Part 38 (2/2)

I hear carriage wheels now. Would you just tell me your real name, now, the name you use when you are not doing your 'character' song and dance.” The young officer smiled at the American's rough address.

”Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady's future husband,” confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.

”Oh, yes,” grinned Alaric Hobbs, ”the last part I'll take for gospel truth. Well, Major, I'm glad to know you.” And he then, very practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a dozen stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been purposely dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed his battle ground.

”If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder fight,”

chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one. ”Major,” said he huskily, ”I've got my things corraled up there, and the instruments, and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get your own people back now to the Folly. I'll 'hold the fort' here, till you bring the proper authorities. Our man won't run away now. He is 'permanently fixed' for a long repose from 'further anxieties.'”

But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be allowed the ordering of all. ”This is an outrage,” he babbled. ”You are a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers.” So, fiercely addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone, at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was blubbering and wailing.

”Captain Murray,” sternly cried Major Hardwicke, ”take Miss Nadine and her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return here as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come over with him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to take my dispatches to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some writing materials. This must be reported at once.”

”Go now, dearest Nadine,” her lover implored. ”I will join you at once.

Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again,” and then and there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone threw her ams around her lover in a fond embrace. ”You will come?”

”At once,” cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, ”Drive on!”

Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke's grasp. ”Be quiet, you d.a.m.ned old fool!” pithily said Alaric Hobbs. ”They saved your life for you!”

”You shall never darken my doors,” raged Andrew Fraser.

”I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property,” coldly answered Hardwicke. ”After that I care not to visit you, save to lead your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you! Don't fear!”

”You shall never marry her,” the old pedant cried. ”You shall answer to me for this whole dastardly outrage.”

”All right,” coolly said Hardwicke. ”It's man to man, now. I will marry your niece within a month, and, with your written permission!” And not another single word would the disgusted Hardwicke utter--while old Fraser clung to Alaric Hobbs, whining in his wrath. In an hour, a motley cortege slowly left the door of the martello tower. Murray and Hardwicke walking, armed, beside the carriage, where Mr. Jack Blunt, still bound, was the sullen companion of the half-crazed Professor Fraser.

To the demands of ”Joseph Smith's” friends Hardwicke replied: ”He will undoubtedly be released tomorrow by the proper authorities if there is a mistake.”

A smart groom was already half-way to St. Heliers, galloping on with a sealed letter to General Wragge, the commander of the Channel Island forces. ”That will bring Anstruther over at once. He must act now!” said Hardwicke. ”In two days Ram Lal will be in irons at Delhi, and I think that we will prepare a crus.h.i.+ng little surprise for this defiant old fool and miser, Professor Andrew Fraser.” And Red Eric Murray now inwardly rejoiced to see the end of all his masquerading as the Moonshee. He received a parting salute, also. ”You are no gentleman, a vile swindler, sir,” raved old Andrew, as Captain Murray allowed him to descend and enter his own door. The ”History of Thibet” fraud rankled in old Fraser's mind.

But the ”ex-Moonshee” only smiled and politely bowed, while ”Prince Djiddin” sternly marched with his prisoner, Jack Blunt, upstairs and then locked the doors of his apartments. It was an ”imperium in imperio.”

In the hall, he had turned and faced Andrew Fraser only to say: ”I shall await here, sir, the orders of the civil and military authorities; yes, here, in my own room. The very moment that they take charge, I shall, however, leave your roof. But not until then! And for your future safety, I warn you to moderate your ignorant abuse.”

There was no sleep in the house until the gray dawn at last straggled through the mists of night. And the sound of outcry and excited alarm long continued, for Professor Andrew Fraser and Janet Fairbarn were excitedly wailing over the easily detected work of the burglar, in the old pedant's study. The aged Scotsman ran up and down the hall, tearing his hair and bemoaning his lost ma.n.u.scripts and papers. For, he dared not announce the loss of the stolen crown jewels!

The family coachman had already departed for Rozel Pier, to bring home the wounded Simpson, while a doctor, summoned by the messenger from St.

Heliers, was led by Janet Fairbarn to the apartments of the heiress.

Murray and Hardwicke rejoiced in secret over the recovery of the key to the whole deadlock--from Delhi to London! The game was now won!

At ten o'clock, a staff officer of General Wragge joined Major Hardwicke and Captain Murray in their room, while one of the terrible army of twelve policemen of an island populated with ”three thousand cooks”

watched over the ”Banker's Folly,” and another garrisoned the old martello tower, where Alan Hawke lay alone in the grim majesty of death.

The fox-eyed American professor ”invited himself” to breakfast with Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken old man.

”Never mind, we will finish up the 'History of Thibet' together,” he cried, ”when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house will be much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the way.” But old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly forbade all communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a further personal loss, which he dared not explain!

”There was a suspicious French fis.h.i.+ng-boat lately seen knocking around Rozel,” acutely said Alaric Hobbs. ”We also found the b.l.o.o.d.y trail where they dragged their wounded away down to the beach. And so they are off on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one knows the dead scoundrel up there.”

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