A secret quest

Front matter

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Chapter I

“ How could I have been such a fool as to write them?”

Lord Desborough was seated in his official chair at his morocco leather covered table in Downing Street — a table heaped with parliamentary papers and blue books, whose perusal he had left to stare blankly at a couple of letters, both of which were in a formal clerkly hand, with the word “ copy” written in the top left comer of each.

“ I must have been mad. ”

His lordship gave each letter an angry flip, folded it, and carefully replaced it in the inner fold of his pocket-book, which he thrust into his breast; and then sat with puckered brow — a handsome man of eight-and-thirty, white-haired and black bearded — gazing straight before him into space, where he was mapping out his future career.

“Yes; better take a dose and make my quietus,” he said, half aloud. “Why the deuce doesn’t he come?”

He drew himself up, for at that moment the

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door was opened and an attendant brought in a card.

“ Show him in. ”

The attendant went noiselessly out over the thick Turkey carpet, and Lord Desborough threw down the slip of cardboard, snatched up a parliamentary paper, and began to peruse it rapidly as the door was again opened. A keen-looking dark man, with peculiar puckers at the corners of his mouth, as if he were trying to suppress a smile, was ushered in.

The new-comer advanced silently two or three steps; the door closed behind him, and he stood slowly swinging a new glossy . hat, regarding through his thick brows the reader of the paper.

“You miserable humbug!” said the visitor to himself.

“Ahem!” coughed Lord Desborough; then, with an affected start, “ Ah, my dear Mr. Anderson, I did not hear you come in. ”

“ Pray do not apologize, my lord. The State’s business needs no excuse. ”

“ Thank you, Anderson ; you are very good ; but they must wait for awhile. I want to consult you about a bit of business of my own.”

“ Woman in the case for a fiver,” said the visitor to himself.

“Sit down, Anderson,” continued his lordship, pointing to a chair and swinging his own round so as to give himself room to cross one leg over his knee and hold it with both hands.

Then the two keen men of the world sat gazing in each other’s eyes as if trying to read one another’s thoughts. There was a pause of quite a minute, before Lord Desborough spoke.

“Well, Anderson,” he said. “I suppose I must make a clean breast of it.”

“ Best way, my lord, with the social doctors.”

“ Social doctors? Yes, that’s what you lawyers are, confound you!”

Lord Desborough wrinkled his face as he placed one white finger to his lips, and then began to bite his nails, but snatched his hand away with an angry ejaculation.

“ I — I hardly know how to begin,” he said, impatiently.

“ It is very simple, my lord. I suppose you trust me?” '

“ Of course I do, Anderson, or I should not have sent for you ; but er — but er ”

“ As your confidential adviser may I venture — a lady in the case?”

“ Confound it ! Yes, of course there is. They’re at the bottom of all trouble. The fact is, in an hour of folly, Anderson, I wrote a letter or two— to a lady; and a confounded meddlesome friend is holding them over me in terrorem."'

“H’m! question of money?” said the lawyer.

“ No, hang it! If it had been that I should have snarled, ^^ritten my check, and paid; but this man threatens exposure.”

“Which, seeing the position you occupy — a minor post in the Government, and a future that may mean perhaps the leadership— would be political ruin,”

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“ Exactly, Anderson, exactly. Now, you see, I want you to get those letters. ”

“ How many are there?”

“ Only two. The others are of no importance whatever. To put it plainly — if you will bring me my two letters, I will pay you two thousand pounds for them : a thousand apiece to see them burnt to ashes before my eyes.”

“ Well, my lord, you may command me. Now for the particulars.”

“I need tell you little. You may remember that two years ago the Princess Lani Va was over in England.”

“ I remember: to make some appeal to the Government about her late father’s territory. Rajah of — Rajah of ”

“Villipore. Yes, that’s right,” said his lordship, impatiently. “Well, she was received in society and petted as the new lioness. I was introduced, and met her several times. We corresponded, and I acted like an idiotic boy. The woman took things au serieux^ and finally appealed to an old friend of her father. ”

“Indeed!” said the lawyer, raising his dark brows a little.

“Yes; one Colonel Denton.”

“ Colonel John Barrow Denton,” said the lawyer to himself.

“ He was resident many years at her father’s court ; and — confound him ! — he has got the letters, and has been writing me communications that are maddening.”

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“ Threatening expos^T'

“ Exactly ; and those letters I must have. ”

“ But he is sure to have copies.”

“ Hang his copies! Only let me get the originals. I could laugh at the others as forgeries — party malice, anything.”

“ But you say he does not put a price on them?”

“No; he’s rich enough; so is the woman. He takes what he calls high ground — wants reparation. The old scoundrel has me at his mercy, and may spring a mine upon me at any time. No, he will wait till I am well before the country, and then fire his fuse. I am at his mercy, and he has none.”

“ It is awkward.”

“Awkward? I tell you it is utter destruction to me. My political career will be ruined.”

“Absolutely.”

“ Now, Anderson, for goodness sake do not take that tone,” said his lordship, impatiently. “I sent for you to help me, not to make matters worse. ”

“Not I. Look here,” said the lawyer, eagerly; “why not have set a clever detective to work. He might have got hold of the letters.”

“My dear sir!” cried his lordship, impatiently; “don’t come here and suggest all those trite dodges. I have tried everything of that kind. His apartments and the hotels at which he has stayed have been searched again and again.”

“ Then you come to me as a fortune-teller?”

“ Of course I do, and you are the right man. If

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TO

I had wanted shrewd clerks, or people of that class, I could have had hundreds. Something out of the ordinary line must be tried, and I want you to take it up yourself.”

“ And my practice?”

“ Hang your practice, man ! Succeed in this, and you shall not want for practice. I mean to rise — - high, Anderson ; and so shall you. I will not be ungrateful. There, I have told you what I will pay for the letters; but money is no object. You will charge me for your time and expenses, of course.”

“Thanks. Then what do you want me to do first?”

“Confound it all, man! how should I know? That’s your business. I’ve given time to it till I have neglected the country’s affairs, and now I relegate it all to you.”

“Where is this man?”

“ I don’t know. He has slipped through my fingers. That is the last card he has played after telling me to beware.”

“ Let me see ; there was an old Indian officer of that name staying, three weeks ago, at the Grand Hotel, Brighton.”

“Was,” said Lord Desborough, bitterly; “but he is gone — no one knows where.”

“ H — m! You are sure he has the letters?”

“ Perfectly. He sent me copies. Here they are. ”

He took the notes from his pocket-book, and the lawyer perused them with the shadow of a grim smile on his lip.

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II

“ Yes; they are ugly — for you,” said the lawyer, returning them.

“As if I did not know that.”

“ What sort of a man is he?”

“ Fiery old Indian officer, great invalid and hypochondriac.”

Anderson sat with his head bent, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, as his lordship continued:

“ Travels about a great deal for his health, and takes physic by the gallon. Ah, if he would only poison himself some day!”

“Creaking doors hang longest, my lord,” said Anderson, dryly.

“Yes, confound him! Let me see, he has a daughter who travels with him.”

“Also a friend of your lordship’s?” said Anderson, gazing at the handsome diplomat in a peculiarly searching manner.

“ Hang it, man, no! Never seen her; and don’t want to. Now, then, I’m very busy — a hundred important things waiting. What more do you want?”

“Let me see: I know the name — Colonel John Barrow Denton.”

“ I did not say so — only Denton. ”

“ Must be the same. Well-known man. Resident of Villipore. No, I don’t think you can help me any more. Gone away, you think, to avoid you?”

“Yes, and because my people have been hunting him, and made him’ suspicious. His last letter was posted in London ; but that would be done by

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some friend. Depend upon it, he has left England for a time. You will want some money.”

“Yes, but I need not trouble you yet.”

“ And you will get me these letters?”

“ If they are in existence.”

“ That’s right. Good-morning. ”

“ Good-morning, my lord. I will write as soon as I have news.”

“And you will devote yourself to the task?”

“ Nothing else shall occupy my mind, my lord. Good-day.”

“ Only one other thing and that will hold its own,” thought Lawrence Anderson, as he went slowly out into Whitehall. “ But how strange! What a little world it is, and how curiously Fate works her ways'! Just as I was going down to try and see her again. H’m! Left Brighton, have they? Well, the world is not big enough for any one to hide in these days. Try some new plan? There it is, my lord, already shaped out. Beautiful Hester once softened, it would be very strange if I could not get hold of the letters. ”

He raised his umbrella to a cabman, sprang into the vehicle, said “ Charing Cross” shortly and then sank back, musing.

“A pleasant jaunt. Gone abroad, of course. Well, I want a holiday — to make love. Where will it be? Scotland? The Lakes? vSouth Devon? Stop!” He checked the cabman. “Go to Craig’s Court.”

He was driven there; for a sudden thought had occurred to him. Colonel Denton, as an old

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Indian officer, would be sure to have had dealings with an army agent and banker. So Anderson tried first one and then another, till he found the right one in a street close by Charing Cross.

The rest was plain, and Lawrence Anderson smiled as he thought how easy a discovery is to the man whose well-worked brain suggests a right clew.

“Hester,” he said more than once that night; and his mind’s eye was full of a sweet English face — one of those which made men turn when they have passed it.

I

CHAPTER IL

“ It’s of no use; it’s all over, Hester. Just as I have at last found a new interest in life, and can redress the wrongs of that poor woman. Oh, my leg, my leg!”

“Are you in so much pain, papa, dear?”

“Pain? Don’t you see I am in agony? Pain? Pshaw!”

“ Let me alter your position a little, and put that cushion to support your back. ”

“What? Don’t touch me; let me die in peace. ”

“Oh, papa!”

“ Let me die in peace, I say. It’s all over now; it’s the death pangs coming on. How could you be so heartless as to drag me away from Brighton to this dreary desolate valley? Ugh! it’s horrible. Shiver, shiver, shiver. May; and the snow and ice up there hemming us in as if it was the North pole.”

“ But, papa, dear, you know how you were complaining of the heat yesterday. ”

“Yes; internal heat. Fever. Where’s my thermometer?’

Hester Denton ran to a side table in the pretty room of the chalet where her father, Colonel John Barrow Denton, a fine bronzed officer, lay back on ^4 his couch, and returned with a tiny morocco case, whose clasp she hastily opened.

“Mind!” cried the Colonel, “it isn’t a toy. You’ll break it — give it to me. I’m dying — going off fast. Not a doctor within five hours’ walk. Oh, why did I let you drag me here?”

“ How can you be so cruel to me, papa? You know you insisted upon coming abroad, and chose this out-of-the-way valley yourself.”

“ That’s right, madam. Go on. ”

“Well, papa, dear, you said you must come abroad for special reasons, and yet you blame me. ”

“ Oh, my leg — my leg!”

“ Let me ”

“Ah! Don’t touch me, or I shall go off like a blown-out candle. That’s right; trample on me now I’m helpless. Of course; I was obliged to come abroad. Do you think I was going to stop in England and be hunted and watched by detectives. Oh dear — oh dear! To die this dog’s death, out here under these mountains, with the snow ready to crush us, and that cursed cataract always roaring in my ears. There, give me the thermometer.”

“ I did give it to you, papa,” said Hester, whose eyes were red with weeping, her face drawn and puckered with anxiety as she bent over the invalid’s couch, her sweet, animated face full of sympathy.

“Ah! yes, I forgot.”

The Colonel drew out the fragile thermometer, and with trembling hands placed the little silvery i6

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bulb beneath his tongue, and lay back with his handsome face full of pain and anxiety, twitching, too, now and then, as some spasm shot through him.

For a few minutes there was silence in the room, through which came a deep-toned roar, as of some mighty organ. The sun shone brightly; the sweet, lemony scent of the pines floated in by the open window, and through an opening in the trees could be seen, in all its dazzling purity, a snow-covered peak, glittering in the morning sun.

But Hester Denton heard and saw nothing but her invalid father, broken and suffering from the consequences of thirty years’ residence in India; and there was nothing droll to her in his aspect, as he lay there with his crisp silver hair brushed fiercely above his high forehead, apparently smoking the tube of a small glass pipe.

“ Now then, look quickly, my girl,” he said, as he removed the thermometer, and held it with trembling fingers. “ What is it? Hundred and seven, I know. Another degree, and I shall be a dead man.”

“ Papa ! it’s only ninety-eight ; that’s about blood heat, isn’t it?”

“Nonsense! I’m burnt up with the cursed old jungle fever. Look again: hundred and seven, I’m sure.”

“It is not, dear; look.”

“Then it’s this wretched, cold, snowy climate keeps the mercury down in the bulb. Put it away. ”

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S

“Yes, papa.”

He threw his head back, and closed his eyes with so deep a groan that his child bent down over him again, her soft gray eyes wild with terror. Then she rushed from the room, and out of the cottage, to where, seated beneath a clump of pines, a plump, pleasant-looking little lady of about fiveand-thirty, dressed in half mourning, was dividing her time between stitching and placidly gazing up at the great snow slope away above the back of the chalet.

“ Aunt — Aunt Ecclesia, ” cired the girl excitedly ; “come quickly: papa’s dying.” *

“Stuff! my dear, ’’said the little lady, smiling. “ He’s always dying.”

“But, aunt, he is very, very bad, indeed!”

“ Of course he is, my dear. He would have that Swiss champagne yesterday, ” said the lady, rising.

“ I never saw him so bad before.”

“ Nonsense, my dear. He makes a terrible fuss about it. I do not go on like that when I have neuralgia so badly. ”

By this time they were at the door, and as they hurried into the room —

“ Well, John, dear; is your leg so bad?”

There was a deep groan, and a spasm of pain convulsed the sufferer’s countenance, making him open his eyes for a moment before he closed them again tightly.

“ How are you now, papa? Shall I send at once for a doctor?”

“ Dying — dying — dying!” groaned the sufferer.

i8

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“You are not, John, dear. It’s all stuff and nonsense,” said the little lady, bending down and kissing his forehead, quickly. “ Why, your head’s as cool as cool. ”

“ It’ll be colder soon,” said the Colonel.

“Oh, papa!” sobbed Hester, as she flung her arms round him, and burst into a wild fit of sobbing, which made him draw her closely to his side.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, John,” said the little lady, calmly. “ You’ll break poor Hetty’s heart. It’s too bad making so much fuss over a bit of pain.”

“ Fuss?” cried the Colonel, in anything but a dying man’s voice.

“Yes: fuss. You knowhow delicate you are, and what a state your liver is in, and yet you will persist in eating and drinking what is not good for you. Dying? Stuff! You’ll outlive me.”

“ Oh, if I were only strong again, madam, and this was India instead of this wretched gash in a hideous Swiss mountain, I would outlive you, for I’d hand you over to the Thugs.”

“No, you wouldn’t, John, dear,” said the little lady, composedly, settling herself in a comfortable lounge, one of many luxuries the Colonel had had brought from Berne; “you’re too fond of me.”

“Fond of you, you miserable, smooth, plump Persian cat of a woman!”

“Aunt, dear, pray be silent. Papa, do — do be calm. You are making yourself worse.”

“No, my dear, I shall not be silent,” said the little lady, stitching away, “ I’m doing him good.”

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“ Hetty,” cried the Colonel, lifting himself up a little, and shaking his fist at the pretty pink and white fair-haired lady in her easy-chair, “ look at that woman. See how soft and smooth she is, with her claws hidden under the fur, and her white teeth all ready to bite. She tempted your poor Uncle Sam into marrying her, and then she made his life a misery, and worried him to death.”

“ Don’t you believe him, Hetty. If I had been such a wretch, papa wouldn’t have had me here to pet and make such a fuss over me as he does. ”

“She did — a false, smooth, white cat, Hetty,” roared the Colonel.

“ He was very fond of me, as you know, Hetty; and I was very fond of him. ”

“ Bah ! Nothing of the kind. You married him for his money.”

“No, John, dear. I married him because he asked me to come and make his old life happy, and I tried to do my. duty by him while he lived.”

“Aunt, dear — pray, pray,” whispered Hester, looking piteously from one to the other.

“ Hetty, give me a glass of that Kirsch in a tumbler of Apollinaris, ” said the Colonel.

“ Ought you to take it, papa?”

“ What, are you going to rebel against me now? Quick!”

The liqueur and mineral water were mixed, and the “dying” man drained the tumbler, drew a long breath,- and then uttered a deep sigh.

“ Yes, you were a dear good girl to him, Eccle-

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sia,” he said. “Oh, dear me! I do wish I wasn’t such a beast!”

“Papa, dear!” cried Hester, excitedly; “is the pain better?”

“ Gone, my dear. It was just like a wolf at my leg till he gave a final shake with his teeth and left me.”

“And you will not die this time, John dear,” said the little lady, merrily.

“ I won’t ; I’ll live to look after you ; for I’m not blind.”

“John, what do you mean?” cried Aunt Ecclesia, changing color a little and altering her tone.

“What do I mean? Here have we been two months in this valley, ^and it’s having a bad effect upon you.”

“John!”

“ Oh yes, I know. Read your Tennyson. ”

“ I don’t understand you, sir.”

“ And you too, Hetty. I tell you I’m not blind. ”

“ Papa, dear, what are you thinking?”

“ Ask your aunt.”

“Oh, nonsense. I don’t know, John,” said the little lady, sticking her needle into the fabric she worked quite viciously.

“ Then ask Hetty. Here have I come out to Switzerland and chosen th© most out-of-the-way place in all the country to avoid one trouble, and find myself over head and ears in another.”

“ Hetty, my dear, your papa’s going to have another fit. ”

“Not to-day, my dear. But look here: I don’t approve of these two mountaineering chaps hanging about at this little hotel. ”

“Don’t be absurd, John,” said Aunt Ecclesia; “ the place is free to everybody. ”

“I wasn’t speaking to you; but I’m going to now. I don’t approve of you making eyes at that big, good-looking guide fellow — berg fiihrer, as he calls himself.”

“John!”

“ It would be a terrible mesalliance^ and I will not have it.”

“Oh, I cannot sit here to be insulted!” cried Aunt Ecclesia, jumping up with flaming cheeks. “ It is positively disgraceful, John — that it is.”

She rustled out of the room, and hurried back to her seat under the firs.

“Look at her,” said the Colonel; “just like a white bantam hen which has seen a frog.”

“ Papa, you should not tease her like that.”

“Then she should not come and torment me when I am in such agony. ’ There, I’m better now. Come out and have a walk. Pussy, and then I’ll write my Lord Desborough such a letter as shall make him squirm. ”

“ Papa dear, why do you worry yourself about that matter?”

“ Eh? Because it does me good. I’m not going to rust myself away. Oh, if this were only the good old times!”

“ They were not better than the present, dear. ”

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“ That they were. Fifty or sixty years ago, a gentleman could call out a scoundrel and shoot him. ThaFs just what I should do to my lord. There, come along and let’s go and have a look at the waterfall. ”

Chapter III

Colonel John Barrow Denton strode out of the chalet by his daughter’s side, as soon as she had covered her rich auburn hair with a simple straw hat; and a stranger who had encountered the slim, handsome, upright, elderly man — quite the beau sab r ear ^ who had led a regiment of irregular horse scores of times to victory — would have been hard set to believe it was the same man who had been groaning on his couch an hour before.

“By Jove, Hetty!” he cried; “this country makes one feel elastic. I shall begin climbing a mountain before long.”

“ Then it isn’t a dreadful gash in the mountains, papa, and horribly cold,” said Hester, mischievously.

“ Now, now, now !” he cried ; “ don’t you trample on me, Hetty ; that’s Aunt Ecclesia’s prerogative. My word, ” he continued, stopping to take off his sun helmet and wiping his brow, “ the sun does come down hot!”

“ Listen,” said Hester, holding up one finger as, from far distant, right up where the snow spread down to the creeping fir and whortleberry bushes, there came the sweet, melodious chiming of the cow-bells, their wearers looking as small as goats, while a herd of these latter in the distance, on the

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Other side of the valley, seemed to be dwarfed to the size of rabbits.

“Lovely place, Hetty, lovely, "said the Colonel.

One seems to live again here. ”

“ Do yon think we could climb up there, papa?” said Hester, after a pause, during which they had been drinking in the beauty of this lovely, retired spot.

As Hester spoke she pointed at the piled-up precipices behind the chalet^ where the pure, white snow lay on the slope and deep in many a couloir — farther and farther for miles, till all was glacier, firn^ and the newly fallen snow of a few nights before.

“Well, I don’t know, my dear. An hour ago I felt as if I could never walk up to my bedroom again ; now I could do anything. ”

“ It would be very beautiful. ”

“Lovely. We’ll see some day. That’s the way they go to the big glacier, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

They walked on over the springy heather, amid patches of wild flowers, and then through the tall spruce firs, from whose branches hung heavy gray lichen, and as they went on the deep, sonorous roar of falling water grew louder and louder. Among the mossy rocks, tumbled down from the valley side ages before, the tender green of the young ferns was peeping ; and a rough plank over which they stepped crossed a stream of thick gray milky water, the outpourings of one of the stone-grinding glaciers far above their heads;

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while a hundred yards farther their course was beside the waters of a spring clear as crystal, and sparkling in the sun as the stream hurried on to join the river which rushed down the valley. This river tore down the narrow valley with headlong violence, till it reached a spot where the rocks closed in, and then made one bound into a terrific chasm, two hundred feet in depth. A wooden bridge crossed the gulf just where the river dropped, carrying with it stones, roots of trees, and often great trunks, some of which lay wedged in among the rocks, battered, ragged, and torn, bombarded as they were by the furious fall.

“The sun is just right,” said Hester, “and we shall have the iris in perfection ; and ”

“Confound them!” said the Colonel, gruffly. “ Look here, Hetty ; if those fellows are going to stop loafing about that little hotel any longer, Fm going away. I believe they are spies, ”

“Oh, papa! you don’t think so.”

“Yes, I do.”

“ Good-morning.”

“ Good-morning.”

The utterances of two gentlemen in the familiar dress of young Englishmen on a mountaineering excursion ; their heavy-greased and nailed boots, and the ice axes they carried, wearing a well-used look that told of hard work — signs indorsed by their. brown faces.

The Colonel touched his helmet stiffly, and marched on with his daughter, who courteously returned the salutes.

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“ Morgen. ”

Morning, morning,” said the Colonel, unbending now to the salute of a handsome, dark fellow, . whose felt hat was decorated with ^ a cluster of freshly-plucked edelweiss, which he quickly pulled out and stood, hat in hand, as he offered it with a smile to Hester.

Danke schon” she said, taking the tribute.

The man shifted the coil of rope slung over his shoulder as he stood smiling at them — a fine, honest-looking specimen of a Swiss peasant guide, while the Colonel thrust his hand into his pocket.

“ Sehr gut^ ” said the guide, resting on his ice-axe, whose head he used as a walking-stick. “ Fraiche pickr as he pointed high up toward a gap on the other side of the valley.

“ He has been up the mountain and picked them, papa,” said Hester.

yi?,” cried the guide eagerly, who seemed to understand her words ; “ pick — 7norgen — berg hochste spitz.

“ They have been making an ascent of the Schnee Horn.”

“And welcome,” said the Colonel. “Here, get yourself a glass. ”

He held out a franc; but the guide frowned, shook his head, and strode on after the two young Englishmen.

“ You have hurt his feelings, papa,” said Hester, quickly.

“ Pride of the cobbler’s dog,” grumbled the Col-

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onel, taking out a handsome cigar case. “ Here, hi ! have a cigar?”

The man turned, and his face lit up with smiles, took the cigar offered to him, raised his hat again to both, and turned to go; but stopped short, tucked his ice-axe under his arm, and held out the rope, which he untwisted a little to show a red strand running through it.

“I hope so,” said the Colonel, as the man walked on after his employers; “but I pity the poor fellow who has to hang on it over a crevice. There, Hetty, our walk’s over. Those two fellows are humbugs; they’ve engaged the guide, who seems an honest fellow, but they’re here to watch me. Detectives in disguise. ”