"Your coming here has saved me writing you a note," he remarked when we were seated. "It would be in apology of my rash and improper behavior when poor Holmes was killed. You see, he was the last of my two oflBcers who survived the sea fight off Grindstone Island, and was bound up in the loves and hates of my youth. Although he became a Barbary pirate, he did so honorably. He did not wish to become subject to a king who made peace with traitors, and his great passion was to catch those traitors in his haunts and send them to the bottom or into slavery."
A wintry rattle was in his lordship's voice and his blue eyes looked stone cold.
"I had heard that was his passion," I answered.
"His sudden death was a piece of luck for you," the pretty nobleman went on. "No doubt a demand for your extradition will be made —the Pasha's agent in Lisbon is certain to hear soon that Holgar Blackburn is alive and in England—but it will take months to be acted upon."
"I doubt if it will ever come up, Lord Tarlton. I don't think any accredited representative of the Pasha will care to rake over old coals. Only Holmes, of other loyalties, could have made me any trouble."
"Perhaps you're right. Who knows?"
"I'm here today as a result of a suggestion made by your son Dick. Since the matter might concern your daughter Eliza, perhaps you would care to summon her."
His hesitation was so brief as to almost escape the eye, then he nodded gravely. "Anyway, she will be pleasant to look upon."
A footman answered the bell and ran the errand. Eliza appeared at once, her hair and eyes and flesh tints luminous in the half-bright room, her green dress auguring spring on a wintry day. She gave me a grave bow.
"Now you may go ahead," Lord Tarlton said.
"Dick proposed, as you may recall, that I look into the history of the Blackburn family, to see what honors I could find and wear. But I wanted no rosy myths, and feared for the honesty as well as the competence of the paid genealogists. So I decided to put them to an exacting test."
"Excellent," Eliza remarked when I paused. I did not know what she meant.
"It was simply to have them establish the pedigree of some gentleman of high descent, who would be kind enough to compare their report with his own knowledge. In choosing someone, inevitably I thought of you—you who'd refused to meet Beau Brummell, the son of a clerk and the grandson of a shopkeeper, and who regarded the house of Hanover as your social inferiors."
"How did you come by that last supposition?"
"I was told so, long ago, by someone who knew you well. In any case, I've had their report, and will dispatch it to you. It evidenced that your family has borne arms for five generations."
"Five?" he asked, smiling faintly.
"Yes, my lord. According to this report, your great-great-grandfather adopted the arms when he took the name of his former patron, Godfrey Tarlton, Earl of Ballinderry. His real name was Thomas Snow. It was a time of strife in Ireland, and the son of Thomas, enriched by the wars and settling in England, claimed to be the earl's grandson, on the cadet branch. Meanwhile the title, by no means ancient, had become one of the disused titles of the Marquis of Leath, and the claim was never disputed."
As I spoke, Lord Tarlton toyed with his stick, apparently not listening. When I paused, there fell a deep silence; then he looked up as though startled.
"Pardon me, Mr. Blackburn. Will you please continue?"
"These investigators were unable to establish that your mother was descended from Godwine, earl of the West Saxons in the eleventh century, although the mistake would be a natural one. Her family name was Gorman. When it first appears, in the early sixteenth century, the family were yeomanry. When they became franklins a hundred years later, on what were once Godwine lands in the Severn Valley, it was changed to Godwine. Not long thereafter they were recognized as gentry. In fact, your maternal greatgrandfather married the daughter of a baronet."
"Quite a feather in our family cap," Eliza broke in.
"And what is the meat of the coconut?" Lord Tarlton asked. But his voice trembled and his lips were pale.
"Only this. If this report is true, you're an English gentleman beyond all doubt, but both sides of your family have elevated themselves by their own bootstraps in no very ancient time. Therefore, I thought you might like to reconsider some advice that you gave me."
"What was it, please?"
"That I should not marry a lady of name, but attempt only a minor rise in this respect, and leave it to my more remote posterity to obtain honor in the land."
"If I withdraw that advice, what then?"
"I wish to ask your opinion of a possible match. There is a beautiful young woman to whom I'm attracted, considerably my junior, but about the age of my African bride, whom I've lost forever. The latter was of authentic royalty, while this girl is only the daughter of a newly created baron. It's quite possible that if I could win her hand, I'd stay away from London, making a home with her at Elveshurst or Tavistock."
Lord Tarlton half rose from his chair. "What in the devil do you mean?"
"You know exactly what he means," Eliza said quietly. "So please compose yourself."
Instead the little lord lifted his cane and struck at my face. I caught the little stick, broke it in my hands, and tossed it into the fire.
"Will you let me hear from you within a fortnight?" I asked as I rose, "I wish to settle my affairs—some of them pending since June, 1801—as soon as possible."
When Sir Godwine could not speak, Eliza spoke gravely in his place.
"You will hear from my father, without fail."
CHAPTER 30
The Great Question
Although heavy inroads had been made upon my enemy, as yet I had no real reason to believe that I could destroy him by attrition, or cause him to shatter himself against me by attack.
Toward the latter aim, I turned the screw once more. Summoning Walt Chalker, well-acquainted with the waterfront, I asked if he knew any actor who could pass himself off as an English-speaking sailor from some Mediterranean country for a short and not too difficult engagement. He knew several, he said; better yet, he was acquainted with a genuine Italian sailor, presently in port, who could speak broken English, and was at least a skillful liar. Walt knew him as Alberto and never doubted that he would be up and equal to any reasonable escapade not involving him with the law.
I directed that Alberto should find Pike at the Vintry mughouse where he liked to loaf, and offer to tell him something, greatly to his advantage, for the sum of five pounds. In response to Pike's questions, he was to let fall that the business concerned Lord Tarlton, not Pike himself, but Alberto had not known how to approach the big gun, and had been tipped off that Pike could be trusted to represent his master faithfully and generously. He had found out something that he believed Lord Tarlton would pay Pike ten pounds—perhaps a great deal more—to know. It concerned two men whom Alberto had met in a Gibraltar stews, who were at present on their way to London to make trouble. He, Alberto, did not know what kind of trouble it was, but one of them had mentioned a Negro, known as Jim, who had paid their passage.
Alberto could continue to lower his price as the talk continued and the glasses passed. In case the deal was made, Alberto's information would be nothing more than the names by which the two men had been known in Malta—Julius and the Dago—and two fictitious names under which they averredly traveled.
Three days later Walt called on me to make his report. Pike had taken the bait, had paid two pounds for it, and appeared to regard the sum as well spent. I sent three pounds more to Alberto—more than this might have wakened dangerous dreams of avarice—and gave Walt five pounds.