“Gone to bed.”
“So much the better: and the sooner you follow him will be so much the better again. Good night.”
The girl did not answer him. She looked at him for a few moments with an earnest, inquiring gaze, which seemed to compel him to return her look, as if he had been fascinated by the profound earnestness of those large dark eyes; and then she went slowly and silently from the room.
“Sulky!” muttered Mr. Milsom. “There never was such a girl to sulk.”
He took up a candle, and followed his daughter from the room.
A rickety old staircase led to the upper floor, where there were three or four bed-chambers. The house had been originally something more than a cottage, and the rooms and passages were tolerably large.
Thomas Milsom found the girl standing at the top of the stairs, as if waiting for some one.
“What are you standing mooning there for?” asked the man. “Why don’t you go to bed?”
“Why have you brought that sailor here?” inquired the girl, without noticing Milsom’s question.
“What’s that to you? You’d like to know my business, wouldn’t you? I’ve brought him here because he wanted to come. Is that a good answer? I’ve brought him here because he has money to lose, and is in the humour to lose it. Is that a better answer?”
“Yes,” returned the girl, fixing her eyes upon him with a look of horror; “you will win his money, and, if he is angry, there will be a quarrel, as there was on that hideous night three years ago, when you brought home the foreign sailor, and what happened to that man will happen to this one. Father,” cried the girl, suddenly and passionately, “let this man leave the house in safety. I sometimes think my heart is almost as hard as yours; but this man trusts us. Don’t let any harm come to him.”
“Why, what harm should come to him?”
For some time the girl called Jenny stood before her father in silence, with her head bent, and her face in shadow; then she lifted her head suddenly, and looked at him piteously.
“The other!” she murmured; “the other! I remember what happened to him.”
“Come, drop that!” cried Milsom, savagely; “do you think I’m going to stand your mad talk? Get to bed, and go to sleep. And the sounder you sleep the better, unless you want to sleep uncommonly sound for the future, my lady.”
The ruffian seized his daughter by the arm, and half pushed, half flung her into a room, the door of which stood open. It was the dreary room which she called her own. Milsom shut the door upon her, and locked it with a key which he took from his pocket — a key which locked every door in the house. “And now, I flatter myself, you’re safe, my pretty singing-bird,” he muttered.
He went down stairs, and returned to his guest, who had been pressed to eat and drink by Dennis Wayman, and who had yielded good-naturedly to that gentleman’s hospitable attentions.
* * * * *
Alone in her room, Jenny Milsom opened the window, and sat looking out into the inky darkness of the night, and listening to the voices of the three men in the room below.
The voices sounded very distinctly in that dilapidated old house. Every now and then a hearty shout of laughter seemed to shake the crazy rafters; but presently the revellers grew silent. Jenny knew they were busy with the cards.
“Yes, yes,” she murmured; “it all happens as it happened that night — first the loud voices and laughter; then the silence; then — Great Heaven! will the end be like the end of that night?”
She clasped her hands in silent agony, and sank in a crouching position by the open window, with her head lying on the sill.
For hours this wretched girl sat upon the floor in the same attitude, with the cold wind blowing in upon her. All seemed tranquil in the room below. The voices sounded now and then, subdued and cautious, and there were no more outbursts of jovial laughter.
A dim, gray streak glimmered faint and low in the east — the first pale flicker of dawn. The girl raised her weary eyes towards that chill gray light.
“Oh! if this night were only ended!” she murmured: “if it were only ended without harm!”
The words were still upon her lips, when the voices sounded loud and harsh from the room below. The girl started to her feet, white and trembling. Louder with every moment grew those angry voices. Then came a struggle; some article of furniture fell with a crash; there was the sound of shivered glass, and then a dull heavy noise, which echoed through the house, and shook the weather-beaten wooden walls to their foundations.
After the fall there came the sound of one loud groan, and then subdued murmurs, cautious whispers.
The window of Jenny Milsom’s room looked towards the road. From that window she could see nothing of the sluggish ditch or the river.
She tried the door of her room. It was securely locked, as she had expected to find it.
“They would kill me, if I tried to come between them and their victim,” she said; “and I am afraid to die.”
She crept to her wretched bed, and flung herself down, dressed as she was. She drew the thin patchwork coverlet round her.
Ten minutes after she had thrown herself upon the bed, a key turned in the lock, and the door was opened by a stealthy hand. Black Milsom looked into the room.
The cold glimmer of day fell full upon the girl’s pale face. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was loud and regular.
“Asleep,” he whispered to some one outside; “as safe as a rock.”
He drew back and closed the door softly.
* * * * *
Joyce Harker worked his hardest on board the ‘Pizarro’, and the repairs were duly completed by the 4th of April. On the morning of the 5th the vessel was a picture, and Joyce surveyed her with the pride of a man who feels that he has not worked in vain.
He had set his heart upon the brothers celebrating the first day of their re-union on board the trim little craft: and he had made arrangements for the preparation of a dinner which was to be a triumph in its way.
Joyce presented himself at the bar of the ‘Jolly Tar’ at half-past eleven on the appointed morning. He expected that the brothers would be punctual; but he did not expect either of them to appear before the stroke of noon.
All was very quiet at the ‘Jolly Tar’ at this hour of the day. The landlord was alone in the bar, reading a paper. He looked up as Joyce entered; but did not appear to recognize him.
“Can I step through into your private room?” asked Joyce; “I expect
Captain Jernam and his brother to meet me here in half an hour.”
“To be sure you can, mate. There’s no one in the private room at this time of day. Jernam — Jernam, did you say? What Jernam is that? I don’t recollect the name.”
“You’ve a short memory,” answered Joyce; “you might remember Captain Jernam of the ‘Pizarro’; for it isn’t above a week since he was here with me. He dined here, and slept here, and left early in the morning, though you were uncommonly pressing for him to stay.”
“We’ve so many captains and sailors in and out from year’s end to year’s end, that I don’t remember them by name,” said Dennis Wayman; “but I do remember your friend, mate, now you remind me of him; and I remember you, too.”
“Yes,” said Joyce, with a grin; “there ain’t so many of my pattern. I’ll take a glass of rum for the good of the house; and if you can lend me a paper, I’ll skim the news of the day while I’m waiting.”
Joyce passed into the little room, where Dennis took him the newspaper and the rum.
Twelve o’clock struck, and the clerk began to watch and to listen for the opening of the door, or the sound of a footstep in the passage outside. The time seemed very long to him, watching and listening. The minute-hand of the Dutch clock moved slowly on. He turned every now and then towards the dusky corner where the clock hung, to see what progress that slow hand had made upon the discoloured dial.
He waited thus for an hour.
“What does it mean?” he thought. “Valentin
e Jernam so faithfully promised to be punctual. And then he’s so fond of his brother. He’d scarcely care to be a minute behindhand, when he has the chance of seeing Captain George.”
Joyce went into the bar. The landlord was scrutinizing the address of a letter — a foreign letter.
“Didn’t you say your friend’s name was Jernam?” he asked.
“I did.”
“Then this letter must be for him. It has been lying here for the last two or three days; but I forgot all about it till just this minute.”
Joyce took the letter. It was addressed to Captain Valentine Jernam, of the ‘Pizarro’, at the ‘Jolly Tar’, care of the landlord, and it came from the Cape of Good Hope.
Joyce recognized George Jernam’s writing.
“This means a disappointment,” he thought, as he turned the letter over and over slowly; “there’ll be no meeting yet awhile. Captain George is off to the East Indies on some new venture, I dare say. But what can have become of Captain Valentine? I’ll go down to the ‘Golden Cross,’ and see if he’s there.”
He told Dennis Wayman where he was going, and left a message for his captain. From Ratcliff Highway to Charing Cross was a long journey for Joyce; but he had no idea of indulging in any such luxury as a hackney-coach. It was late in the afternoon when he reached the hotel; and there he was doomed to encounter a new disappointment.
Captain Jernam had been there on the second of the month, and had never been there since. He had left in the forenoon, after saying that he should return at night; and in evidence that such had been his intention, the waiter told Joyce that the captain had left a carpet-bag, containing clean linen and a change of clothes.
“He’s broken his word to me, and he’s got into bad hands,” thought Harker. “He’s as simple as a child, and he’s got into bad hands. But how and where? He’d never, surely, go back to the ‘Jolly Tar’, after what I said to him. And where else can he have gone? I know no more where to look for him in this great overgrown London than if I was a new-born baby.”
In his perfect ignorance of his captain’s movements, there was only one thing that Joyce Harker could do, and that was to go back to the “Jolly Tar,” with a faint hope of finding Valentine Jernam there.
It was dusk by the time he got back to Ratcliff Highway, and the flaring gas-lamps were lighted. The bar of the tavern was crowded, and the tinkling notes of the old piano sounded feebly from the inner room.
Dennis Wayman was serving his customers, and Thomas Milsom was drinking at the bar. Joyce pushed his way to the landlord.
“Have you seen anything of the captain?” he asked.
“No, he hasn’t been here since you left.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Quite sure.”
“He’s not been here to day; but he’s been here within the week, hasn’t he? He was here on Tuesday, if I’m not misinformed.”
“Then you are misinformed,” Wayman said, coolly; “for your seafaring friend hasn’t darkened my doors since the morning you and he left to go to the coach-office.”
Joyce could say nothing further. He passed through the passage into the public room, where the so-called concert had begun. Jenny Milsom was singing to the noisy audience.
The girl was very pale, and her manner and attitude, as she sat by the piano, were even more listless than usual.
Joyce Harker did not stop long in the concert-room. He went back to the bar. This time there was no one but Milsom and Wayman in the bar, and the two seemed to be talking earnestly as Joyce entered.
They left off, and looked up at the sound of the clerk’s footsteps.
“Tired of the music already?” asked Wayman.
“I didn’t come here to hear music,” answered Joyce; “I came to look for my captain. He had an appointment to meet his brother here to-day at twelve o’clock, and it isn’t like him to break it. I’m beginning to get uneasy about him.”
“But why should you be uneasy? The captain is big enough, and old enough, to take care of himself,” said the landlord, with a laugh.
“Yes; but then you see, mate, there are some men who never know how to take care of themselves when they get into bad company. There isn’t a better sailor than Valentine Jernam, or a finer fellow at sea; but I don’t think, if you searched from one end of this city to the other, you’d find a greater innocent on shore. I’m afraid of his having fallen into bad hands, Mr. Wayman, for he had a goodish bit of money about him; and there’s land-sharks as dangerous as those you meet with on the sea.”
“So there are, mate,” answered the landlord; “and there’s some queer characters about this neighbourhood, for the matter of that.”
“I dare say you’re right, Mr. Wayman,” returned Joyce; “and I’ll tell you what it is. If any harm has come to Valentine Jernam, let those that have done the harm look out for themselves. Perhaps they don’t know what it is to hurt a man that’s got a faithful dog at his heels. Let them hide themselves where they will, and let them be as cunning as they will, the dog will smell them out, sooner or later, and will tear them to pieces when he finds them. I’m Captain Jernam’s dog, Mr. Dennis Wayman; and if I don’t find my master, I’ll hunt till I do find those that have got him out of the way. I don’t know what’s amiss with me to-night; but I’ve got a feeling come over me that I shall never look in Valentine Jernam’s honest face again. If I’m right, Lord help the scoundrels who have plotted against him, for it’ll be the business of my life to track them down, and bring their crime home to them — and I’ll do it.”
After having said this, slowly and deliberately, with an appalling earnestness of voice and manner, Joyce Harker looked from Dennis Wayman to Black Milsom, and this time the masks they were accustomed to wear did not serve these scoundrels so well as usual, for in the faces of both there was a look of fear.
“I am going to search for my captain,” said Joyce. “Good night, mates.”
He left the tavern. The two men looked at each other earnestly as the door closed upon him.
“A dangerous man,” said Dennis Wayman.
“Bah!” muttered Black Milsom, savagely; “who’s afraid of a hunchback’s bluster? I dare say he wanted the handling of the money himself.”
All that night Joyce Harker wandered to and fro amidst the haunts of sailors and merchant captains; but wander where he would, and inquire of whom he would, he could obtain no tidings of the missing man.
Towards daybreak, he took a couple of hours’ sleep in a tavern at
Shadwell, and with the day his search began again.
Throughout that day the same patient search continued, the same inquiries were repeated with indomitable perseverance, in every likely and unlikely place; but everywhere the result was failure.
It was towards dusk that Joyce Harker turned his back upon a tavern in
Rotherhithe, and set his face towards the river bank.
“I have looked long enough for him among the living,” he said; “I must look for him now amongst the dead.”
Before midnight the search was ended. Amongst the printed bills flapping on dreary walls in that river-side neighbourhood, Joyce Harker had discovered the description of a man “found drowned.” The description fitted Valentine Jernam, and the body had been found within the last two days.
Joyce went to the police-office where the man was lying. He had no need to look at the poor dead face — the dark, handsome face, which was so familiar to him.
“I expected as much,” he said to the official who had admitted him to see the body; “he had money about him, and he has fallen into the hands of scoundrels.”
“You don’t think it was an accident?”
“No; he has been murdered, sir. And I think I know the men who did it.”
“You know the men?”
“Yes; but my knowledge won’t help to avenge his death, if I can’t bring it home to them — and I don’t suppose I can. There’ll be a coroner’s inquest, won’t there?”
At
the inquest, next day, Joyce Harker told his story; but that story threw very little light on the circumstances of Valentine Jernam’s death.
The investigation before the coroner set at rest all question as to the means by which the captain had met his death. A medical examination demonstrated that he had been murdered by a blow on the back of the head, inflicted by some sharp heavy instrument. The unfortunate man must have died before he was thrown into the water.
The verdict of the coroner’s jury was to the effect that Valentine Jernam had been wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown. And with this verdict Joyce Harker was obliged to be content. His suspicions he dared not mention in open court. They were too vague and shadowy. But he called upon a celebrated Bow Street officer, and submitted the case to him. It was a case for secret inquiry, for careful investigation; and Joyce offered a handsome reward out of his own savings.
While this secret investigation was in progress, Joyce opened the letter addressed to Valentine by his brother George.
“DEAR VAL,” wrote the sailor: “I have been tempted to make another trip to Calcutta with a cargo shipped at Lisbon, and shall not be able to meet you in London on the 5th of April. It will be ten or twelve months before I see England again; but when I do come back, I hope to add something handsome to our joint fortunes. I long to see your honest face, and grasp your hand again; but the chance of a big prize lures me out yonder. We are both young, and have all the world before us, so we can afford to wait a year or two. Bank the money; Joyce will tell you where, and how to do it; and let me know your plans before you leave London. A letter addressed to me, care of Riverdale and Co., Calcutta, will be safe. Good luck to you, dear old boy, now and always, and every good wish. — From your affectionate brother,” “GEORGE JERNAM.”
It was Joyce Harker’s melancholy task to tell Valentine Jernam’s younger brother the story of the seaman’s death. He wrote a long letter, recording everything that had happened within his knowledge, from the moment of the ‘Pizarro’ reaching Gravesend to the discovery of Valentine’s body in the river-side police office. He told George the impression that had been made upon his brother by the ballad-singer’s beauty.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 422
