Guy Livingstone; or, 'Thorough'Lawrence, George A. (George Alfred)
General
Guy Livingstone; or, 'Thorough'
Lawrence, George A. (George Alfred)
Fiction
At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the
Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum--not in letters
of credit, but in bank-notes--and had not been heard of since. After
much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been
changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of
the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who
was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months
rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in
town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He
still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search,
which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
"He threw
His wrathful hand aloft, and cried 'Away!
Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven
Contain my deadliest enemy and me.'"
We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following
March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who
for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track.
He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a
cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips--just the proper person to
return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural
meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar
with crime till he despised it. The reward set upon the criminal's
capture was his only standard of guilt. He took a real pleasure in the
chase, I imagine, but had no preference for any game in particular, and
was quite indifferent whether the cover he had to draw was a saloon or a
cellar. He would hunt a fraudulent bankrupt or a parricide with equal
zeal, and, when he had caught him, be just as jocularly affable with the
one as with the other. In a drama of life and death, the fierce passions
of the actors were only so many gleams of light showing him where the
right path lay, for which assistance he thanked them heartily. The
foulest mysteries of the sinful human heart touched and shocked him no
more than the evidences of disease do the dissecting surgeon: with both
it was a simple question of defective organization. The possession of
secrets, far less weighty than some that he never told, have made men
look worn, and miserable, and gray; but he would pat his corpulent
leather pocket-book with a self-sufficient satisfaction, scarcely
hinting that the publication of its contents would have caused more
devastation in some well-regulated families than the bursting of a
ten-inch shell in their front drawing-room.
His lips and eyes wore a smile pleasantly significant as he entered,
and, before he could speak, Guy leaped up, waving his hand high in
irrepressible triumph. "I told you so, Frank. I knew we should find him.
Come--come quickly." He was more excited than I had seen him in the last
dozen years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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