“I dare not let him go,” Mrs. Percival said, in a trembling voice.
“Why, mother,” Frank said almost indignantly, “you don’t suppose, now that I am warned, I shall be fool enough to let these fellows get the best of me? I will carry a loaded pistol in each pocket; I will not sleep in an hotel from the time I start till I have handed the bills to Garibaldi, and will take care always to get into a carriage with several other passengers. If I hadn’t had fair warning, I dare say I should have been robbed; but I have no fear whatever on the subject now that we have a suspicion of what may occur. But if you think it would be safer, I do not see why you could not send the bills by post to an hotel at Genoa.”
Signora Forli shook her head. “That would not do,” she said. “You do not know what these Neapolitan spies are capable of. If they find that you have not the money with you, they would follow you to your hotel at Genoa, bribe the concierge there to hand over any letter that came addressed to you, or steal it from the rack where it would be placed, while his attention was turned elsewhere. However, I have an old friend at Genoa, the Countess of Mongolfiere; we exchange letters two or three times a year. She is, of course, a patriot. I will, if your mother agrees with me, enclose the bills in an envelope addressed to you, put that in another with a letter saying that you will call at her house when you arrive at Genoa, and request her to hand the letter to you. I will say that it vitally concerns the cause, and beg her to place it under lock and key in some safe receptacle until you arrive.”
“That is an excellent idea, mother,” Mrs. Percival said, “and would seem to meet the difficulty.”
Frank rose from his seat quietly, stepped noiselessly to the door, and suddenly threw it open. To his surprise his mother’s maid was sitting in a chair against it, knitting.
“It is all right, Hannah,” he said, as she started to her feet. “I did not know you were there. I thought that fellow might be listening again,” and he closed the door.
“I asked her to sit there this evening, Frank,” Mrs. Percival said. “I knew that we should be talking this matter over, and thought it better to take the precaution to ensure our not being overheard.”
“Quite right, mother; I am glad you did so. Then you think that that plan will answer?”
“Yes, I think so; but you must be sure and take care of yourself, just as if you had the money about you.”
“That I will, mother; you can rely upon that.”
“And above all,” Signora Forli said, “you must beware, when you go to the Countess for the money, that you take every possible precaution. Call in the daytime, go in a carriage and drive straight from her place to the Villa Spinola; better still, go first to Garibaldi, tell him where the money is, and ask him to send three of his officers to your hotel on the following morning. Then take a carriage, drive to the Countess’s, and take it to the general with four of you in the carriage. They would not dare to attack you in broad daylight.”
“That is an excellent plan,” Mrs. Percival said, in a tone of great relief. “Certainly, if they do manage to search him on the way, and find that he has not got the bills upon him, they will watch him closely at Genoa, where, no doubt, they will get the assistance of some of Francisco’s agents. There are sure to be plenty of them in Genoa at present; but however many of them there may be, they would not venture to attack in daylight four men driving along what is no doubt a frequented road, more especially as they would know that three of them were Garibaldi’s men, which is as much as to say desperate fellows, and who would, no doubt, like yourself, be armed with pistols.”
“We had better take one more precaution,” Signora Forli said. “It is believed that you are going to start on Thursday morning. Your packing can be done in five minutes; and I think that it would be a good plan for you to have everything ready to-night, and send Mary out for a hansom to-morrow morning, so that you could, when it comes up to the door, go straight down, get into it, and drive to the station. I don’t say that they might not be prepared for any sudden change of our plans; but at least it would give you a chance of getting a start of them that they can never recover – at any rate, not until you get to Paris.”
“How could they catch me there?” Frank said.
“Francisco’s agents here might telegraph to his agents in Paris, and they might be on the look-out for you when you arrived, and take the matter up. You were going viâ Calais. Let me look at the Bradshaw.”
“Yes,” she said, after examining its pages; “the train for the tidal boat leaves at the same time as the Dover train. If, when you get into the cab, you say out loud, ‘Victoria,’ so that Beppo may hear it, you can then, when once on your way, tell the cabman to take you to Charing Cross. In that way, if there is any one on the look-out when the Calais train comes in, they will be thrown altogether off the scent.”
“It seems ridiculous, all these precautions,” Frank said, with a laugh.
“My dear, no precautions are ridiculous when you have Francisco’s agents to deal with. Now, I will write my letter to the Countess at once, so that she may get it before your arrival there. You will, of course, go out and post it yourself.”
CHAPTER V
ON THE WAY
AFTER posting the letter, Frank made several small purchases, and was more than an hour away. On his return he saw a cab standing at the door. As he approached, Beppo came out with a portmanteau, handed it up to the driver, jumped in, and was driven off.
“So Beppo has gone, mother,” he said, as he joined her in the drawing-room.
“Yes. He came in directly you had left. He said that his feelings had been outraged by a servant being placed at the door. He could not say why she was there, but thought it seemed as if he was doubted. He could not but entertain a suspicion that she was placed there to prevent any one listening at the keyhole; after such an insult as that he could not remain any longer in the house. I said that he was at liberty to leave instantly, as his wages had been paid only three days ago. He made no reply, but bowed and left. Mary came up and told me ten minutes later that he had brought his portmanteau down, left it in the hall, and gone out, she supposed, to fetch a cab. I heard the vehicle drive up just now, and the front door closed half a minute ago.”
Signora Forli came into the room as she was speaking. “Mary tells me that Beppo has gone. It is a comfort that he is out of the house. When you once begin to suspect a man, the sooner he is away the better. At the same time, Frank, there can be no doubt that his going will not increase your chances of reaching Genoa without being searched. I should say that he had made up his mind to leave before you did, and he was glad that the fact of Mary being at the door gave him a pretext for his sudden departure. In the first place, he could conduct the affair better than any one else could do, as he knows your face and figure so well. Then, too, he would naturally wish to get the credit of the matter himself, after being so long engaged in it. Of course, you may as well carry out the plan we arranged, to start in the morning; but you may feel absolutely certain that, whatever you may do, you will not throw him off your track. He must know now that he is suspected of being a Neapolitan agent, and that you will very likely change your route and your time of starting.
“I regard it as certain that the house will be watched night and day, beginning from to-morrow morning, an hour or so before the trains leave. There will be a vehicle with a fast horse close at hand, possibly two, so that one will follow your cab, and the other drive at once to some place where Beppo is waiting. As likely as not he will go viâ Calais. If you go that way, so much the better; if not, he