“Yes, murdered; his throat cut from ear to ear.”
“It cannot be,” said Richard. “There must be some horrid mistake here. My uncle, Montague Harding, murdered! I bade him good-bye at twelve last night in perfect health.”
“And this morning he was found murdered in his bed; with the cabinet in his room broken open, and rifled of a pocket-book known to contain upwards of three hundred pounds.”
“Why, he gave me that pocket-book last night. He gave it to me. I have it here in my breast-pocket.”
“You’d better keep that story for the coroner,” said Mr. Jinks. “Perhaps he’ll believe it.”
“I must be mad, I must be mad,” said Richard.
They had by this time reached the station, and Mr. Jinks having glanced into two or three carriages of the train about to start, selected one of the second-class, and ushered Richard into it. He seated himself by the young man’s side, while his silent and unobtrusive friend took his place opposite. The guard locked the door, and the train started.
Mr. Jinks’s quiet friend was exactly one of those people adapted to pass in a crowd. He might have passed in a hundred crowds, and no one of the hundreds of people in any of those hundred crowds would have glanced aside to look at him.
You could only describe him by negative. He was neither very tall nor very short, he was neither very stout nor very thin, neither dark nor fair, neither ugly nor handsome; but just such a medium between the two extremities of each as to be utterly commonplace and unnoticeable.
If you looked at his face for three hours together, you would in those three hours find only one thing in that face that was any way out of the common — that one thing was the expression of the mouth.
It was a compressed mouth with thin lips, which tightened and drew themselves rigidly together when the man thought — and the man was almost always thinking: and this was not all, for when he thought most deeply the mouth shifted in a palpable degree to the left side of his face. This was the only thing remarkable about the man, except, indeed, that he was dumb but not deaf, having lost the use of his speech during a terrible illness which he had suffered in his youth.
Throughout Richard’s arrest he had watched the proceedings with unswerving intensity, and he now sat opposite the prisoner, thinking deeply, with his compressed lips drawn on one side.
The dumb man was a mere scrub, one of the very lowest of the police-force, a sort of outsider and employè of Mr. Jinks, the Gardenford detective; but he was useful, quiet, and steady, and above all, as his patrons said, he was to be relied on, because he could not talk.
He could talk though, in his own way, and he began to talk presently in his own way to Mr. Jinks; he began to talk with his fingers with a rapidity which seemed marvellous. The fingers were more active than clean, and made rather a dirty alphabet.
“Oh, hang it,” said Mr. Jinks, after watching him for a moment, “you must do it a little slower, if you want me to understand. I am not an electric telegraph.”
The scrub nodded, and began again with his fingers, very slowly.
This tine Richard too watched him; for Richard knew this dumb alphabet. He had talked whole reams of nonsense with it, in days gone by, to a pretty girl at a boarding-school, between whom and himself there had existed a platonic attachment, to say nothing of a high wall and broken glass bottles.
Richard watched the dirty alphabet.
First, two grimy fingers laid flat upon the dirty palm, N. Next, the tip of the grimy forefinger of the right hand upon the tip of the grimy third finger of the left hand, O; the next letter is T, and the man snaps his fingers — the word is finished, NOT. Not what? Richard found himself wondering with an intense eagerness, which, even in the bewildered state of his mind, surprised him.
The dumb man began another word —
G — U — I — L —
Mr. Jinks cut him short.
“Not guilty? Not fiddlesticks! What do you know about it, I should like to know? Where did you get your experience? Where did you get your sharp practice? What school have you been formed in, I wonder, that you can come out so positive with your opinion; and what’s the value you put your opinion at, I wonder? I should be glad to hear what you’d take for your opinion.”
Mr. Jinks uttered the whole of this speech with the most intense sarcasm; for Mr. Jinks was a distinguished detective, and prided himself highly on his acumen; and was therefore very indignant that his sub and scrub should dare to express an opinion.
“My uncle murdered!” said Richard “my good, kind, generous-hearted uncle! Murdered in cold blood! Oh, it is too horrible!”
The scrub’s mouth was very much on one side as Richard muttered this, half to himself.
“And I am suspected of the murder?”
“Well, you see,” said Mr. Jinks, “there’s two or three things tell pretty strong against you. Why were you in such a hurry this morning to cut and run to Gardenford?”
“My uncle had recommended me to a merchant’s office in that town: see, here is the letter of introduction — read it.”
“No, it ain’t my place,” said Mr. Jinks. “The letter’s not sealed, I see, but I mustn’t read it, or if I do, I stand the chance of gettin’ snubbed and lectured for goin’ beyond my dooty: howsumdever, you can show it to the coroner. I’m sure I should be very glad to see you clear yourself, for I’ve heard you belong to one of our good old county families, and it ain’t quite the thing to hang such as you.”
Poor Richard! His reckless words of the night before came back to him: “ I wonder they don’t hang such fellows as I am.”
“And now,” says Jinks, “as I should like to make all things comfortable, if you’re willing to come along quietly with me and my friend here, why, I’ll move those bracelets, because they are not quite so ornamental as they’re sometimes useful; and as I’m going to light my pipe, why, if you like to blow a cloud, too, you can.
With this Mr. Jinks unlocked and removed the handcuffs, and produced his pipe and tobacco. Richard did the same, and took from his pocket a match-box in which there was only one match.
“That’s awkward,” said Jinks, “for I haven’t a light about me.”
They filled the two pipes, and lighted the one match.
Now, all this time Richard had held his uncle’s letter of introduction in his hand, and when there was some little difficulty in lighting the tobacco from the expiring lucifer, he, without a moment’s thought, held the letter over the flickering flame, and from the burning paper lighted his pipe.
In a moment he remembered what he had done.
The letter of introduction! the one piece of evidence in his favour! He threw the blazing paper on the ground and stamped on it, but in vain. In spite of all his efforts a few black ashes alone remained.
“The devil must have possessed me,” he exclaimed. “I have burnt my uncle’s letter.”
“Well,” says Mr. Jinks, “I’ve seen many dodges in my time, and I’ve seen a many knowing cards; but if that isn’t the neatest dodge, and if you ain’t the knowingest card I ever did see, blow me.”
“I tell you that letter was in my uncle’s hand; written to his friend, the merchant at Gardenford; and in it he mentions having given me the very money you say has been stolen from his cabinet.”
“Oh, the letter was all that, was it? And you’ve lighted your pipe with it. You’d better tell that little story before the coroner. It will be so very conwincing to the jury.”
The scrub, with his mouth very much to the left, spells out again the two words, “Not guilty!”
“Oh,” says Mr. Jinks, “you mean to stick to your opinion, do you, now you’ve formed it? Upon my word, you’re too clever for a country-town practice; I wonder they don’t send for you up at Scotland Yard; with your talents, you’d be at the top of the tree in no time, I’ve no doubt.”
During the journey, the thick November fog had been gradually clearing away, and at this very moment the sun broke out with a bright and
sudden light that shone full upon the threadbare coat-sleeve of Daredevil Dick.
“Not guilty!” cried Mr. Jinks, with sudden energy. “Not guilty! Why, look here! I’m blest if his coat-sleeve isn’t covered with blood!”
Yes, on the shabby worn-out coat the sunlight revealed dark and ghastly stains; and, stamped and branded by those hideous marks as a villain and a murderer, Richard Marwood re-entered his native town.
CHAPTER V. THE HEALING WATERS.
THE Sloshy is not a beautiful river, unless indeed mud is beautiful, for it is very muddy. The Sloshy is a disagreeable kind of compromise between a river and a canal. It is like a canal which (after the manner of the mythic frog that wanted to be an ox) had seen a river, and swelled itself to bursting in imitation thereof. It has quite a knack of swelling and bursting, this Sloshy; it overflows its banks and swallows up a house or two, or takes an impromptu snack off a few outbuildings, once or twice a year. It is inimical to children, and has been known to suck into its muddy bosom the hopes of divers families; and has afterwards gone down to the distant sea, flaunting on its breast Billy’s straw hat or Johnny’s pinafore, as a flag of triumph for having done a little amateur business for the gentleman on the pale horse.
It has been a soft pillow of rest, too, this muddy breast of the Sloshy; and weary heads have been known to sleep more soundly in that loathsome, dark, and slimy bed than on couches of down.
Oh, keep us ever from even whispering to our own hearts that our best chance of peaceful slumber might be in such a bed!
An ugly, dark, and dangerous river — a river that is always telling you of trouble, and anguish, and weariness of spirit — a river that to some poor impressionable mortal creatures, who are apt to be saddened by a cloud or brightened by a sunbeam, is not healthy to look upon.
I wonder what that woman thinks of the river? A badly-dressed woman carrying a baby, who walks with a slow and restless step up and down by one of its banks, on the afternoon of the day on which the murder of Mr. Montague Harding took place.
It is a very solitary spot she has chosen, on the furthest outskirts of the town of Slopperton; and the town of Slopperton being at best a very ugly town, is ugliest at the outskirts, which consist of two or three straggling manufactories, a great gaunt gaol — the stoniest of stone jugs — and a straggling fringe of shabby houses, some new and only half-built, others ancient and half fallen to decay, which hang all round Slopperton like the rags that fringe the edges of a dirty garment.
The woman’s baby is fretful, and it may be that the damp foggy atmosphere on the banks of the Sloshy is scarcely calculated to engender either high spirits or amiable temper in the bosom of infant or adult. The woman hushes it impatiently to her breast, and looks down at the little puny features with a strange unmotherly glance. Poor wretch! Perhaps she scarcely thinks of that little load as a mother is apt to think of her child. She may remember it only as a shame, a burden, and a grief. She has been pretty; a bright country beauty, perhaps, a year ago; but she is a faded, careworn-looking creature now, with a pale face, and hollow circles round her eyes. She has played the only game a woman has to play, and lost the only stake a woman has to lose.
I wonder whether he will come, or whether I must wear out my heart through another long long day. — Hush, hush! As if my trouble was not bad enough without your crying.”
This is an appeal to the fretful baby; but that young gentleman is engage at fisticuffs with his cap, and has just destroyed a handful of its tattered border.
There is on this dingy bank of the Sloshy a little dingy public-house, very old-fashioned, though surrounded by newly-begun houses. It is a little, one-sided, pitiful place, ornamented with the cheering announcements of “Our noted Old Tom at 4d. per quartern;” and “This is the only place for the real Mountain Dew.” It is a wretched place, which has never seen better days, and never hopes to see better days. The men who frequent it are a few stragglers from a factory near, and the colliers whose barges are moored in the neighbourhood. These shamble in on dark afternoons, and play at all-fours, or cribbage, in a little dingy parlour with dirty dog’s-eared cards, scoring their points with beer-marks on the sticky tables. Not a very attractive house of entertainment this; but it has an attraction for the woman with the baby, for she looks at it wistfully, as she paces up and down. Presently she fumbles in her pocket, and produces two or three halfpence just enough, it seems, for her purpose, for she sneaks in at the half open door, and in a few minutes emerges in the act of wiping her lips.
As she does so, she almost stumbles against a man wrapped in a great coat, and with the lower part of his face muffled in a thick handkerchief.
“I thought you would not come,” she said.
“Did you? Then you see you thought wrong. But you might have been right, for my coming was quite a chance: I can’t be at your beck and call night and day.”
“I don’t expect you to be at my beck and call. I’ve not been used to get so much attention, or so much regard from you as to expect that, Jabez.”
The man started, and looked round as if he expected to find all Slopperton at his shoulder; but there wasn’t a creature about.
“You needn’t be quite so handy with my name,” he said; “there’s no knowing who might hear you. Is there any one in there?” he asked, pointing to the public-house.
“No one but the landlord.”
“Come in, then; we can talk better there. This fog pierces one to the bones.”
He seems never to consider that the woman and the child have been exposed to that piercing fog for an hour and more, as he is above an hour after his appointment.
He leads the way through the bar into the little parlour. There are no colliers playing at all-fours to-day, and the dog’s-eared cards lie tumbled in a heap on one of the sticky tables among broken clay-pipes and beer-stains. This table is near the one window which looks out on the river, and by this window the woman sits, Jabez placing himself on the other side of the table.
The fretful baby has fallen asleep, and lies quietly in the woman’s lap.
“What will you take?”
“A little gin,” she answers, not without a certain shame in her tone.
“So you’ve found out that comfort, have you?” He says this with a glance of satisfaction he cannot repress.
“What other comfort is there for such as me, Jabez? It seemed at first to make me forget. Nothing can do that now, — except—”
She did not finish this sentence, but sat looking with a dull vacant stare at the black waters of the Sloshy, which, as the tide rose, washed with a hollow noise against the brickwork of the pathway close to the window.
“Well, as I suppose you didn’t ask me to meet you here for the sole purpose of making miserable speeches, perhaps you’ll tell me what you want with me. My time is precious, and if it were not, I can’t say I should much care about stopping long in this place; it’s such a deliciously lively hole and such a charming neighbourhood.”
“I live in this neighbourhood — at least, I starve in this neighbourhood, Jabez.”
“Oh, now we’re coming to it,” said the gentleman, with a very gloomy face, “we’re coming to it. You want some money. That’s how this sort of thing always ends.”
“I hoped a better end than that, Jabez. I hoped long ago, when I thought you loved me—”
“Oh, we’re going over that ground again, are we?” said he; and with a gesture of weariness, he took up the dog’s-eared cards on the sticky table before him, and began to build a house with them, such as children build in their play.
Nothing could express better than this action his thorough determination not to listen to what the woman might have to say; but in spite of this she went on —
“You see I was a foolish country girl, Jabez, or I might have known better. I had been accustomed to take my father and my brother’s word of mouth as Bible truth, and had never known that word to be belied. I did not think, when the man I loved with all my heart
and soul — to utter forgetfulness of every other living creature on the earth, of every duty that I knew to man and heaven — I did not think when the man I loved so much said this or that, to ask him if he meant it honestly, or if it was not a cruel and a wicked lie. Being so ignorant, I did not think of that, and I thought to be your wife, as you swore I should be, and that this helpless little one lying here might live to look up to you as a father, and be a comfort and an honour to you.”
“To be a comfort and an honour to you! The fretful baby awoke at the words, and clenched its tiny fists with a spiteful action.
If the river, as a thing eternal in comparison to man — if the river had been a prophet, and had had a voice in its waters wherewith to prophesy, I wonder whether it would have cried —
“A shame and a dishonour, an enemy and an avenger in the days to come!”
Jabez’ card-house had risen to three stories; he took the dog’s-eared cards one by one in his white hands with a slow deliberate touch that never faltered.
The woman looked at him with a piteous but tearless glance; from him to the river; and back again to him.
“You don’t ask to look at the child, Jabez.”
“I don’t like children,” said he. “I get enough of children at the Doctor’s. Children and Latin grammar — and the end so far off yet,” — he said the last words to himself, in a gloomy tone.
“But your own child, Jabez — your own.”
“As you say,” he muttered.
She rose from her chair and looked full at him — a long long gaze which seemed to say, “And this is the man I loved; this is the man for whom I am lost!” If he could have seen her look! But he was stooping to pick up a card from the ground — his house of cards was five stories high by this time. “Come,” he said, in a hard resolute tone, “you’ve written to me to beg me to meet you here, for you were dying of a broken heart; that’s to say you have taken to drinking gin (I dare say it’s an excellent thing to nurse a child upon), and you want to be bought off. How much do you expect? I thought to have a sum of money at my command to-day. Never you mind how; it’s no business of yours.” He said this savagely, as if in answer to a look of inquiry from her; but she was standing with her back turned to him, looking steadily out of the window.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 4
