Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Bracebridge Hemyng (10 ebook reader .txt) 📗

"With Paquita's dearest love. As she waits for one who comes not."

This she posted herself, registering it for extra safety.

Still came no tidings, as day after day passed, till one morning the postman brought a large official-looking letter, addressed in a strange handwriting, and bearing foreign post-marks.

Despite all his hardihood, Harkaway's hand trembled as he took it up, and, eager as he was for news, it was some seconds before he could nerve himself to break the seal.

His wife sat watching with breathless expectation, feeling convinced that at length there was news.

"Are they safe?" she asked, when she had followed her husband's eye to the conclusion of the lengthy epistle.

"They are safe, for the present."

"Thank Heaven!" she exclaimed, giving way to woman's great relief—tears.

"But where are they?" she continued a minute afterwards.

"At Marseilles, where they have been for some time, so the British consul tells me, and where they are likely to be till we go to release them."

"Release them! What do you mean? Don't keep back anything from me, dear husband."

"Well, if you must know the worst, they are in prison, on a charge of coining."

"What an infamous charge to make against them?" exclaimed a couple of indignant feminine voices, belonging to little Emily and Paquita, who had just come into the room.

"Husband, you don't believe our boy to be guilty of such a crime?"

"No; but——"

"But what?"

"Appearances are very much against them, the consul says. The great thing is to establish their identity, as the boy is supposed to have assumed the name he bears."

At this moment Harvey appeared, and the news was instantly imparted to him.

"It is a very serious affair, and it is certain we must go at once. But really it is ridiculous to fancy old Mole and those black rascals accused of coining."

"It will not be ridiculous, if they are condemned and sent to the galleys, pa," said little Emily.

"True, little girl, therefore we will see about starting at once. You see about packing my things, while I run up to town to get passports for the lot of us."

"Passports are not required for travelling," said Emily.

"Certainly not for travelling; but what can establish our identity better than passports signed by the British Secretary of State for foreign affairs?"

There was no answering this question; so Dick started off for London, while the rest busied themselves with preparations for a continental trip.

Within forty-eight hours they were crossing the Channel; six hours later they had entered Paris, where they took a brief rest, and then continued their journey towards Marseilles.

For just as they were starting Harkaway received a telegram from the consul at Marseilles—

"Come as soon as you possibly can, or you may be too late."

Need it be said that, after such a message, they lost no time in speeding to their destination?

CHAPTER CIII.

MONSIEUR HOCQUART CLERMONT DELAMARRE—THE COINER AT HOME.

But what had the consul and the governor of the gaol been doing all this time?

When the consul first called upon the governor of the gaol, that official tried to laugh off the matter.

"Surely," said the governor, "you don't believe the tale these young fellows tell?"

"I am more than half inclined to do so, if only from the fact that the writer of this appears to have written several other letters which have miscarried. But why, may I ask, was I not informed that some of my countrymen had been arrested?"

"Well, my dear sir, their story seemed to me so absurd, that I did not think it worth while to trouble you."

"But they asked to see me."

"True."

"And I fear as you did not forward their request, I shall be obliged to mention your name, to our ambassador in Paris."

"For Heaven's sake do not! If such a thing were known to the minister of justice, I should lose my situation at once."

"Then if I am silent on this matter, you must render me every assistance in finding out the truth about these prisoners."

"Willingly. What can I do?"

"I should like to see the youth who calls himself Harkaway; but first of all, where is the gaoler who usually has charge of these prisoners?"

"Gone to his home, monsieur. The ordinary officials are, as you are doubtless aware, replaced by a military guard, between sunset and sunrise."

"Good, then oblige me by bringing him here."

So young Jack was brought into the presence of the consul, who closely questioned him as to what he had been doing in Marseilles.

He told the truth, and, in spite of the severe cross-examination by the governor and the consul, stuck to his tale.

"Humph!" said the consul. "You are consistent, at all events. Well, for the present, you may return to your cell, but don't tell even your friends that you have seen the British consul."

"I won't mention it, sir."

And Jack returned to his cell, escorted by the governor himself, as the consul did not wish anyone to know of the interview.

But when the governor returned, the consul said—

"Now, Monsieur Hocquart Delamarre, what do you think of the affair?"

The governor did not reply, but there quietly glided from behind a screen, which probably had concealed him during the interview, a man of middle age and height, with nothing at all striking in his appearance.

He might have passed for a clerk, a second-rate shopkeeper, or a superior artisan; anyone passing him in the street would have taken no notice whatever of such an everyday kind of a man.

Yet, after all, a very close observer would have noticed something very peculiar about him. His eyes!

One moment they seemed to pierce the inmost recesses of your very soul, yet when you tried, through them, to find a clue to their owner's thoughts, you were utterly defeated, for they became misty and expressionless.

"What do I think of the affair, monsieur?"

"Yes."

"Well, so early in the case, it is difficult to pronounce a decided opinion," said Delamarre.

"That is very true, Monsieur Delamarre," said the consul.

"But as your excellency has sought my professional assistance in this case, I feel my reputation is at stake, and shall exert myself to the utmost."

"Monsieur Delamarre is one of the cleverest gentlemen we have in this line of business," said the governor.

The middle-aged gentleman bowed.

"You are kind enough to say so, sir."

"You have made a good selection, Monsieur le Consul. In the detective police Monsieur Delamarre has few equals."

Again the detective bowed, and addressing the consul, said—

"When shall I next have the honour of waiting on you again, monsieur?"

"As soon as you have learned any thing you think of sufficient importance to tell me."

"At the consulate, of course?"

"Will it be safe for you to be seen there?"

"Monsieur, I stake my professional reputation that, when I call on you, you shall not recognise me till I choose to reveal myself. There is an extremely artful person mixed up in this affair, but I shall prove still more artful than any of them; take the word of Hocquart Clermont Delamarre."

With another bow the French detective made his exit.

He proceeded in the first place to his own temporary residence, where he made a considerable alteration in his personal appearance.

Then making straight for the quarter of the city mostly inhabited by the respectable working classes, he made a friendly call on Pierre Lenoir the coiner, who, as it will be remembered, the police had been unable to trace since his encounter with Herbert Murray and the waggoner.

A friendly call we have termed it, and so it seemed at first, for the detective and the criminal shook hands in the most friendly manner.

"Hullo, friend Clermont," exclaimed Lenoir, "what brings you from Paris!"

"Why, it was too hot for me there."

There was a pause.

"And you, too," continued the detective. "I have heard your name mentioned very much of late. How did that affair happen?"

Pierre Lenoir told his friend, whom of course he did not know as a detective, but merely as an associate with coiners and such like people, how he had been tricked by Markby.

"But I'll have his life, though."

"Doubtless. It will be a bad day for him when he falls into your hands."

Lenoir growled a fierce oath.

"He has escaped me for the present, but if I wait for years, I will have my revenge. Pierre Lenoir never forgives."

Unheedful of the coiner's anger, the detective stroked his moustache, and continued—

"But how about the prisoners up at the gaol yonder?"

"They are innocent."

"Innocent!"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then why are they in prison?"

"Because the only persons who can clear them are Markby and myself."

"Ah, I see!"

"And Markby for some reason or other won't clear them."

"Some old grudge, I suppose."

"Yes. However, they are innocent; when I tried them, they flatly refused to have anything to do with the game."

"Well, they are in a nice fix; but how did you manage to escape after that little affair with Markby and the peasant?'"

"Crawled into a bush as near as possible to the scene of the fight."

"Ah!"

"If I had gone half a mile away, the police would no doubt have found me, but the thick-headed rascals never thought of looking only half a dozen yards off. Ha, ha, ha!"

The detective smiled grimly.

"They are thick-headed rascals."

And after a pause occupied in listening to sounds in the street, he repeated—

"And the English prisoners are entirely innocent then?"

"Entirely."

"Now listen to me, Pierre Lenoir," continued the detective, rapping the table smartly as though to command attention. "But what a curious echo you have in this old room."

"I had not noticed it; but to continue."

"These English refused to have any thing to do with your business, you say?"

"Yes; and showed fight when I would have used force to detain them."

"Then if the judge knows that, the young fellows will be released?"

"Yes; but, my dear friend, it is not likely I shall go to the court to give evidence in their favour."

"You will."

"Nonsense."

"I shall take you there."

There was something in his visitor's manner that made Lenoir first start from his seat and make a hasty movement towards the table.

But he recoiled when Hocquart Clermont Delamarre thrust a revolver in his face and exclaimed—

"If you make another movement towards that drawer where your pistols are, I will send a bullet through you. Keep your hands down by your side."

"What in the