She had made no answer at the time, but had thought afterwards of what he had said. Yes, the two men were very unlike and there was, no doubt, something in what Captain Armstrong had said. She thought that if she loved a man she could bear better to see him marry a woman altogether unlike herself in every respect than one who resembled her closely, though perhaps she could hardly explain to herself why this should be so.

They were a merry party on board the steamer going down the lake, and the new comers took rooms at the same hotel as the Hawtreys.

'Well, what do you mean to do, Armstrong?' Fitzwarren asked, as they strolled out to smoke a cigar by the lake after the rest of the party had gone to bed. 'You know what I mean. You told me the other day about your affair with Miss Hawtrey.'

'I should not have said anything about it,' the other returned, 'if I had had any idea that her engagement with Halliburn would come to nothing. We had been talking over that business of hers, and I expressed my opinion pretty strongly as to Halliburn's behaviour to her in public and said that I wondered she stood it. Then getting heated I was ass enough to say that had I been in his position, I should have behaved in a different sort of way, and generally expressed my contempt for him. Then you asked why hadn't I put myself in his position, and I told you it was no fault of mine, for that I had tried and failed, when you made some uncomplimentary remarks as to her taste, and we nearly had a row.

'You ask me what I am going to do. Of course, if we had not heard that news when we got to Milan I should have gone this afternoon, directly we arrived here, to take my place in the first diligence that started, no matter where. Now I shall stay and try my luck again. It is quite evident by her manner that she never really cared for the fellow, and that this breaking off of the engagement is a great relief to her. I never saw her in higher spirits, and I am sure there was nothing forced about them. I am sure she would not have accepted him unless she thought she liked him; she is not the sort of girl to marry for position alone, though I dare say if it had not been for the other business she would have married him, and would have believed all her life that he was a very fine fellow. Well, you see, he came very badly out of it, and showed himself to her in his true light as a selfish, cold-hearted, miserable little prig, and, you see, directly her eyes were opened she threw him over. So it seems to me that there is a chance.'

'One could not have met her again under more favourable circumstances. One gets ten times the opportunities travelling about together that one does in a London season. However, I think my chance is worth very little. She said honestly that she liked me very much before, and I could see it really pained her to refuse me. I don't think it was Halliburn who stood in the way, although he was attentive at that time.'

'I should have thought that would have been all in your favour if she acknowledged that she liked you very much, and was cut up at refusing you. Why should she not like you better when she sees more of you?'

'Because, Fitzwarren, it was not the right sort of liking. We were, if I may so express it, chums; and I am afraid we shall never get beyond that on her side. You see, a woman wants something ideal. Now there is nothing ideal about me. I suppose I may say I am a decent, pleasant sort of fellow, but there are no what you may call possibilities about me. Now Halliburn, you see, was full of possibilities. He had the reputation of being somehow a superior sort of young man – and there is no doubt he is clever in his way – he will probably some day be in the Cabinet, and the idea of one's husband being a ruler of men is fascinating to the female mind. I suppose there was no woman ever married a curate who had not a private belief that he would some day be an archbishop. Now there is not a shadow of this sort of thing about me. I may possibly get to command the regiment some day, and then when I have held the command for the usual time I shall be shelved, and shall, I suppose, retire gracefully to my estate in Yorkshire. I suppose I am good enough for the ruck of girls, but I feel sure that I am not up to Dorothy Hawtrey's ideal, and that though this may end by our being greater friends than before, I doubt whether there is much chance of anything else coming of it.'

'It is no use your running yourself down in that way, Armstrong. When a man stands six foot two and is one of the best-looking fellows in London, and one of the most popular men, and is not only a captain of the Blues, but has a fine estate down in Yorkshire, he ought to have a fair chance with almost any girl.'

'Even accepting all you say as gospel, Fitzwarren, it comes to the same thing. It might succeed with most women, as you say, but I don't think it will with her. It may make her like me, but I don't think it will make her love me. I don't think she is a bit worldly, and I know by what she let drop one day when we were chatting together, when we got rather confidential at the beginning of the season, that she had got the idea in her head that a woman ought to respect her husband, and look up to him, and had in fact formed a distinct notion of the sort of man she should choose; and I felt at the time, though there was nothing whatever personal in our talk, I was the very last sort of fellow she would choose for her husband. Well, I shall try again; I have won more than one steeplechase after a horse going down with me at a bad fence. This is the same sort of thing after all; it is of no use mounting and going on again when you see another fellow sailing away ahead, and close to the winning post, but if he has fallen too, and nothing seems to have a better chance than you have, a man who gives up the race because he has had an awkward purler is no better than a cur.'

'As it does not make much difference to me which way we go, Armstrong, I am willing enough to keep with you for a bit, and see how things go; but I don't suppose I shall be able to stand it long, and I shall reserve to myself the right of striking off on my own account, or joining someone else if I find your society insupportable.'

'That is all right, old fellow; our arrangement was to travel together. Of course, if I give up travelling and take to loitering about, you are free to do what you like, and I am the last man to wish you to alter your plans because I have changed my mind. As a rule, I think it is always wise to steer clear of people one knows when one is travelling, and to be free to do exactly as one likes, which one never can if one gets mixed up with a party. I have always been dead against that. They want to see things you don't want to see, they want to stay in towns and to potter about picture galleries and churches, while you want to go right away up a hill – '

'That is not the worst of it, Armstrong, it is the danger.'

'The danger? What do you mean?'

'The danger of going too far. A flirtation means nothing in town, but it is apt to become a very serious matter when you are travelling about together. A row in a boat on an evening like this, or, as you say, going about to churches and picture galleries, when you are dead certain to get separated from the rest of the party, or a climb through a pine forest – these things are all full of peril, and you are liable to find yourself saying things that there is no getting out of, and there you are – engaged to perhaps the last girl that you would, had you calmly and patiently thought the matter out, have gone in for.'

Captain Armstrong laughed.

'Ah, it is all very well for you to laugh. In the first place you have been what is called a general flirt for years, and would not be suspected of serious intentions, unless you went very far indeed; and in the second place you could afford to marry a girl without a penny if you had any inclination to do so. It is a different thing altogether with fellows like myself, who have no choice between remaining single and marrying a wife with some money. There are some luxuries I absolutely cannot afford, and among them I may reckon travelling about in a party in which are some tocherless damsels – for instance the Fortescues, who, I daresay, will for the next ten days or a fortnight travel with the Hawtreys. They are nice, unaffected girls, pretty and pleasant, but they have three elder brothers. I could not afford one of them. My line in life is clearly chalked out. Not for me is the gilded heiress; her friends will look after her too sharply for that. I have pictured to myself that in another eight or ten years I may be able to secure the affections of the relict of some respectable man who has left her with a snug jointure. She will not be too young, but just approaching nearly enough to middle age to begin to fear being laid on the shelf. Then in the comfortable home that she will provide for me I can journey pleasantly and contentedly down the vale of life.'

Captain Armstrong burst into a loud laugh. 'You will never do it, Fitzwarren, never. There is a vein of romance in your composition that will be too much for you. It is always young men who fancy they are prudent who end by falling victims to some nice girl without a penny. You may take all the precautions you like, walk as circumspectly as you will, but when the time comes you will succumb without a struggle. However, do not let me lead you into the net of the fowler; keep away from the snare as long as you can; when your fate comes upon you you will be captured, and I doubt whether you will make as much as a struggle.'

'We shall see, Armstrong; at present you serve as a terrible example. Well, I suppose we may as well turn in.'

There was a great consultation after breakfast the next morning. Mr. Hawtrey had already marked out his own line of travel and had arranged for a carriage by which they would travel by easy stages through Brienz, Interlaken, Thun, Freyburg, and then on to Lausanne. They would stay for a week by the Lake of Geneva and then take another carriage to Martigny. Beyond that nothing was at present settled, but they would make Martigny their head quarters for some little time. The Fortescues had no particular plan and were quite ready to fall into that of their friends, though, as they had as yet seen nothing of Lucerne, and intended to make some excursions from there, they said that they must stop there for a few days, but would join the others at Martigny.

The girls indeed would gladly have gone forward at once, being really fond of Dorothy, and thinking that it would be nice to travel together, but their mother overruled this.

'No, no, my dears, we must see what there is to be seen, and it would be a great pity to hurry away at once. We shall all meet again at Martigny, and may, perhaps, have a fortnight there together. Besides, there are inconveniences in two parties travelling together. One may happen to have faster horses than the other, and be kept waiting for their meals until the other arrives; then they don't always want to stop at the same places, or for the same time. Whoever gets in first may be able to find accommodation at an inn, while the second one may find it full. Don't you think so, Mr. Singleton?'

'Yes, I quite agree with you. Two parties are apt to be a tie upon each other. I think that your plan that we should all meet at Martigny is the wisest.'

'What are your plans, Captain Armstrong?'

'Beyond the fact that we have a month to wander about before we are due in London we have no particular plans. We, of course, stick to diligence routes; bachelors do not indulge in the luxury of posting, and, indeed, I greatly prefer the banquette of a diligence to a carriage – you get a better view, you meet other people, and learn more of the country. We intend to do a little climbing – I don't mean high peaks, I have no ambition that way whatever, but some of the passes and glaciers. I was at Martigny last year; it is, perhaps, the best central position for the mountains, and I think it is very likely that we shall be there while you are.'

'I hope you will,' Mr. Hawtrey said cordially. 'These three young ladies will be only too glad of two stalwart guides. As far as carriages can go, or even donkeys, we elders can accompany them, but when it comes to scrambling about on glaciers, or doing anything like climbing, we are getting past that.'

'Nonsense, father,' Dorothy exclaimed. 'Why, you are often out for eight or ten hours over the turnip fields with a gun, you know; you could walk four times as far as I could.'

'Not twice as far, Dorothy. I have known you walk fifteen miles more than once, and I certainly should not care about walking thirty. But that has nothing to do with climbing, which is a question of weight and wind. You have only half my weight to carry. I am sure that after dancing through a London season your lungs ought to be in perfect order. However, I dare say I shall be able to go with you if your views are not too ambitious; but the mania for climbing always seems to seize young people when they get among mountains, though for my part I prefer the view in a valley to one on the top of a hill. At any rate we shall be glad to see you both, Captain Armstrong, at Martigny, whether we requisition your services as guides or not. I am sorry, Dorothy, the Deans are not coming our way. He told me yesterday they were going to Zurich, and then by Constance into Bavaria.'

'I am sorry, too, father; I like them so much, and it would have been very pleasant indeed if they had been with us.'

CHAPTER XII

During the voyage Captain Hampton saw but little of Jacob. Each day he went to the rope across the deck marking the division between the cabin and the steerage passengers, and the boy at once came running up to him. His report always was that he was getting on 'fust rate,' while each day his wonder at the amount of water increased.

'I would not have believed if I hadn't seen it that there could be so much water, Captain. I can't think where it all comes from. I heard some of them say it was tremendous deep – ten times as deep as that monument with the chap on the top of it in Trafalgar Square. Why, it must have rained for years and years to have got such a lot of water here as this. And it tastes bad. I had a wash in a bucket on deck this morning, and some of the water got in my mouth and it wur as nasty as could be – awful it wur. What can make it like that? Why the water in the Thames looks ten times as dirty, but it don't taste particular nasty for all that.'

'I will tell you about it some day, Jacob; it is too long to go into now. You remind me of it some evening, when we are at a lonely inn, with nothing to do. How do you get on at night?'

'I sleeps all right, sir; it is awful hot down there in them bunks, as they call 'em, one above another, just like a threepenny lodging-house where I used to sleep sometimes when I had had good luck. The first night or two was bad, there was no mistake about it. Most of 'em was awful ill, and made noises enough to frighten one. I could not think what made them so; it seemed to me as if someone must have put pison in the food, and I kept on expecting I was going to be took bad too; but a young chap tells me in the morning as most people is so the first day they goes to sea. If they wur to drink that water I could understand it, but it is all right what they gives us; and there are some of them as grumbles at the food, but I calls it just bang up. How much more of this water is there, sir?'

'About five more days' steaming, Jacob; it is a twelve-days' voyage from Liverpool to New York. I suppose some day they will get to do it in six, for they keep on building faster and faster steamers.'

'We are going wonderful fast now,' the boy said; 'a chap's cap as was sitting up in the end there blew off yesterday, and I ran to keep alongside with it, but it went a lot faster than I could run. I shall be glad when it is over, Captain; not as I ain't jolly, for I never was so jolly before, but I ain't doing nothing for you here, and I wants to be at work for you somehow. If they would let me wait on you, and put stuff on those white shoes, I should not so much mind.'

'I am very well waited on, Jacob, and if you were to try to wait on me at table while the vessel is rolling, you would be pretty sure to spill a plate of soup down my neck, or something of that sort. You amuse yourself in your own way, and don't worry about me; when there is anything to do I know you will do it.'

'I find you won't land till to-morrow, Jacob,' Captain Hampton said, as the vessel neared the wharf. 'Here is the name of the hotel where I shall be, in case by any chance I should miss you. They say you will probably come ashore at nine o'clock in the morning.'

'Why can't we all land at once, sir?'

'It is late now, Jacob, and it is as much as they will be able to do to get through the cabin passengers' baggage before dark; indeed it is probable they will only examine the light luggage.'

'What do they want to examine it for, sir? What business have they with your luggage?'

'They always do it when you go into a foreign country. They do it in England too, when you come in from abroad; everything has to be opened. There are some things that pay duty going into a country, and they want to see that you have got none of them in your boxes; for, if you have, you must pay for them.'

'Then must I open my box if they ask me?'

'You must, Jacob.'

'And let them rummage my things about?'

'If they want to, Jacob; but I don't suppose they search the steerage baggage much; they will probably ask you who you are, and where you are going, and you must tell them that you are my servant, and that I am at the Metropolitan Hotel. But I am pretty sure to be here to see you through.'

However, at half-past eight, as Captain Hampton went to the door of the hotel with the intention of taking a vehicle down to the wharf, he saw Jacob coming along carrying his little portmanteau.

'Why, Jacob, I was just starting to the wharf. They told me that you were not to land till nine.'

'They said so last night, Captain, but they began just about seven. I heard there was another ship come in and they wanted to get us out of the way. I was one of the fust ashore, and it didn't take many minutes afore I was out of the shed where they looks at the things. I says to the first chap I meets, "Where can I take a 'bus to the Metropolitan Hotel?" "You won't get no 'bus here," says he. "How far is it?" "Better than two miles," he says. That settled it, and I started off to walk. I ought to have been here sooner, but some one I asked the way of put me wrong, I suppose, and a box like this feels wonderful heavier the second mile than it does the first.'

An arrangement had already been made for Jacob's board and lodging, and a messenger boy showed him up to his little room at the top of the house, and then took him down to a room where the few white servants in the hotel had their meals. In half an hour he returned to the hall which served as smoking-room and general meeting-place. Captain Hampton had already had a talk with the clerk.

'I have not seen a young woman like that,' the latter said positively, when the photograph was produced, 'but then if the man had registered and written her name and his she might not have come up to the desk. If you go up to the entrance of the dining-room and ask the negro who takes the hats there, he will tell you for certain. He has a wonderful head, that chap has. Sometimes there are as many as three hundred come in to dinner between five and seven. He takes their hats and puts them on the pegs and racks, and as they come out he will give every man his own hat and never make a mistake. I never saw such a chap for remembering faces.'

The negro replied unhesitatingly, on seeing the photograph, that no such lady had taken any meals at the hotel.

'De ladies don't come into my department, sah, but I notice them as they goes in and out, and if that young lady had been here I should have noticed her for sartin.' Captain Hampton returned to the clerk in the hall, who, as he happened for the moment to be disengaged, was not averse to a talk. 'The darkey has not seen her.'

'Then you may be sure she hasn't been here. Yes, I reckon that is about the list of the hotels most of the passengers by the steamers go to,' he said, as he glanced down a list of names Captain Hampton had got a fellow passenger to draw up. 'I will put down two or three others; they are not first-class, but they are a good deal used by people to whom a dollar a day more or less makes a difference. And so you say they have been doing some swindling across the water. She don't look that sort either from her photograph, but they get the things up so one can never tell. I see you haven't got any German hotels; and if, as you say, you think they came by the line from Hamburg, they might have gone to one of them.'

'I should not think it likely they spoke German,' Captain Hampton said.

'Oh, that makes no odds. The waiters all talk English, and like enough on the voyage they would make friends with some Germans who have been here before, and they would recommend them one of their own people.'

'That is probable; and they would be likely to go there too,' Captain Hampton agreed, 'because anyone coming over to search for them would be less likely to search in such places than in houses like yours.'

'Then, again, you see, they might have gone straight through without going into an hotel at all. That would be the safest way, because then there would be no trace left of them.'

'But I suppose not many people do that.'

'Oh, yes, they do – lots of them. A man saves his hotel bills if he goes straight to the train, and there is only one move; but, of course, that is only when a man has quite made up his mind where he is going. As a rule, when a Britisher comes here he waits a few days and asks questions, and tries to find out about things, unless he is going somewhere straight to a friend. Is that boy looking for you? he has been standing there staring at you for the last five minutes.'

'Oh, yes, that is my servant. Will you give me the address of the Central Police Station?'

The clerk wrote the address on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

'I don't think you will get much good from them,' he said. 'When people want to hunt a man up here they generally go to an agency. They are a way ahead of the regular police, and have got some smart fellows among them, I can tell you.'

'Thank you. I should prefer carrying out the matter myself if I can. If not I will certainly go to an agency.'

'There is one advantage in going to the police first,' the man said. 'You will find at a good many hotels the people will have nothing to say to you if you go by yourself. It is no business of theirs whether the people who stay at their hotels are swindlers or not, and they ain't going to meddle in it; but if you can get the police to give you a sharp officer to go round with you it will be a different thing altogether.'

'Yes, that is what I thought myself, and why I am going to the police in the first place.'

Turning from the desk he joined Jacob.

'You have had your breakfast?' he asked.

'I just have had a breakfast, Captain; I never seed such a lot of things – and scrumptious, too; I only wish I could have eaten twice as much.'

'I am going out now, Jacob, and as I shall be calling at several places, you had better go your own way. Remember this street is Broadway; it is the principal street here, so if you do by any chance lose yourself any one can tell you the way.'

'What time am I to be here again, Captain?'

'Did you ask what time dinner was, Jacob?'

'The black man who brought the things to me said it was two o'clock, but I shan't never be able to eat again so soon.'

'Oh, yes, you will, Jacob. Take a good long walk and you will soon get your appetite back again.'

On stating his business at the Central Police Station, he was shown into the room of the chief, a quiet but keen-faced man, dressed in plain clothes. He presented to him the letter from Scotland Yard.

'I shall be happy to help you, Captain Hampton, if I can,' he said, after glancing through it. 'If you had known for certain what steamer they came over by, we should no doubt be able to lay hold of them in the course of a few hours, if they are still in the city.'

'I think the probabilities are greatly in favour of their having come by the "Bremen," which sailed from Hamburg on July 20 and got here, as I saw, on August 4. If they did not come by that I think it likely they sailed from some English port two or three days later. My first object, of course, is to find the hotel at which they put up.'

'I will send one of my men round with you,' and the chief touched a bell. 'Is Mr. Tricher in? If so, ask him to come here.'

A young man entered the room two minutes later.

'Mr. Tricher, this gentleman has brought us a letter from Scotland Yard; he is in search of two swindlers who have made off with a good deal of money. His name is Captain Hampton; he does not belong to the British force but is a friend of some of the parties who have been swindled, and has made it his business to find these people. They are believed to have come out in the "Bremen," which arrived here on August 4; but, if not, they may have come by a boat from an English port within a few days of that date. Of course they may have come to Boston or Halifax, or one of the Southern ports. Our first step is to inquire at all the hotels here; will you please to go with him and give him any assistance you can? If you are unsuccessful in your search, Captain Hampton, I shall be glad if you will come in again and talk the matter over with me. I have all the dates of the arrivals of the steamers from the other side, which may help you in deciding at which port you had better continue your search.'

Captain Hampton's guide proved to be a pleasant and chatty young fellow. 'Your first visit here, Captain Hampton?' he asked, as they issued out on the street.

'Yes, it is the first time I have crossed the Atlantic. I have not had much chance of coming before, for I have been out with my regiment in India for the last six years.'

'I suppose it is a big business this, as you have taken the trouble to come out about it.'

'No; in point of money it is not a very large amount. A thousand pounds in money and about two thousand pounds worth of diamonds. I am interested in the matter chiefly because suspicion has fallen upon a lady of my acquaintance, between whom and this woman there is an extraordinary likeness: so great a one that I myself was once deceived by it. The woman herself knows of it, for she personated my friend, and in her name obtained the jewels and money; so you see it is a matter of extreme importance to get her back to England.'

'I can quite understand that. I suppose you have a likeness of her?'

'Yes; at least, a likeness of the lady, which will be quite sufficient to enable anyone to identify the woman at once.'

He handed Dorothy's likeness to the detective.

'There ought to be no difficulty in identifying that,' he said, after examining it closely. 'No one who has seen her will be likely to forget it in a hurry; and what is the man like?'

'He is old enough to be her father, and no doubt passes as being so. He is a clean-shaved man – at least he was when I last saw him. He is a betting man of the lowest type, but has had the education of a gentleman, and when well dressed and got up would no doubt pass as one anywhere. This is the list of hotels I obtained as being those they would be most likely to go to. You see there are some German ones included, as, if they came out in the "Bremen," they might have been directed by Germans returning here to go to one of their hotels, and would have done so, as they would be less likely to meet English people and attract attention.'

'Yes, that is a good idea. However, we will try the others first. Nineteen out of twenty cabin passengers who land here and don't go straight on, put up at one or other of the principal places.'

Hotel after hotel was visited, until they arrived at the end of the list. The detective did the talking; he was well known to all the clerks.

'I generally am put on hotel thief business,' he said, as his companion remarked on his acquaintance with all the houses they visited; 'no doubt that is why the chief sent me with you. Now we will try these German houses. You may take it for granted that they have not been at any of the others. If none of the clerks or waiters recognise that photograph, it is because she wasn't there. You see they all said "No" right off when they saw it. If it had been an ordinary face, they would have thought it over, but they did not want half a minute to say they had never seen her.'

At the first two German houses they went to they received the usual answer.

'Now I have rather hopes of this next place,' the detective said; 'it is a quiet sort of house, and used by a good class of Germans – rich men who have been over to Europe, and are waiting here for a day or two before they go West again. If the man was asking, as he would be likely to do, for a quiet hotel, and said that he did not mind paying for comfort, a German who knew the ropes would probably send him here. This is the house.'

He went up to the clerk's desk.

'Good morning, Mr. Muller. How goes on business?'

'Pretty brisk, Mr. Tricher. What can I do for you, this morning? You are on business, too, I suppose.'

'Yes. The chief asked me to come round with this gentleman, Captain Hampton, from England. He wants to find out about a man and a woman who are believed to have come across on the "Bremen," which arrived here on August 4. I think it likely enough that they may have been recommended to your house. Will you turn to August 4?'

The clerk turned over the leaves of the register.