all his expeditions he was seeking for one special person, and so far the chances had been unkind to him. The night fell early, for the year was far advanced. It rained softly, the housetops were hidden in a tepid mist, and the pave ments were greasy. Coloured pomades work wonders with colourless hair, and when James slipped into the streets he was a blonde bearded German. His moustache was turned up at each end like the tail feather of a drake. He smoked a German pipe and wore gold rimmed glasses, and his German intonation, as he bade Mr. Ross good evening, was perfect as a bit of mimicry. His steps led him to an Italian restaurant of the fourth or fifth class off Oxford Street. As he entered the place a faint cloud of steam obscured his spectacle glasses, but this passing away in a few seconds, he looked about him.

His face suddenly lit up, and he waved a hand of recognition at a man who sat in a far corner of the room alone. The man looked puzzled ; but James advanced, smiling, and took the seat in front of him, with a word or two dropped almost under his breath. Recogni tion flashed into the other's face in an instant, and he shook hands. James ordered coffee and filled his pipe, and sipped and smoked until his companion had finished his meal. They talked together in German, which Mortimer spoke with perfect correctness and fluency, though the other man had trouble with it. The meal finished and the reckoning discharged, the two went out into the rain together. " Take me to your own place," said Mortimer. " I want to have a talk with you." " Have you any spare coin about you ? " the other asked. James handed him a sovereign.

The man took it with a laugh, saying he had seen nothing of that kind for a week or two. He stopped a minute later at a public-house, made a purchase there, and came out again with a paper-covered bottle sticking from the pocket of his overcoat. They walked side by side to the Tottenham Court Road, and in a semicircular terrace off that thoroughfare the man paused at a doorway, applied his latch key, and entered. James followed, and the man led the way upstairs into a darkened room. Here he lit a lamp, and revealed a lodging, cosy enough, and not uncomfortable A ROGUE'S CONSCIENCE for one who had no rooted objection to grime. " All quiet here ? " Mortimer asked, in English. The man nodded, set the bottle on the table, and threw his overcoat upon the bed. He was frock-coated, and looked like a City clerk.

" Still Jackson ? " James asked. " Still Jackson," the other answered. " What you are doesn't matter." " Not at all," said James, " for the moment. I may give you a name to go on with by-and by. In the meanwhile, things look none too^ prosperous." The man who still answered to the name of Jackson waved his hands abroad, as if he invoked the testimony of the furniture, and thought that sufficing. " Well, there are four pounds more. This is enlist ment money. I want you, as it happens, to do a little bit of work for me. It must be thoroughly done, and done quickly. In that case it shall be thoroughly and quickly paid for, but not otherwise." The man who answered to the name of Jackson nodded, and with an eye still on his visitor, groped about the chimney-piece for a corkscrew. He found this, and began to draw the cork of the bottle he had brought with him.

"You know Daly ? " The man stopped half way in his task, and straightened himself. " Yankee Daly ? " James nodded. " Well, yes ; I think I may say I know Daly." He drew the cork with a resounding "kloop," and set the bottle on the table. Then he stood alternately sniffing at the cork and tasting it, whilst Mortimer unfolded his business. "I want Daly watched. I want every minute of every hour of every day accounted for. I have been forced to place a con siderable confidence in Daly, and I am not altogether comfortable about him. I have been, in a sort of fashion, and of course for a handsome consideration, under Daly's wing for a time, and — " " Oh ! " said the other ; " that's it, is it?" "Come," said James; "you know some thing already. Tell me." The man who answered to the name of Jackson pushed a tumbler across the table, placed the carafe of water from the washingstand beside it, and laid a hand upon the bottle.

" Say when ! " Mortimer nodded, and raised his hand when a mere tablespoonful had been poured. The man found another glass, helped him self more liberally, and sat down. " What is it worth to you ? " he asked. " I beg of you," said James, " not to waste time in bargaining. I shall pay you liberally. If it is worth ten pounds I shall probably give you twenty. You ought to know me by this time." " Well, since you're talking about Daly, and since Daly is up to rather a peculiar little dodge of his own, it's worth a good deal more than twenty." " If it's worth a hundred you shall have it," Mortimer answered. " But I am to judge of its value." " Money down ? " " On the nail." James drew out his pocket-book " Good ! Did you ever hear of George Cholmondeley Vicars ? " " Never, so far as I remember."

" Mr. George Cholmondeley .Vicars was once a clerk in the pay of the Bank of England. You remember the Royce frauds— the brothers Royce ? " " Perfectly." "It was Vicars who marked them down. He saved the bank a good many thousands, and they say he was well paid for it. He gave up clerking, any way. He has been consulted about one or two affairs of the same kind since. I don't know whether he is 'cute or lucky, but it comes to the same thing. Now, this may interest you. He is at this minute after Ross, who was a partner in that affair which was heard to-day at the Old Bailey. There's another man in it as well as Ross. The police say it's Soapy Smooth, but I daresay you know as much as they do about that." " Soapy Smooth " was the significant name by which James was known to every detective officer in Great Britain.