If Lord Tarlton was convinced that Julius and the Dago would soon be in London to testify to a deal made in Malta nearly eighteen years before—testifying before the Admiralty at my behest—and he thought that I remained unaware of him finding it out, I believed he would take the risk of positive action without delay.
So it did not surprise me when, on the following afternoon, Dick Tarlton called. On being admitted to my study room, he gave me a somewhat sheepish grin. He was a graceful and, when he chose, an engaging fellow. I seated him where I could grab him, if the need arose; actually, there seemed to me no likelihood of such a development. It was interesting to consider how readily he would take to murder if in his opinion the stakes justified the risk. It seemed probable he had taken to it already, since it has always been the sharpest, surest tool of ambitious men who do not hold by law, human or divine. Those who deny the brotherhood of man have nothing but practical problems between them and the great gains obtainable by murder.
The fact remained that Dick was something of a sportsman. He would not cavil over the odds. A little more or less risk cut no ice with him. If the game was' good enough, he'd play it.
"What can I do for you, Dick?" I asked—that usually kindly intentioned but often ill-mannered inquiry people make to dubious visitors.
"First of all, a nip," he answered. "The weather's rotten, and I'm on a damned delicate mission."
I did not doubt this last, and my main hope was he would execute it well. Unless the scheme was brilliant, the trap beautifully screened, and the bait made enticing. Lord Tarlton would doubt my gullibility, and be on guard against a counter-stroke.
"I came here in behalf of my father, my two half sisters, and my half—is that right?—brother-in-law," Dick went on, after the drink. "Does 'behalf include myself? Anyway, I'm one of the petitioners."
"I doubt if it's the right word," I said when he paused.
"Not far from it, by God! Let me put it this way. When you play chess, your king is never taken—he's merely demobilized and dispotentiated. Since the renegade Holmes so conveniently turned up his toes, my old gentleman's king is in that fix or very close to it. True, we see the situation in somewhat different lights. And I'd better say first that I don't intend to answer the charges that you've made, directly or indirectly. I won't confess them or deny them either. But I'll take the first steps toward what I hope will be a satisfactory settlement."
It was a good beginning. No fault could be found with it. Dick's face was in repose, his eyes full of thoughts. He glanced at me, I nodded, and he went on.
"One of the stumbling blocks to any settlement has been that face of yours. It never changes—truly it suggests stone—and it was hard for us to see a man behind it, Sophia won't—or can't—see it yet. She thinks of you as some sort of retributive force, like Nemesis. But she's wildly imaginative and I'm not. If there isn't a man behind it, I'm wasting my time and yours, but I believe there is."
"Yes, sir, there certainly is,"
"What man? Much hangs on that. Are you Holgar Blackburn or Homer Whitman? Whichever you are, you know the story of the other one. Until he talked to Captain Holmes, my father was convinced you were Whitman, turned into an implacable avenger. There would be no settling with such a being, he thought. Unless you were killed or somehow forced to leave England, our jig was up. When Papa asked you to sit behind him and correct his errors at the butts, was he surprised when Pike's gun went off by accident? I doubt it."
"I appreciate your frankness, Dick, and I'll confess that your father appeared greatly surprised."
"Well, maybe he was. Let it go, please. When Captain Holmes came, he told him three men of the Vindictive s crew had been taken alive, one of them Homer Whitman, one a small-sized sailor whose name he'd forgotten, and one an American Negro. You'd think that would have confirmed Papa in his belief—but Captain Holmes also stated that beyond any particle of doubt both white men were dead. The little one died in the Jebel quarries. The other two escaped, but only the Negro got clean away—Homer Whitman died fighting. But for years before he died he had been thrown with a pay-chest thief, Holgar Blackburn, and had told him his story. When some of Holgar's friends among the Mamelukes enabled him to escape— I'm guessing now—he made a pile of money, either in slave and ivory trading, or by blackmail. Then he came to England for purposes not yet quite clear. Perhaps it was to avenge his old friend Homer Whitman. Perhaps he had some more practical aim."
"Such as doubling his fortune—which may not be as great as rumor makes it out—and getting into high society?"
"Both would be completely human and understandable, especially in a runaway from an English workhouse. What poor boy in England, tipping his cap to the squire—bowing and scraping to his lordship—doesn't yearn with passionate yearning to have the shoe on the other foot? Papa found out that Blackburn had been branded on the back of his hand with an X. It was almost unbelievable that Whitman would go to such lengths as to brand himself to maintain an identity of no real use to him. That's not all. Papa's agent hunted up a childhood sweetheart of Blackburn. The old people told him about her—it was quite a rural idyl. This woman saw you in Taxistock. She swears before heaven that you're Holgar Blackburn, returned from the grave."
I was not as composed as before. As I poured Dick another glass, I could hardly keep my hands from trembling. It was impossible to doubt that the woman who had loved Holgar more than anyone in the world and who knew his walk and knew I was not he, had sworn that I was he. She had promised me she would not expose my masquerade and had kept that promise: was that such a wonderful thing? It was as wonderful as a star burning in infinite lonely vigil in the heavens.
"If I'm Holgar Blackburn, what then?" I asked.
"I think you'll deal with me."
"What if I'm Homer Whitman?"
"You'd still be a human being with red blood in your veins."
"Yes, and that blood shed on the deck of the Vindictive has washed mighty thin by now."
I said it without a shudder. It was easy when I was saying it for Captain Phillips, for Sparrow and Farmer Blood and Ezra Owens and the rest, and for men tricked out of their lives by a little lordling's pretty ways after a sea fight by Grindstone Island. It did not beslime my mouth when I spoke for all these, and for Holgar Blackburn who was branded on the hand by brutal arrogance and blasphemy.
At that instant, Dick believed he had won the victory.
"What would be your notion of a settlement, if you'd care to say?" Dick ventured.
"I'll leave that to you."
"We're not as rich as report has it. If you could clear a cool hundred thousand pounds—on a race or a roll of the dice or by some face-saving device—would you let bygones be bygones?"
"We'll never get anywhere with that, Dick. I've all the money I need."
"I told the old man so. I told him you were a man who meant just what you said."
"In this case, I do."
"You said you wanted Eliza. Papa's tried to punch holes in that perfectly plain statement, trying to believe it some sort of bluff, but the two girls, who heard you make it, and I—we've about brought him to his senses. I'll ask you this. What if Eliza doesn't take to the idea? You're twice her age—not exactly an Adonis—and there are other barriers in a young girl's eyes. What would be your position in that case?"
"The negotiations would be dropped."
"That makes it pretty thick."
"I'd consider a so-called marriage of convenience with your half sister Eliza. I have great wealth, she has position and name. I probably could make several just as good, especially if the families needed money. It would begin as a marriage of convenience. If I was able to make something more of it as time went on, well and good. In any case my position in society would be assured. My children would be among those who inherit the earth. And Eliza is different from every other unmarried girl in one respect—an appeal I find irresistible."