Tales of two people

“My darling!” murmured the young man fondly. “Now, indeed, is our happiness certain. By to-morrow morning we shall be safe from all pursuit.” Then he turned to the Duke. “I need not tell you,” said he, “that you must observe silence on this matter. Oblige me now by going to my room and packing a bag; you’ll know what I shall want for two or three days; I can give you a quarter of an hour.”

The Duke stood in momentary hesitation. He was bewildered at the sudden change in the position caused by the appearance of this girl. Was he assisting, then, not at a refined and ingenious burglary, but at another kind of trick? The disguise assumed by the young man might have for its object the deception of a trustful girl, and not an abduction of the Queen Bess flagon.

“Well, why don’t you obey?” asked the young man sharply; and, stepping up to the Duke, he thrust a ten-pound note into his hand, whispering, “Play your part, and earn your money, you fool.”

The Duke lingered no longer. Leaving the room, he walked straight, rapidly, and with a firm tread, upstairs. When he reached the top he paused to listen. All was still! Stay! A moment later he heard a slight noise – the noise of some metal instrument turning, proceeding from the room which he had just left. The Duke sat down on the landing and took off his boots. Then with silent feet he crept cautiously downstairs again. He paused to listen for an instant outside the sitting-room door. Voices were audible, but he could not hear the words. The occupants of the room were moving about. He heard a low amused laugh. Then he pursued his way to the hall door. He had not completely closed it after admitting the lady, and he now slipped out without a sound. The brougham stood in front of the door. The Duke dodged behind it, and the driver, who was leaning forward on his seat, did not see him. The next moment he was crouching down by the side of his friend the policeman, waiting for the next development in the plot of this comedy, or crime, or whatever it might turn out to be. He put out his hand and touched his ally. To his amusement the man, sitting there on the ground, had fallen fast asleep.

“Another proof,” mused the Duke in whimsical despair, “that it is impossible to make any mode of life permanently interesting. How this fellow would despise the state of excitement which I, for the moment, am so fortunate as to enjoy! Well, I won’t wake him unless need arises.”

For some little while nothing happened. The policeman slept on, and the driver of the brougham seemed sunk in meditation, unless, indeed, he also were drowsy. The shutters of the sitting-room were again closely shut, and no sound came from behind them. The Duke crouched motionless but keenly observant.

Then the hall door creaked. The policeman snored quietly, but the Duke leant eagerly forward, and the driver of the brougham suddenly sat up quite straight, and grasped his reins more firmly. The door was cautiously opened: the lady and the young man appeared on the threshold. The young man glanced up and down the lane; then he walked quickly towards the brougham, and opened the door. The lady followed him. As she went she passed within four or five feet of where the Duke lay hidden. And, as she went by, the Duke saw – what he half-expected, yet what he could but half-believe – the gleam of the gold of the Queen Bess flagon, which she held in her gloved hands.

As has been hinted, the Duke attached no superstitious value to this article. The mad fever of the collector had left him long ago; but amidst the death of other emotions and more recondite prejudices there survives in the heart of man the primitive dislike of being “done.” It survived in the mind of the Duke of Belleville, and sprang to strong and sudden activity when he observed his Queen Bess flagon in the hands of the pretty unknown lady.

With a sudden and vigorous spring he was upon her; with a roughness which the Duke trusted that the occasion to some extent excused, he seized her arm with one hand, and with the other violently twisted the Queen Bess flagon out of her grasp. A loud cry rang from her lips. The driver threw down the reins and leapt from his seat. The young man turned with an oath and made for the Duke. The Duke of Belleville, ignoring the mere prejudice which forbids timely retreat, took to his heels, hugging the Queen Bess flagon to his breast, and heading, in his silk socks, as hard and as straight as he could for Hampstead Heath. After him pell-mell came the young man, the driver, and the lady, amazed, doubtless, at the turn of events, but resolved on the recapture of the flagon. And just as their figures vanished round the corner, the policeman rubbed his eyes and looked round, exclaiming, “What’s the row?”

In after days the Duke of Belleville was accustomed to count his feelings as he fled barefooted (for what protection could silk socks afford?) across Hampstead Heath, with three incensed pursuers on his track, among the keenest sensations of his life. The exhilaration of the night air and the chances of the situation in which he found himself combined to produce in him a remarkable elation of spirits. He laughed as he ran, till shortening breath warned him against such extravagant wasting of his resources; then he settled down to a steady run, heading across the Heath, up and down, over dip and hillock. Yet he did not distance the pack. He heard them close behind him; a glance round showed him that the lady was well up with her friends, in spite of the impediment of her skirts. The Duke began to pant; his feet had grown sore and painful; he looked round for a refuge. To his delight he perceived, about a hundred yards to his right, a small and picturesque red-brick house. It was now between one and two o’clock, but he did not hesitate. Resolving to appeal to the hospitality of this house, hoping, it may be, again to find a door left open, he turned sharp to the right, and with a last spurt made for his haven.

Fate seemed indeed kind to him; the door was not only unbarred, it stood ajar. The Duke’s pursuers were even now upon him; they were no more than five or six yards behind when he reached the little red-tiled porch and put out his hand to push the door back.

But at the same instant the door was pulled open, and a burly man appeared on the threshold. He wore a frock coat embellished with black braid and a peaked cap. The Duke at once recognised in him an inspector of police. Evidently he was, when surprised by the Duke’s arrival, about to sally out on his round. The Duke stopped and, between his pants, made shift to address the welcome ally; but before he could get a word out the young man was upon him.

“Inspector,” said the young man in the most composed manner, “I give this fellow in charge for stealing my property.”

“I saw him take the tankard,” observed the driver, pointing towards the Queen Bess flagon.

The lady said nothing but stood by the young man, as though ready with her testimony in case it were needed.

The Inspector turned curious eyes on the Duke of Belleville; then he addressed the young man respectfully.

“May I ask, sir, who you are?”

“I am the Duke of Belleville,” answered the young man.

“The Duke of Belle-ville!” cried the Inspector, his manner showing an increased deference. “I beg your Grace’s – ”

“The name,” said the Duke, “is pronounced Bevvle – to rhyme with devil.”

The Inspector looked at him scornfully.

“Your turn will come, my man,” said he, and, turning again to the young man, he continued: “Do you charge him with stealing this cup?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“I imagine you do,” said the young man, with a laugh. “He’s one of your own policeman.”

The Inspector stepped back and turned up the gas in his passage. Then he scrutinised the Duke’s features.

“One of my men?” he cried. “Your Grace is mistaken. I have never seen the man.”

“Yes, yes,” cried the young man, and, in his eagerness to convince the Inspector, he stepped forward, until his face fell within the range of the passage light. As this happened, the Inspector gave a loud cry.

“Hallo, Joe Simpson!” And he sprang at the young man. The latter did not wait for him: without a word he turned; the Inspector rushed forward, the young man made for the Heath, and the driver, after standing for a moment apparently bewildered, faced about, and made off in the opposite direction to that chosen by his companion. The three were thirty yards away before the Duke of Belleville could realise what had happened. Then he perceived that he stood in the passage of the Inspector’s house, alone save for the presence of the young lady, who faced him with an astonished expression on her pretty countenance.

“It is altogether a very remarkable night,” observed the Duke.

“It is impossible that you should be more puzzled than I am,” said the young lady.

“Excuse me,” said the Duke, “but you run very well.”

“I belonged to my college football club,” said the young lady modestly.

“Precisely!” cried the Duke. “I suppose this door leads to our good friend’s parlour. Shall we sit down while you tell me all about it? I must ask you to excuse the condition of my feet.”

Thus speaking, the Duke led the way into the Inspector’s parlour. Placing the Queen Bess flagon on the table, he invited the lady to be seated, and took a chair himself. Perceiving that she was somewhat agitated, he provided her with an interval in which to regain her composure by narrating to her the adventures of the evening. She heard him with genuine astonishment.

“Do you say that you are the Duke of Belleville?” she cried.

“Don’t I look like it?” asked the Duke, smiling, but at the same time concealing his feet under the Inspector’s dining-table.

“But he – he said he was the Duke.”

“He said so to me also,” observed the Duke of Belleville.

The lady looked at him long and keenly; there was, however, a simple honesty about the Duke’s manner that attracted her sympathy and engaged her confidence.

“Perhaps I’d better tell you all about it,” said she, with a sigh.

“Not unless you desire to do so, I beg,” said the Duke, with a wave of his hand.

“I am nineteen,” began the lady. The Duke heaved an envious sigh. “I live with my aunt,” she continued. “We live a very retired life. Since I left college – which I did prematurely owing to a difference of opinion with the Principal – I have seen hardly anyone. In the course of a visit to the seaside I met the gentleman who – who – ”

“From whom we have just parted?” suggested the Duke.

“Thank you, yes. Not to weary you with details – ”

“Principles weary me, but not details,” interposed the Duke.

“In fact,” continued the young lady, “he professed to be in love with me. Now my aunt, although not insensible to the great position which he offered me (for of course he represented himself as the Duke of Belleville) entertains the opinion that no girl should marry till she is twenty-one. Moreover she considered that the acquaintance was rather short.”

“May I ask when you first met the gentleman?”

“Last Monday week. So she forbade the marriage. I am myself of an impatient disposition.”

“So am I,” observed the Duke of Belleville, and in the interest of the discussion he became so forgetful as to withdraw his feet from the shelter of the table and cross one leg comfortably over the other. “So am I,” he repeated, nodding his head.