The Trail of the Serpent

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  How mine host of the Cheerful Cherokee would ever have extricated his companion from this degraded position, without the timely intervention of others, is not to be said; for at this very moment the Smasher beheld a gentleman alight from a cab at a little distance from where he stood, ask two or three questions of the cabman, pay and dismiss him, and then walk on in the direction of some steps that led to the water. This gentleman wore his hat very much slouched over his face; he was wrapped in a heavy loose coat, that entirely concealed his figure, and evidently carried a parcel of some kind under his left arm.

  “Hi!” said the Smasher, as the pedestrian approached; “Hi, you there! Give us a hand, will you?”

  The gentleman addressed as “you there” took not the slightest notice of this appeal, except, indeed, that he quickened his pace considerably, and tried to pass the left-handed one.

  “No, you don’t,” said our pugilistic friend; “the cove as refuses to pick up the man that’s down is a blot upon the English character, and the sooner he’s scratched out the better;” wherewith the Smasher squared his fists and placed himself directly in the path of the gentleman with the slouched hat.

  “I tell you what it is, my good fellow,” said this individual, “you may pick up your drunken friend yourself, or you may wait the advent of the next policeman, who will do the public a service by conveying you both to the station-house, where you may finish the evening in your own highly-intellectual manner. But perhaps you will be good enough to let me pass, for I’m in a hurry! You see that American vessel yonder—she’s dropped down the river to wait for the wind: the breeze is springing up as fast as it can, and she may set sail as it is before I can reach her; so, if you want to earn a sovereign, come and see if you can help me in arousing a waterman and getting off to her?”

  “Oh, you are off to America, are you?” said the Smasher, thoughtfully. “Blow that ’ere wine of Hemmar’s! I ought to know the cut of your figure-head. I’ve seen you before—I’ve seen you somewheres before, though where that somewheres was, spiflicate me if I can call to mind! Come, lend a hand with this ’ere friend o’ mine, and I’ll lend you a hand with the boatman.”

  “D—n your friend,” said the other, savagely; “let me pass, will you, you drunken fool?”

  This was quite enough for the Smasher, who was just in that agreeable frame of mind attendant on the consumption of strong waters, in which the jaundiced eye is apt to behold an enemy even in a friend, and the equally prejudiced ear is ready to hear an insult in the most civil address.

  “Come on, then,” said he; and putting himself in a scientific attitude, he dodged from side to side two or three times, as if setting to his partner in a quadrille, and then, with a movement rapid as lightning, went in with his left fist, and planted a species of postman’s knock exactly between the eyes of the stranger, who fell to the ground as an ox falls under the hand of an accomplished butcher.

  It is needless to say that, in falling, his hat fell off, and as he lay senseless on the pavement, the moonlight on his face revealed every feature as distinctly as in the broadest day.

  The Smasher knelt down by his side, looked at him attentively for a few moments, and then gave a long, low whistle.

  “Under the circumstances,” he said, “perhaps I couldn’t have done a better thing than this ’ere I’ve done promiscuous. He won’t go to America by that vessel at any rate; so if I telegraph to the Cherokees, maybe they will be glad to hear what he’s up to down here. Come along,” continued the sobered Smasher, hauling up Mr. de Clifford by the collar, as ruthlessly as if he had been a sack of coal; “I think I hear the footsteps of a Bobby7 a-coming this way, so we’d better make ourselves scarce before we’re asked any questions.”

  “If,” said the distinguished Brandolph, still shedding tears, “if the town of Liverpool was conducted after the manner of the Republic of Plato,8 there wouldn’t be any policemen. But, as I said before, we have retrograded. Take care of the posts,” he added plaintively. “It is marvellous the effect a few glasses of light wine have upon some people’s legs; while others, on the contrary——” here he slid again to the ground, and this time eluded all the Smasher’s endeavours to pick him up.

  “You had better let me be,” he murmured. “It is hard, but it is clean and comfortable. Bring me my boots and hot water at nine o’clock; I’ve an early rehearsal of ‘The Tyrant.’ Go home quietly, my dear friend, and don’t take anything more to drink, for your head is evidently not a strong one. Good night.”

  “Here’s a situation!” said the Smasher. “I can’t dance attendance on him any more, for I must run round to the telegraph office and see if it’s open, that I may send Mr. Marwood word about this night’s work. The Count de Marolles is safe enough for a day or two, anyhow; for I have set a mark upon him that he won’t rub off just yet, clever as he is.”

  CHAPTER IV

  WHAT THEY FIND IN THE ROOM IN WHICH THE MURDER WAS COMMITTED

  At the time that the arrest of the Count de Marolles was taking place, Mr. Joseph Peters was absent from London, being employed upon some mission of a delicate and secret nature in the town of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy.

  Slopperton is very little changed since the murder at the Black Mill set every tongue going upon its nine-days wonder. There may be a few more tall factory chimneys; a few more young factory ladies in cotton jackets and coral necklaces all the week, and in rustling silks and artificial flowers on Sunday; the new town—that dingy hanger-on of the old town—may have spread a little farther out towards the bright and breezy country; and the railway passenger may perhaps see a larger veil of black smoke hanging in the atmosphere as he approaches the Slopperton station than he saw eight years ago.

  Mr. Peters, being no longer a householder in the town, takes up his abode at a hostelry, and, strange to say, selects the little river-side public-house in which he overheard that conversation between the usher and the country girl, the particulars of which are already known to the reader.

  He is peculiar in his choice of an hotel, for “The Bargeman’s Delight” certainly does not offer many attractions to any one not a bargeman. It is hard indeed to guess what the particular delight of the bargeman may be, which the members of that guild find provided for them in the waterside tavern alluded to. The bargeman’s delight is evidently not cleanliness, or he would go elsewhere in search of that virtue; neither can the bargeman affect civility in his entertainers, for the host and that one slip-shod young person who is barmaid, barman, ostler, cook, chambermaid, and waiter all in one, are notoriously sulky in their conversation with their patrons, and have an aggrieved and injured bearing very unpleasant to the sensitive customer. But if, on the other hand, the bargeman’s delight should happen to consist in dirt, and damp, and bad cooking, and worse attendance, and liquors on which the small glass brandyballs peculiar to the publican float triumphantly, and pertinaciously refuse to go down to the bottom—if such things as these be the bargeman’s delight, he has them handsomely provided for him at this establishment.

  However this may be, to “The Bargeman’s Delight” came Mr. Peters on the very day of the Count’s arrest, with a carpet-bag in one hand and a fishing-rod in the other, and with no less a person than Mr. Augustus Darley for his companion. The customer, by the bye, was generally initiated into the pleasures of this hostelry by being tripped up or tripped down on the threshold, and saluting a species of thin soup of sawdust and porter, which formed the upper stratum of the floor, with his olfactory organ. The neophyte of the Rosicrucian1 mysteries and of Freemasonry2 has, I believe, something unpleasant done to him before he can be safely trusted with the secrets of the Temple; why, then, should not the guest of the Delight have his initiation? Mr. Darley, with some dexterity, however, escaped this danger; and, entering the bar safely, entreated with the slip-shod and defiant damsel aforesaid.

  “Could we have a bed?” Mr. Darley asked; “in point of fact, two beds?”

  The damsel glared at him for a few mi
nutes without giving any answer at all. Gus repeated the question.

  “We’ve got two beds,” muttered the defiant damsel.

  “All right, then,” said Gus. “Come in, old fellow,” he added to Mr. Peters, whose legs and bluchers were visible at the top of the steps, where he patiently awaited the result of his companion’s entreaty with the priestess of the temple.

  “But I don’t know whether you can have ’em,” said the girl, with a more injured air than usual. “We ain’t in general asked for beds.”

  “Then why do you put up that?” asked Mr. Darley, pointing to a board on which, in letters that had once been gilt, was inscribed this legend, “Good Beds.”

  “Oh, as for that,” said the girl, “that was wrote up before we took the place, and we had to pay for it in the fixtures, so of course we wasn’t a-goin’ to take it down! But I’ll ask master.” Whereon she disappeared into the damp and darkness, as if she had been the genius of that mixture; and presently reappeared, saying they could have beds, but that they couldn’t have a private sitting-room because there wasn’t one—which reason they accepted as unanswerable, and furthermore said they would content themselves with such accommodation as the bar-parlour afforded; whereon the slip-shod barmaid relaxed from her defiant mood, and told them that they would find it quite cheerful, as there was a nice look-out upon the river.”

  Mr. Darley ordered a bottle of wine—a tremendous order, rarely known to be issued in that establishment—and further remarked that he should be glad if the landlord would bring it in, as he would like five minutes’ conversation with him. After having given this overwhelming order, Gus and Mr. Peters entered the parlour.

  It was empty, the parlour; the bargeman was evidently taking his delight somewhere else that afternoon. There were the wet marks of the bargeman’s porter-pots of the morning, and the dry marks of the bargeman’s porter-pots of the day before, still on the table; there were the bargeman’s broken tobacco-pipes, and the cards wherewith he had played all-fours—which cards he had evidently chewed at the corners in aggravation of spirit when his luck deserted him—strewn about in every direction. There were the muddy marks of the bargeman’s feet on the sandy floor; there was a subtle effluvium of mingled corduroy, tobacco, onions, damp leather, and gin, which was the perfume of the bargeman himself; but the bargeman in person was not there.

  Mr. Darley walked to the window, and looked out at the river. A cheerful sight, did you say, slip-shod Hebe?3 Is it cheerful to look at that thick dingy water, remembering how many a wretched head its current has flowed over; how many a tired frame has lain down to find in death the rest life could not yield; how many a lost soul has found a road to another world in that black tide, and gone forth impenitent, from the shore of time to the ocean of eternity; how often the golden hair has come up in the fisherman’s net; and how many a Mary, less happy, since less innocent than the heroine of Mr. Kingsley’s melodious song, has gone out, never, never to return! Mr. Darley perhaps thinks this, for he turns his back to the window, calls out to the barmaid to come and light a fire, and proceeds to fill man’s great consoler, his pipe.

  I very much wonder, gentle readers of the fair sex, that you have never contrived somehow or other to pick a quarrel with the manes of good, cloak-spoiling, guinea-finding, chivalrous, mutineer-encountering, long-suffering, maid-of-honour-adoring Walter Raleigh—the importer of the greatest rival woman ever had in the affections of man, the tenth Muse, the fourth Grace, the uncanonized saint, Tobacco. You are angry with poor Tom, whom you hen-peck so cruelly, Mrs. Jones, because he came home last night from that little business dinner at Greenwich slightly the worse for the salmon and the cucumber—not the iced punch!—oh, no! he scarcely touched that! You are angry with your better half, and you wish to give him, as you elegantly put it, a bit of your mind. My good soul, what does Tom care for you—behind his pipe? Do you think he is listening to you, or thinking of you, as he sits lazily watching with dreamy eyes the blue wreaths of smoke curling upwards from that honest meerschaum bowl? He is thinking of the girl he knew fourteen years ago, before ever he fell on his knees in the back parlour, and ricked his ankle in proposing to you; he is thinking of a picnic in Epping Forest, where he first met her; when coats were worn short-waisted, and Plancus4 was consul; when there was scaffolding at Charing Cross, and stage-coaches between London and Brighton; when the wandering minstrel was to be found at Beulah Spa,5 and there was no Mr. Robson at the Olympic.6 He is looking full in your face, poor Tom! and attending to every word you say—as you think! Ah! my dear madam, believe me, he does not see one feature of your face, or hear one word of your peroration. He sees her; he sees her standing at the end of a green arcade, with the sunlight flickering between the restless leaves upon her bright brown curls, and making arabesques of light and shade on her innocent white dress; he sees the little coquettish glance she flings back at him, as he stands in an attitude he knows now was, if anything, spooney, all amongst the débris of the banquet—lobster-salads, veal-and-ham pies, empty champagne-bottles, strawberry-stalks, parasols, and bonnets and shawls. He hears the singing of the Essex birds, the rustling of the forest leaves, her ringing laugh, the wheels of a carriage, the tinkling of a sheep-bell, the roar of a blacksmith’s forge, and the fall of waters in the distance. All those sweet rustic sounds, which make a music very different to the angry tones of your voice, are in his ears; and you, madam—you, for any impression you can make on him, might just as well be on the culminating point of Teneriffe, and would find quite as attentive a listener in the waste of ocean you might behold from that eminence!

  And who is the fairy that works the spell? Her earthly name is Tobacco, alias Bird’s-eye, alias Latakia, alias Cavendish; and the magician who raised her first in the British dominions was Walter Raleigh. Are you not glad now, gentle reader, that the sailors mutinied, that the dear son was killed in that far land, and that the mean-spirited Stuart rewarded the noblest and wisest of his age with a life in a dungeon and the death of a traitor?

  I don’t know whether Augustus Darley thought all this as he sat over the struggling smoke and damp in the parlour of “The Bargeman’s Delight,” which smoke and damp the defiant barmaid told him would soon develop into a good fire. Gus was not a married man; and, again, he and Mr. Peters had very particular business on their hands, and had very little time for sentimental or philosophical reflections.

  The landlord of the “Delight” appeared presently, with what, he assured his guests, was such a bottle of port as they wouldn’t often meet with. There was a degree of obscurity in this commendation which savoured of the inspired communications of the priestess of the oracle. Æacida might conquer the Romans, or the Romans might annihilate Æacida; the bottle of port might be unapproachable by its excellence, or so utterly execrable in quality as to be beyond the power of wine-merchant to imitate; and either way the landlord not forsworn. Gus looked at the bright side of the question, and requested his host to draw the cork and bring another glass—“that is,” he said, “if you can spare half an hour or so for a friendly chat.”

  “Oh, as for that,” said the landlord, “I can spare time enough, it isn’t the business as’ll keep me movin’; it’s never brisk except on wet afternoons, when they comes in with their dirty boots, and makes more mess than they drinks beer. A ‘found drowned’ or a inquest enlivens us up now and then; but Lord, there’s nothing doing nowadays, and even inquests and drownin’ seems a-goin’ out.”

  The landlord was essentially a melancholy and blighted creature; and he seated himself at his own table, wiped away yesterday’s beer with his own coat-sleeve, and prepared himself to drink his own port, with a gloomy resignation sublime enough to have taken a whole band of conspirators to the scaffold in a most creditable manner.

  “My friend,” said Mr. Darley, introducing Mr. Peters by a wave of his hand, “is a foreigner, and hasn’t got hold of our language yet; he finds it slippery, and hard to catch, on account of the construction of it, so you mu
st excuse his not being lively.”

  The landlord nodded, and remarked, in a cheering manner, that he didn’t see what there was for the liveliest cove goin’ to be lively about nowadays.

  After a good deal of desultory conversation, and a description of several very interesting inquests, Gus asked the landlord whether he remembered an affair that happened about eight or nine years ago, or thereabouts—a girl found drowned in the fall of the year.

  “There’s always bein’ girls found drowned,” said the landlord moodily; “it’s my belief they likes it, especially when they’ve long hair. They takes off their bonnets, and they lets down their back hairs, and they puts a note in their pockets, wrote large, to say as they hopes as how he’ll be sorry, and so on. I can’t remember no girl in particular, eight years ago, at the back end of the year. I can call to mind a many promiscuous like, off and on, but not to say this was Jane, or that was Sarah.”

  “Do you remember a quarrel, then, between a man and a girl in this very room, and the man having his head cut by a sovereign she threw at him?”

  “We never have no quarrels in this room,” replied the landlord, with dignity. “The bargemen sometimes have a few words, and tramples upon each other with their hobnailed boots, and their iron heels and toes will dance again when their temper’s up; but I don’t allow no quarrels here. And yet,” he added, after a few moments’ reflection, “there was a sort of a row, I remember, a many years ago, between a girl as drowned herself that night down below, and a young gent, in this ’ere room; he a-sittin’ just as you may be a-sittin’ now, and she a-standin’ over by that window, and throwin’ four sovereigns at him spiteful, one of them a-catchin’ him just over the eyebrow, and cuttin’ of him to the bone—and he a-pickin’ ’em up when his head was bound, and walkin’ off with ’em as if nothin’ had happened.”