Part 22 (2/2)

”Well, you see I didn't want it talked over beforehand. If the newspapers got hold of the yarn, and made a lot of fuss about it, they might upset a certain marriage that I've very much set my heart upon.”

Captain Kettle looked puzzled. ”I don't seem to quite follow you, sir.”

”You shall hear the tale from the beginning. We have plenty of time ahead of us just now. You remember the wreck of the _Rangoon_?”

”She was coming home from East Indian ports, wasn't she, and got on fire somewhere off Cape Guardafui? But that'll have been twenty years back, in the old overland days, before the Ditch was opened. Only about ten of her people saved, if I remember.”

”That's about right,” said Wenlock, ”though it's twenty years ago now.

She was full of Anglo-Indians, and their loss made a great sensation at the time. Amongst others was a Colonel Anderson, and his wife, and their child Teresa, aged nine; and what made their deaths all the more sad was the fact that Anderson's elder brother died just a week before, and he would have come home to find a peerage and large estates waiting for him.”

”I can feel for that man,” said Kettle.

”I can feel most for the daughter,” said Wenlock.

”How do you mean, sir?”

”Well, Colonel Anderson's dead, and his wife's dead, but the daughter isn't, or at any rate she was very much alive twelve months ago, that's all. The whole lot of them, with others, got into one of the _Rangoon's_ boats, and after frizzling about at sea till they were nearly starved, got chucked on that South Arabian coast (which you say is so rocky and dangerous), and were drowned in the process. All barring Teresa, that is. She was pulled out of the water by the local n.i.g.g.e.rs, and was brought up by them, and I've absolutely certain information that not a year ago she was living in Dunkhot as quite a big personage in her way.”

”And she's 'My Lady' now, if she only knew?”

”Well, not that. The t.i.tle doesn't descend in the female line, but Colonel Anderson made a will in her favor after she was born, and the present earl, who's got the estates, would have to sh.e.l.l out if she turned up again.”

”My owners, in their letter, mentioned that you were a solicitor. Then you are employed by his lords.h.i.+p, sir?”

Mr. Wenlock laughed. ”Not much,” he said. ”I'm on my own hook. Why, hang it all, Captain, you must see that no man of his own free will would be idiot enough to resurrect a long-forgotten niece just to make himself into a beggar.”

”I don't see why not, sir, if he got to know she was alive. Some men have consciences, and even a lord, I suppose, is a man.”

”The present earl has far too good a time of it to worry about running a conscience. No, I bet he fights like a thief for the plunder, however clear a case we have to show him. And as he's the man in possession and has plenty of ready cash for law expenses, the odds are he'll turn out too big to worry at through all the courts, and we shall compromise.

I'd like that best myself. Cash down has a desirable feel about it.”

”It has, sir,” said Kettle with a reminiscent sigh. ”Even to pocket a tenth of what is rightfully yours is better than getting mixed up with that beastly law. But will the other relatives of the young lady, those that are employing you, I mean, agree to that?”

”Don't I tell you, Captain, I'm on my own hook? There are no other relatives--or at least none that would take a ha'porth of interest in Teresa's getting the estates. I've gone into the thing on sheer spec, and for what I can make out of it, and that, if all's well, will be the whole lump.”

”But how? The young lady may give you something in her grat.i.tude, of course, but you can't expect it all.”

”I do, though, and I tell you how I'm going to get it. I shall marry the fair Teresa. Simple as tumbling off a house.”

Kettle drew himself up stiffly and walked to the other end of the bridge, and began ostentatiously to look with a professional eye over his vessel.

Wenlock was quick to see the change. ”Come, what is it now, Captain?” he asked with some surprise.

”I don't like the idea of those sort of marriages,” said the little sailor, acidly.

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