CHAPTER X.

MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION.

Mr. Spranger was at home later in the afternoon, his business for the day being done, and in the evening they all sat down to dinner in the now almost cool and airy dining-room of his house. And, at this meal, Julian thought that Beatrix looked even prettier than she had done in the blue-and-white striped dress worn by her during the day. She had on now one of those dinner jackets which young ladies occasionally assume when not desirous of donning the fullest of evening gowns, and, as he sat there observing the healthy sunburn of her cheeks (which was owing to her living so much in the open air) that contrasted markedly with the whiteness of her throat, he thought she was one of the most lovely girls he had ever seen. Which from him, who had met so much beauty in different parts of the world, was a very considerable compliment--if she had but known it. Also, if the truth must be told, her piquant shrewdness and vivacity--which she had manifested very considerably during Julian's description of the vagaries of the animal lent to him by his cousin--appealed very much to him, so that he could not help reflecting how, should this girl eventually be made acquainted with all the doubts and difficulties which now perplexed him as to his birthright, she might possibly become a very valuable counsellor.

"She has ideas about my worthy cousin for some reason," he thought to himself more than once during dinner, "and most certainly she suspects him of--well of not having been very careful about the mount he placed at my disposal. So do I, as a matter of fact--only perhaps it is as well not to say so just at present."

Moreover, now was not the time to take her into his confidence; the evening was required for something else, namely, the counsel and advice of her father. He had made Mr. Spranger's acquaintance overnight on his arrival, and, in the morning of the present day, before that gentleman had departed to his counting house in Belize, he had asked if he would, in the evening, allow him to have his counsel on some important reasons connected with his appearance in British Honduras. Whereon, Mr. Spranger having told him very courteously that any advice or assistance which he could give should be at his service, Julian knew that the time had arrived for him to take that gentleman into his confidence. Arrived, because now, Beatrix, rising from the table, made her way out to the lawn, where, already, a negro servant had placed a lamp on the rustic table by which she always sat; she saying that when they had done their conference they would find her there.

"Now, my boy," said Mr. Spranger, who was a hale, jovial Englishman, on whom neither climate nor exile had any depressing influence, and who, besides, was delighted to have as his guest a young man who, as well as being a gentleman, could furnish him with some news of that far-off world from which he expected to be separated for still some years. "Now, help yourself to some more claret--it is quite sound and wholesome--and let me see what I can do for you."

"It will take some time in the telling," Julian said. "It is a long story and a strange one."

"It may take till midnight, if you choose," the other answered. "We sit up late in this country, so as to profit by the coolest hours of the day."

"But--Miss Spranger. Will she not think me very rude to detain you so long?"

"No," he replied. "If we do not join her soon, she will understand that our conversation is of importance."

It was nearly midnight when Julian had concluded the whole of his narrative, he telling Mr. Spranger everything that had occurred from the time when George Ritherdon had unfolded that strange story in his Surrey home, until the hour when he himself had arrived at the house in which he now was, with his arm bandaged up and his head dressed.

Of course there had been interruptions to the flow of the narrative. Once they had gone out onto the lawn to bid Beatrix good-night and to chat with her for a few moments during which Julian had been amply apologetic for preventing her father from joining her, as well as for not doing so himself--and, naturally, Mr. Spranger had himself interrupted the course of the recital by exclamations of astonishment and with many questions.

But that recital was finished now, and still the elder man's bewilderment was extreme.

"It is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life! A romance. And it seems such a tangled web! How, in Heaven's name, can your father's, or uncle's, account be the right one?"

"You do not believe his story?" Julian asked; "you believe Sebastian is, in absolute fact, Charles Ritherdon's son?"

"What am I to believe? Just think! That young man has been brought up here ever since he was a baby; there must be hundreds upon hundreds of people who can recollect his birth, twenty-six years ago, his christening, his baptism. And Charles Ritherdon--whom I knew very well indeed--recognised him, treated him in every way, as his son. He died leaving him his heir. What can stand against that?"

"Doubtless it is a mystery. Yet--yet--in spite of all, I cannot believe that George Ritherdon would have invented such a falsehood. Remember, Mr. Spranger, I had known him all my life and knew every side and shade of his character. And--he was dying when he told it all to me. Would a man go to his grave fabricating, uttering such a lie as that?"

For a moment Mr. Spranger did not reply, but sat with his eyes turned up towards the ceiling of the room--and with, upon his face, that look which all have seen upon the faces of those who are thinking deeply. Then at last he said--

"Come, let us understand each other. You have asked my advice, my opinion, as the only man you can consult freely. Now, are we to talk frankly--am I to talk without giving offence?"

"That is what I want," Julian said, "what I desire. I must get to the bottom of this mystery. Heaven knows I don't wish to claim another man's property--I have no need for it--there is my profession and some little money left by George Ritherdon. On the other hand, I don't desire to think of him as dying with such a deception in his heart. I want to justify him in my eyes."

Then, because Mr. Spranger still kept silence, he said again: "Pray, pray tell me what you do think. Pray be frank. No matter what you say."

"No," Mr. Spranger said now. "No. Not yet at least. First let us look at facts. I was not in the colony twenty-six years ago, but of course, I am acquainted with scores of people who were. And those people knew old Ritherdon as well as they know me; also they have known Sebastian all his life. And, you must remember, there are such things as registers of births, registers kept of baptism, and so forth. What would you say if you saw the register of Sebastian's birth, as well as the register of your--of Mrs. Ritherdon's death?"

"What could I say in such circumstances? Only--why, then, the attempt to make me break my neck on that horse? Why the half-caste girl watching me through the night, and why the conversation which I overheard, the contemptuous laugh of Madame Carmaux at my mother's--at Isobel Leigh's name? Why all that, coupled with the name of George Ritherdon, of myself, of New Orleans--where he said he had me baptized when he fled there after kidnapping me?"

As Julian spoke, as he mentioned the name of New Orleans, he saw a light upon Mr. Spranger's face--that look which comes upon all our faces when something strikes us and, itself, throws a light upon our minds; also he saw a slight start given by the elder man.

"What is it?" Julian asked, observing both these things. "What?"

"New Orleans," Mr. Spranger said now, musingly, contemplatively, with, about him, the manner of one endeavouring to force recollection to come to his aid. "New Orleans--and Madame Carmaux. Why do those names--the names of that city--of that woman--connect themselves together in my mind. Why?" Then suddenly he exclaimed, "I know! I have it! Madame Carmaux is a New Orleans woman."

"A New Orleans woman!" Julian repeated. "A New Orleans woman! Yet he, Sebastian, said when we met--that--that--she was a connection of Isobel Leigh; 'a relative of my late mother,' were his words. How could she have been a relative of hers, if Mr. Leigh came out from England to this place bringing with him his English wife and the child that was Isobel Leigh, as George Ritherdon told me he did? Also----"

"Also what?" Mr. Spranger asked now. "Also what? Though take time--exert your memory to the utmost. There is something strange in the discrepancy between George Ritherdon's statement made in England and Sebastian's made here. What else is it that has struck you?"

"This. As we rode towards Desolada he was telling me that he had never been farther away from Honduras than New Orleans. Then he began to say--I am sure he did--that his mother came from there, but he broke off to modify the statement for another to the effect that she had always desired to visit that city. And when I asked him if his mother came from New Orleans, he said: 'Oh, no! She was the daughter of Mr. Leigh, an English merchant at Belize.'"

"You must have misunderstood him," Mr. Spranger said; "have misunderstood the first part of his remark at any rate."

"Perhaps," Julian said quietly, "perhaps." But, nevertheless, he felt perfectly sure that he had not done so. Then suddenly he said--

"You knew Mr. Ritherdon of Desolada. Tell me, do I bear any resemblance to him?"

"Yes," Mr. Spranger answered gravely, very gravely. "So much of a resemblance that you might well be his son. As great a resemblance to him as you do in a striking manner to Sebastian. You and he might absolutely be brothers.

"Only," said Julian, "such a thing is impossible. Mrs. Ritherdon did not become the mother of twins, and she died within a day or so of giving her first child birth. She could never have borne another."

"That," Spranger acquiesced, "is beyond doubt."

They prepared to separate now for the night, yet before they did so, his host said a word to Julian. "To-morrow," he told him, "when I am in the city, I will speak to one or two people who have known all about the Desolada household ever since the place became the property of Mr. Ritherdon. And, as perhaps you do not know, twenty-five years ago all births along the coast, and far beyond Desolada, were registered in Belize. Now, they are thus registered at All Pines--but it is only in later days that such has been the case."

And next morning, when Mr. Spranger had been gone from his home some two or three hours, and Julian happened to be sitting alone in Beatrix's favourite spot in the garden--she being occupied at the moment with her household duties--a half-caste messenger from the city brought him a letter from Mr. Spranger, or, rather, a piece of paper, on which was written--

"Miriam Carmaux's maiden name was Gardelle and she came from New Orleans. She married Carmaux in despair, after, it is said, being jilted by Charles Ritherdon (who had once been in love with her). Her marriage took place about the same time as Mr. Ritherdon's with Miss Leigh, but her husband was killed by a snake bite a few months afterwards. Sebastian's birth was registered here by Mr. Ritherdon, of Desolada, as taking place on the 4th of September, 1871, he being described as the child of 'Charles Ritherdon, of Desolada, and Isobel his wife, now dead.'

"Her death is also registered as taking place on the 7th of September, 1871."

"Sebastian's birth registered as taking place on the 4th of September, 1871!" Julian exclaimed, as the paper fell from his hand. "The 4th of September, 1871! The very day that has always been kept in England as my birthday. The very day on which I am entered in the Admiralty books as being born in Honduras!"