The Hunchback of Westminster

For some minutes afterwards we neither of us uttered a word. Both sat and looked at each other, and I am sure I don’t know who was the more puzzled or confounded.

“That rules the Jesuits out,” I said at length, kicking the bedstead viciously with my foot.

“Quite,” said Casteno. “Unfortunately, it also limits our possibilities of assistance.” Then after a pause he added: “I wonder if Miss Napier will hear of the hole we are in!”

“Why?” I queried fiercely, flushing rosy crimson, for deep in my heart, alas! all my thoughts were still of her.

“Oh! nothing,” he answered.

“That’s rubbish,” I interposed rudely. “You meant something. What was it?”

“Only this: Miss Napier is the kind of champion we want just now,” said Casteno humbly. “You see, we can’t get about for ourselves. We’re cornered. We need somebody with brain and charm to approach people in high places!”

“What about Cooper-Nassington,” I said sternly. “You sent me to him. You relied on him. Look at the result!”

“You forget, though, that he may be in prison like ourselves! Remember, Naylor had a warrant to search St. Bruno’s. Well, as likely as not, he had orders to take up some of the leaders of the Order too. Indeed, at a pinch, they might have arrested the lot of them.”

That was quite possible. I saw it immediately the Spaniard had spoken, and I did not attempt to controvert it.

“We shall have to wait, that’s all,” said Casteno at length, with something uncommonly like a groan.

And wait we did – but certainly not as long as we expected – for just when ten o’clock was about to strike we caught the sounds of a loud scuffling in the corridor, a burst of jovial laughter, and the next second the door of our cell was flung violently open, and two people literally raced into our prison – no other than Doris herself and Cooper-Nassington.

“Joy! joy!” cried the burly legislator, waving a pile of documents and newspapers. “Lord Cyril has suddenly resigned from the Government, and my old friend the Marquis of Penarth has taken his place; more than that, I’ve put the whole matter of the sacred lake before the marquis, and not only have I got an order from the Home Office for the immediate release of both of you, but I’ve arranged such terms that England will win – win at every point.”

And, laughing and crying with excitement, Doris sprang to my arms.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

At the Present Moment

Overjoyed at this news, the four of us swept out of the police station. Even the inspectors and sergeants seemed to catch some of our enthusiasm, or was it the sight of Mr Cooper-Nassington and of the order from the Home Secretary that brought about so miraculous a change in their manner towards us? At all events, they led us quite in triumph out into Bow Street, and from thence, at a word from the Member of Parliament, we took our way to the Hotel Cecil, where, in a private room where a delightful supper had been spread, we found Colonel Napier awaiting us, apparently none the worse in temper or appearance for his bewildering experiences on the racecourse at Worcester.

Then, as we discussed the meal, with many a merry jest and many a toast in the best champagne the hotel could produce, all the news poured about us like an avalanche.

“First,” said Cooper-Nassington, who by unanimous request had taken the head of the table, with Doris and I on his right hand and Casteno on his left and the colonel to the front of him, “you are both, no doubt, literally dying to know how Lord Cyril came to tumble from his pinnacle as Foreign Secretary in a day as it were. Well, don’t trouble to look at the papers. They are full of lies, as usual. They pretend it is failing health, that the strain of European complications has been too much for him, that he’s threatened with softening of the brain; but all that is really nonsense. I got at the great man myself, and I made him resign!” And, swelling with pride and importance, the Member of Parliament rose and gazed delightedly upon us.

“You actually did!” we cried in a breath; but he waved our dissent aside.

“Yes; I contrived it all,” he went on. “As a matter of fact, I did it by bluff, sheer bluff; but I knew my man, and I knew where to hit him. He had tried to crush us, and I recognised that the time had come when, if we didn’t wish to be totally exterminated, we must fall upon him and demolish him.”

And we both nodded, recalling that cruel letter of his to José.

The Member of Parliament paused for a moment theatrically, and then went on in a more grave and earnest tone. At the bottom we could see he was really profoundly touched by the turn events had taken and by our own good fortune, but, British like, he sought to hide it by a jocularity and levity he was very far, indeed, from feeling.

“I got a private interview with him at the Foreign Office this afternoon,” he said, “just after he had announced to a delighted House all about the wonderful discovery he had made of documents that proved that the sacred lake belonged to England, and that a mission would be despatched forthwith to take possession of it. This he did on the strength of the forged manuscripts which Naylor found in the safe when he searched St. Bruno’s from top to bottom. ‘Cuthbertson,’ I began very firmly, ‘you’ve been fooled, fooled completely. Those are not the documents you want at all. They are forgeries, as your experts will rapidly discover; forgeries made by the hunchback’s good-for-nothing second son.’ He stormed and he raved, and he sent for old Peter Zouche and his son Paul, who, of course, had to admit the truth of what I said, and then he lost nerve completely, begged my pardon, and tried to come to terms with me. ‘Let me have the real things,’ he pleaded, ‘and I’ll release your friends. I’ll give you a share of the credit of the discovery, and at the first opportunity I have I’ll find you a snug place in the Government.’

“Now,” proceeded the Member of Parliament, “tempting as those terms were, I refused them. For one thing, I knew my man, and I knew he was but a pinchbeck, unstable, untruthful kind of genius. For another, I realised that, as Foreign Secretary, he was a terrible danger to England, so I stuck to the line I had marked out for myself, without any thought or hope of my own advancement. ‘You’ve got to resign,’ I returned – ‘nothing else will satisfy me or save you from the ridicule I have arranged to pour upon you. I have prepared a careful account of the whole business as we know it from the inside, ay, even of the way you must have helped Fotheringay to send those sham nurses, and to-morrow I shall telegraph it to every newspaper of importance. I will swear an affidavit of its truth, and join the opposition, and between us we will contrive to literally laugh you out of power.’ A terrible scene, of course, followed. He grew abusive, he tried more bribes, he threatened to have me flung into prison like yourselves – there wasn’t, in fact, a trick or a dodge which a man in his powerful position could resort to that he didn’t in turn practise on me.

“Luckily, I am pretty obstinate,” he went on, “and I won, hands down. Straight away he got two or three doctor friends together, and they cooked up a certificate about the state of his health; he rushed off to Buckingham Palace and handed over his resignation to the king, who, fortunately, happened to be in town; and, after various audiences, the Premier about an hour ago appointed the Marquis of Penarth in his place. In the Cabinet it is pretty well known how I managed it, but nobody regrets Cuthbertson’s downfall. He was too proud, too overbearing, too insolent for the position, and all the members of the House whom I have spoken to seem to be relieved at his resignation and hurried departure to that old castle of his up in Galloway.”

“And what,” asked José, “has become of my father and brother?” And his face was pale and his eyes full of tears.

“I am sorry to say they have both bolted. The Home Secretary sent after them regarding the loss of certain plans from the Woolwich Arsenal, but they took fright over the forgeries and Cuthbertson’s threats and slipped off to Greenwich, from which they got a tramp steamer to take them to some foreign port, whence they can flee up country and gain a quasi kind of protection, which it won’t pay England to fight – probably in Portugal or Spain, or even in Greece, with which country, I understand, we have no extradition treaty whatever.”

“And you, colonel,” I asked, turning to Napier. “How did you come to forgive us?” I queried.

The old soldier broke into a hearty laugh. “Oh! that wasn’t difficult when such a magician as Cooper-Nassington set to work. He told me the whole of the facts, whereas Fotheringay had only explained to me half!”

And under the table-cloth Doris’ small hand found mine, and gave me a sweet little token of satisfaction, trust, and content. Already I felt more than repaid for the misunderstanding I had suffered.

Little more remains to be told.

Only next day the papers came out with the true account of Bernard Delganni’s suicide, and there is no doubt in my mind now that he was the man who stabbed the colonel’s spaniel, which was said to sleep usually in the colonel’s room.

Soon after this the expedition to Mexico set sail, and now any day we may hear that, with the aid of the old Jesuits’ chart and the information contained in the yellow parchments, Beckworth’s sacred lake has actually been drained off and England in possession of a practically inexhaustible mine of wealth. Every day I open my newspaper I look for this welcome intelligence, and every day I am certain brings us nearer the consummation of this discovery. One day before long the sacred lake, which is already located and has been sounded, will be run dry by a tunnel which is being cut through a small mountain, and when this is accomplished it will bring joy and solid relief to the heart of every taxpayer and Englishman. The wealth known to be in the bed of the lake is enormous, and some of the gems and gold ornaments recovered are already in London. That Fotheringay has got a place in the expedition gives me no concern. He was never really bad, and chances of redemption should be given to all, although Casteno has really never forgiven him that trick with the sham nurses.

The Order of St. Bruno still flourishes under Mr Cooper-Nassington’s guidance, and anyone who desires to join it should address my friend, the Member of Parliament, at the House of Commons. I have but thinly disguised his identity in these chapters, and any serious patriot could discover his real name by a little judicious inquiry, say from the chairman of the Press Gallery, who knows twice as much of the secret history of our legislative establishment as, notwithstanding what croakers over press morality assert, ever finds its way into print.

The Order has, I am compelled to record, lost two of its active members. One, José Casteno, who has married that very charming girl, Camille Velasquon, and set sail for Mexico, hot on the heels of the British expedition to Tangikano, and also to see that Fotheringay goes straight. The other, my poor, graceless self, who, now that Doris has become my wife, no longer figures in Stanton Street, WC, as a secret investigator, but lives out at Redhill, and goes daily to his chambers in the Temple – Lawyers’ Land – to lay the foundation of a barrister’s practice, aided by poor Naylor, who was retired compulsorily from Scotland Yard upon a small pension, but who, I find, makes an admirable clerk when it comes to a hand-to-hand tussle with solicitors, who ever want more than their true pound of flesh.

And so for the present, with the others, I must make my adieu!

When England is startled, as she will be one day ere long, by the announcement of the recovery of the enormous treasure of Tangikano, the emeralds and rubies unequalled in the world, and the wonderful images and utensils of solid gold that have been hidden for ages in the slime beneath those silent waters, then will you, perhaps, recollect the chapters of an eventful history which I have recorded in the foregoing pages, and remember what part in the modern drama of London life was played by the man once known to connoisseurs and collectors as the Hunchback of Westminster.