The Pursuit Part 6

"And he is dead, this cousin?"

"No, my friend. Merely divorced. Where do I come in--where?"

CHAPTER IV

DESPARD EXPLAINS

"Suppose we sit down long enough to smoke a cigarette," suggested Aylmer. "Perhaps the thump I received just now has had a disastrous effect upon my limited intelligence, but I confess that Miss Van Arlen's deportment remains a matter of mystery. What have I done?"

Despard laughed gently. He had strolled back from the camp to meet his friends and had found them superintending the obsequies of the boar.

These were performed by a Spaniard, one of the human jetsam cast up everywhere along the North African coast by tides of hazard and adventure which set from every quarter of the Mediterranean. The true son of Islam will not touch the _haloof_, the unclean jungle pig. And so Senor Bernardo Albareda, penniless derelict and strongly suspected of being a fugitive from the Spanish convict establishment at Melilla, was extracting the tusks. He held them up with a dramatic gesture of admiration.

"Twice the length of my central finger, which is not a short one!" he remarked airily, and used the occasion to exhibit the elegances of a hand which had patently not occupied itself lately with manual toil. One or two of his compatriots, who had been among the beaters, were given the task of disposing of the flesh and bristles, and departed under his escort, carrying their burdens dependent from a couple of poles, the Arabs hastening to avoid even the shadow of contamination which they cast, and spitting with undisguised disfavor as they pa.s.sed. Despard accepted his comrade's invitation and joined the other two upon the seat which they had made of a fallen mimosa stump in the shadow of the olive.

The major took out his cigarette case, found a match, and sent several tiny clouds rolling up among the branches before he spoke. And his answer was another question.

"You read the details of the Landon divorce case?" he hazarded.

"Yes," said Aylmer. "One could hardly escape it."

"You remember, then, that at the close the respondent was very nearly committed for contempt of court?"

"He lost his temper, or his head," agreed Aylmer, "and threatened his wife. I don't think any one attached much importance to his vaporings."

"Ah!" Despard nodded his head thoughtfully. "I suppose that would be the point of view with most people."

"Not with yourself?" suggested Aylmer.

Despard shook his head.

"I have known the Van Arlens for many years," he said quietly. "Perhaps you have forgotten that my own mother was an American, that a good deal of my boyhood was pa.s.sed in New York."

"I didn't know you knew the Van Arlens; in fact, I could hardly suspect it, when to the best of my remembrance you never even discussed the Landon divorce case with me."

Despard nodded.

"No," he said, in a dry, unemotional voice. "I did not discuss it with any one. And you, moreover, were an Aylmer."

He was silent for a minute and the other two looked at him a little curiously. This was not the Despard they were accustomed to, a sportsman whose hobbies engrossed him to the exclusion of most other topics. This was a man who had the force of pent feeling behind his words.

"The Van Arlens naturally did not seek outside society at the time of the case," he continued, "but I was on leave, and I saw a good deal of them. Has it occurred to you," he added suddenly, "that this child is not only heir to the Landon t.i.tle but to the Van Arlen millions--at present?"

"No," said Aylmer, "but I suppose he is the only direct male descendant."

"Do you realize what that means in America? To be a Landon, only a barony, though I grant you an old one, is a small thing compared with being the grandson of--the richest man in the world."

Aylmer was silent. The point of view was one that did not easily present itself to his British complacency. Rattier, too, though he nodded a.s.sent, did it without vehemence and with a tinge of reserve. Of a royalist clique, transatlantic caste was outside his experience.

"At any rate your cousin Landon realized it at last in realizing what he was losing. He moved every legal lever he could lay his hands upon to retain the custody of his child and failed. He is to see him twice a year, for an hour. You will understand that his chances of winning his child's profitable affections are too limited for his taste."

Aylmer's brows met in a tiny frown of perplexity.

"Profitable affection?" he meditated.

"John is eight. In thirteen years he will be of age. His father then will be forty-five, and quite capable of getting much enjoyment out of his son's unlimited income."

Rattier gave a little hissing intake of the breath.

"This Landon!" he murmured admiringly.

"The Court decided, also, that the child must be brought up, for nine months of every year, at any rate, in England. This was modified, after medical examination and certificate, to include Europe and North Africa."

Aylmer made a little startled motion which dropped the ash of his cigarette upon his knee.

"Eh?" he questioned. "Medical certificate?"

"Phthisis," rejoined Despard, quietly. "The little chap has the seeds of it, but with care the seeds need never come to growth. But he has to winter in the South, invariably."

Rattier made a tiny caressing motion of the hand which seemed to imply infinite commiseration. Aylmer expressed the same emotion in a little inarticulate murmur.

"And so--?" he questioned. "And so--?"

"And so Tangier," said Despard, "which has other conveniences, for the moneyed. The law, here, is always behind the dollars, is it not?"

The other two looked at him debatingly.

"The law?" mused Aylmer. "The law?"

"They have already had experience of it in Italy and Spain--the Van Arlens. A man like Landon can make use of it there to further his own purposes, against the law. The Spanish and Italian police? Can you expect them to interfere against a man's dealings with his own child?

What do they know of the fiats of the British Courts of Chancery? He made two very nearly successful attempts to get possession of the boy,--one at San Remo, one at Taormina."

Aylmer gave a little low whistle of comprehension. Rattier nodded, still with a sort of grudging admiration of this English lord's talents and persistence.

"Have you got it now?" went on Despard. "Do you see where they stand?

Here, under the protections of the Bashaw, where Landon can never overbid them, they enjoy a security which they can obtain nowhere else outside America or Great Britain."

Aylmer's eyes filled with a sudden shadow of loathing.

"The scoundrel!" he cried. "The miscreant!"

Despard nodded.

"Quite so," he agreed. "The epithets any decent-minded man would apply to him. Unfortunately, he is without shame, reckless, and heedless of everything but his pa.s.sionate desire to turn defeat into victory. He will stop at nothing to get even with those who have so far triumphed over him."

"And the boy's mother lives here--with her sister?" said Aylmer.