THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT

I

When I closed the last leaf of the Count’s manuscript the half-hour during which I had engaged to remain at Forest Road had expired.  Monsieur Rubelle looked at his watch and bowed.  I rose immediately, and left the agent in possession of the empty house.  I never saw him again—­I never heard more of him or of his wife.  Out of the dark byways of villainy and deceit they had crawled across our path—­into the same byways they crawled back secretly and were lost.

In a quarter of an hour after leaving Forest Road I was at home again.

But few words sufficed to tell Laura and Marian how my desperate venture had ended, and what the next event in our lives was likely to be.  I left all details to be described later in the day, and hastened back to St. John’s Wood, to see the person of whom Count Fosco had ordered the fly, when he went to meet Laura at the station.

The address in my possession led me to some “livery stables,” about a quarter of a mile distant from Forest Road.  The proprietor proved to be a civil and respectable man.  When I explained that an important family matter obliged me to ask him to refer to his books for the purpose of ascertaining a date with which the record of his business transactions might supply me, he offered no objection to granting my request.  The book was produced, and there, under the date of “July 26th, 1850,” the order was entered in these words—­

“Brougham to Count Fosco, 5 Forest Road.  Two o’clock. (John Owen).”

I found on inquiry that the name of “John Owen,” attached to the entry, referred to the man who had been employed to drive the fly.  He was then at work in the stable-yard, and was sent for to see me at my request.

“Do you remember driving a gentleman, in the month of July last, from Number Five Forest Road to the Waterloo Bridge station?” I asked.

“Well, sir,” said the man, “I can’t exactly say I do.”

“Perhaps you remember the gentleman himself?  Can you call to mind driving a foreigner last summer—­a tall gentleman and remarkably fat?” The man’s face brightened directly.

“I remember him, sir!  The fattest gentleman as ever I see, and the heaviest customer as ever I drove.  Yes, yes—­I call him to mind, sir!  We did go to the station, and it was from Forest Road.  There was a parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the window.  The gentleman was in a mortal hurry about the lady’s luggage, and he gave me a handsome present for looking sharp and getting the boxes.”

Getting the boxes!  I recollected immediately that Laura’s own account of herself on her arrival in London described her luggage as being collected for her by some person whom Count Fosco brought with him to the station.  This was the man.