Part 22 (1/2)
”It's quite like this place; just a wharf and shed, with an enclosure between the river and the railway. We made all the inquiries and investigations we could think of, but we learned absolutely nothing. But that, unfortunately, is the worst of it. Hilliard is disgusted with our failure and appears determined to tell the police.”
”Oh!” cried the girl with an impatient gesture. ”Why can't he let it alone? It's not his business.”
Merriman shrugged his shoulders.
”That's what he said at all events. I had the greatest difficulty in getting him to promise even to delay. But he has promised, and we have a month to make our plans. I came straight over to tell you, and to ask you to marry me at once and come away with me to England.”
”Oh, no, no, no!” she cried, putting up her hand as if to s.h.i.+eld herself from the idea. ”Besides, what about my father?”
”I've thought about him too,” Merriman returned. ”We will tell him the whole thing, and he will be able to get out before the crash comes.”
For some moments she sat in silence; then she asked had Hilliard any idea of what was being done.
”He suggested brandy smuggling, but it was only a theory. There was nothing whatever to support it.”
”Brandy smuggling? Oh, if it only were!”
Merriman stared in amazement.
”It wouldn't be so bad as what I had feared,” the girl added, answering his look.
”And that was--? Do trust me, Madeleine.”
”I do trust you, and I will tell you all I know; it isn't much. I was afraid they were printing and circulating false money.”
Merriman was genuinely surprised.
”False money?” he repeated blankly.
”Yes; English Treasury notes. I thought they were perhaps printing them over here, and sending some to England with each trip of the Girondin.
It was a remark I accidentally overheard that made me think so. But, like you, it was only a guess. I had no proof.”
”Tell me,” Merriman begged.
”It was last winter when the evenings closed in early. I had had a headache and I had gone to rest for a few minutes in the next room, the dining-room, which was in darkness. The door between it and this room was almost but not quite closed. I must have fallen asleep, for I suddenly became conscious of voices in here, though I had heard no one enter. I was going to call out when a phrase arrested my attention. I did not mean to listen, but involuntarily I stayed quiet for a moment.
You understand?”
”Of course. It was the natural thing to do.”
”Captain Beamish was speaking. He was just finis.h.i.+ng a sentence and I only caught the last few words. 'So that's a profit of six thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds,' he said; 'fifty pounds loss on the props, and six thousand seven hundred netted over the other. Not bad for one trip!'”
”Lord!” Merriman exclaimed in amazement. ”No wonder you stopped!”
”I couldn't understand what was meant, and while I sat undecided what to do I heard my father say, 'No trouble planting the stuff?' Captain Beamish answered, 'Archer said not, but then Archer is--Archer. He's planting it in small lots--ten here, twenty there, fifty in t'other place; I don't think he put out more than fifty at any one time. And he says he's only learning his way round, and that he'll be able to form better connections to get rid of it.' Then Mr. Bulla spoke, and this was what upset me so much and made me think, 'Mr. Archer is a wonderful man,' he said with that horrible fat chuckle of his, 'he would plant stuff on Old Nick himself with the whole of the C.I.D. looking on.'
I was bewildered and rather horrified, and I did not wait to hear any more. I crept away noiselessly, and I didn't want to be found as it were listening. Even then I did not understand that anything was wrong, but it happened that the very next day I was walking through the forest near the lane, and I noticed Henri changing the numbers on the lorry.
He didn't see me, and he had such a stealthy surrept.i.tious air, that I couldn't but see it was not a joke. Putting two and two together I felt something serious was going on, and that night I asked my father what it was.”