The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics)

by George W. M. Reynolds

  “No—no,” murmured the hag, still rocking herself.

  “But I say yes—yes,” answered the Resurrection Man. “In the first place you would tell me nothing about Catherine Wilmot’s parentage: you kept it all close to yourself. I suspected you—I even told you so. I declared that ‘if I caught you out in any of your tricks, I would hang you up to your own bed-post, as readily as I would ring the neck of your old cat.’ And I will keep my word yet, if you refuse to give me the information I require.”

  “What will become of me? what will become of me?” moaned the old hag. “Alack! alack!”

  “You’ll very soon find out,” answered Tidkins. “But I just want to prove to you that I am right in all I am doing with regard to you. In the first place you would speak to Katherine alone: that didn’t look well. You said I might be a witness at a distance—or when the money was paid; but I knew that to be all humbug. However, I let you have your way at the beginning—if it was only to see how the young girl would receive you. Well, friend Banks drives us to Hounslow: we set off to the farm—we meet Katherine and another young lady—and this Miss Monroe throws cold water on the whole business. Still you won’t speak before witnesses. We go back to the inn at Hounslow: we concoct the note to Kate; and friend Banks undertakes to deliver it, as it seemed he knew something of her. He managed to give it to her; and you, old woman, go off to meet her at seven. Now did you think I was so precious green as not to take advantage of the opportunity? Not I! I went after you—I crept round behind the fences near where you and Katherine met each other—and I heard every word that passed between you.”

  “Alack! alack!” moaned the old woman.

  “Yes—I heard every thing,” continued the Resurrection Man;—“enough to prove to me that the young girl would give half her fortune to learn the truth concerning her father and mother. I also understood pretty well that there is the name of Markham in the case; and I was struck by the manner in which you urged her to purchase your secret, when she informed you that Richard Markham—the Markham whom I know and hate—had been made a great lord. All you said in respect to the conditions on which your secret was to be sold didn’t astonish me at all. It only confirmed me in the conviction that you had intended throughout to gammon me. You meant to make use of me as a tool to find out Katherine’s address, and then to reserve for your own particular plucking the pigeon whose hiding-place I had detected. ‘The man who was with me this morning, is a bad one,’ said you: ‘he is avaricious, and desires to turn my knowledge of this secret to a good account.’—And so I did, you old harridan; and so I mean to do now—‘He is a desperate man, and I dare not offend him,’ you went on to say.—Egad! you’ve found out that you spoke pretty truly.—‘He wants money; and money he must have.’—True again: and money I will have too. The girl tells you she is rich and anxious to purchase the secret; and when she asks you how much will satisfy me, you coolly tell her, ‘A hundred pounds!’—A hundred devils! And then, in your gammoning, snivelling way, you demand of her the ‘wherewith to make your few remaining days happy!’ ”

  “Alas! I am a poor old soul—a poor old soul!” murmured the horrible crone, shaking her head. “Do with me what you will—kill me at once!”

  “And what the devil good would your carcass be to us?” exclaimed the Resurrection Man.

  “A workus coffin would be thrown away on it,” added Mr. Banks.

  “So it would, Ned,” returned Tidkins. “But I’ll just finish what I have to say to the old woman; and we’ll then go to the point. I was so disgusted, and in such an infernal rage, when I heard you going on in such a rascally manner,—selling me, and taking care of yourself,—that I determined at one time to come down from behind the palings, and force you to tell Katherine Wilmot on the spot all you knew about her parents, and then trust to her generosity. And as the night had turned dark, I had moved away from the spot, and was coming towards you along the path, when you heard the rustling of my cloak. At that instant another idea struck me: I resolved to bring you here, and get the secret out of you. I therefore crept softly back behind the fence. Then you went on with a deal more nonsense—all of which I heard as well as the rest. I was now determined to punish you: so I got back to the inn before you—arranged it all with Banks—and we had you up to London, and safely lodged here in this pleasant little place, that very night. Now, tell me the truth, old woman—don’t you deserve it all?”

  “Lack-a-day!” crooned the harridan.

  “She does indeed deserve it, Tony,” said Banks, shaking his head with that solemnity which he had affected so long as at length to use it mechanically: “she’s as gammoning an old wessel as ever stood a chance of making a ugly carkiss to be burnt in the bone-house by my friend Jones the grave-digger.”

  “Now, by Satan!” suddenly ejaculated the Resurrection Man, starting up, and laying his iron hand on the hag’s shoulder so as to prevent her from rocking to and fro any longer; “if you don’t give up this infernal croaking and moaning, I’ll invent some damnable torture to make you tractable. Speak, old wretch!” he shouted in her ears, as he shook her violently: “will you tell us the secret about Katherine Wilmot—or will you not?”

  “Not now—not now!” cried the hag: “another time!”

  “I will not wait another hour!” ejaculated the Resurrection Man; “but, by God! I’ll put you to some torture. What shall we do to her, Banks?”

  “Screw her cussed carkiss down in one of my coffins for an hour or so,” answered the undertaker.

  “No—that won’t do,” said the Resurrection Man.

  “I always punishes my children in that way,” observed Banks; “and I find it a wery sallitary example.”

  “I know what we’ll do,” exclaimed Tidkins: “they say that Dick Turpin used to put old women on the fire to make them tell where their money was. Suppose we serve this wretched hag out in the same way?”

  “I’m quite agreeable,” returned Banks, with as much complacency as if a party of pleasure had been proposed to him. “I b’lieve you’ve got a brazier.”

  “Yes—up in the front room, ground-floor, where all the resurrection-tools are kept,” answered Tidkins. “You go and fetch it—bring plenty of coal and wood, and the bellows—and we’ll precious soon make the old woman speak out.”

  The undertaker departed to execute this commission; and Tidkins again reasoned with the hag.

  But all he could get out of her was a moaning exclamation; and as soon as he withdrew his hand from her shoulder, she began rocking backwards and forwards as before.

  It suddenly struck the Resurrection Man that she was actually losing her senses through the rigours of confinement; and he became alarmed—not on her account, but for the secret which he wished to extort from her.

  As this idea flashed to his mind, he cast a rapid glance towards the old woman; and surprised her as she herself was scrutinising his countenance with the most intense interest, while she was all the time pretending to be listlessly rocking herself.

  “Another gag—by hell!” ejaculated Tidkins. “What do you take me for? You think that I am such a miserable fool as to be deluded by your tricks? Not I, indeed! Ah! you would affect madness—idiotcy—would you? Why, if you really went mad through captivity in this place, I would knock you on the head at once—for fear that if you were let loose you might peach in your ravings about my designs concerning Kate Wilmot. But if you tell me, in your sober senses, all I want to know, I’ll give you your freedom in twelve hours; because I am very well aware that you would not, when in possession of your reason, attract attention to your own ways of life by betraying mine.”

  “And if I tell you all I know,” said the hag, seeing that her new design was detected and that it was useless to persist in it,—“if I tell you all I know, why will you not allow me to go home at once?”

  “Because you came here in the night
—and you shall go away in the night: because you arrived blindfolded—and you shall depart blindfolded,” replied the Resurrection Man, sternly. “Do you think that I would let an old treacherous hag like you discover the whereabouts of this house? Why—you have no more idea at present whether you’re in Saint Giles’s or the Mint—Clerkenwell or Shoreditch—Bond Street or Rosemary Lane;—and I don’t intend you ever to be any wiser. But here comes Banks, with the brazier.”

  The undertaker made his appearance, laden with the articles for which he had been sent.

  The Resurrection Man laid the wood and coals in the brazier, and applied a match. In a few moments there was a bright blaze, which he fanned by means of the bellows.

  “It’ll be a good fire in a minute or two,” said Tidkins, coolly.

  “Almost as good as Jones makes in the bone-house where he burns the blessed carkisses of wenerable defuncts,” returned Mr. Banks.

  “Don’t blow any more, Mr. Tidkins—save yourself the trouble,” said the hag, now really alarmed. “I will make terms with you.”

  “Terms, indeed!” growled the Resurrection Man. “Well—what have you to say?”

  “If I tell you every thing, you can get what money you choose out of Katherine,” continued the old woman; “and I shall not receive a penny.”

  “Serve you right for having tried to gammon me.”

  “That will be very hard—very hard indeed,” added the hag. “And after all, when you go to Katherine Wilmot and reveal to her the secrets I communicate to you, she will ask you for proofs—proofs,” repeated the old woman, with a cunning leer; “and you will have no proofs to give her.”

  “Then you shall write out the whole history, and sign it,” said Tidkins; “and my friend Banks will witness it.”

  “Yes,” observed the undertaker, smoothing his limp cravat-ends: “Edward Banks, of Globe Lane, Globe Town—Furnisher of Funerals on New and Economic Principles—Good Deal Coffin, Eight Shillings and——”

  “Hold your nonsense, Ned,” cried Tidkins: then addressing himself again to the old woman, he said, “Well—don’t you think that scheme would answer to the purpose?”

  “Very likely—very likely,” exclaimed the hag. “But proofs—written proofs—would not be bad companions to the statement that you wish me to draw up.”

  “And have you such written proofs?” demanded Tidkins eagerly.

  “I have—I have,” was the reply.

  “Where are they?”

  “Where you cannot discover them—concealed at my own abode. No one could find them even if they pulled the house down, except myself.”

  And again the hag leered cunningly.

  “This only makes the matter more important,” mused the Resurrection Man, now hesitating between his avarice and his desire to possess such important testimony. “Well,” he continued after a pause,—“to use your own words, we will make terms. I tell you what I’ll do:—write out your history of the whole business in full—in full, mind; and I will give you ten guineas down. At night me and Banks will take you home—to your own place; where you shall give me up the written proofs you talk of—and I will give you another ten guineas. Now is that a bargain?”

  “Alack! it must be—it must be!” said the hag. “But why not let me go home to write out the history?”

  “I am not quite such a fool,” returned Tidkins. “And mind you do not attempt to deceive me with any inventions, for I shall deuced soon be able to tell whether your history tallies with all I overheard you and Katherine say together on the subject. Besides, the written proofs must be forthcoming—and they, too, must fully corroborate all you state. Fail in any one of these conditions—and, by Satan! I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear. Do you agree?”

  “I do,” answered the hag. “Give me paper and pens.”

  Tidkins departed to fetch writing materials, food, some strong liquor, and oil for the old woman’s lamp.

  In five minutes he returned; and, placing those articles upon the table, said, “When will your task be completed?”

  “It will take me some hours,” returned the hag: “for I have much to think of—much to write!”

  And she heaved a deep sigh.

  “This evening I will visit you again,” said the Resurrection Man.

  He and Banks then fastened the huge door upon the old woman, and left the subterranean.

  When they reached the street, the undertaker departed in the direction of his own house; and the Resurrection Man ascended to his apartment on the first floor.

  CHAPTER CCXVIII.

  THE VEILED VISITOR.

  Mr. Tidkins sate down and smoked his pipe as calmly as if he were not at all afraid to be left alone to the company of the thoughts which the occupation was likely to stir up within him.

  For when a man takes up his pipe, all the most important ideas in his brain are certain to present themselves to his contemplation; and think on them he must, willing or unwilling.

  But Tidkins shrank not from any of those reflections: he was not one of your villains who are either afraid in the dark, or who loathe solitude;—what he did he perpetrated systematically, and reviewed coolly.

  He did not have recourse to the pipe on account of its soothing qualities—for as long as he made money, he had no cares; and when he indulged in a glass, it was by no means to drown remorse—because he had no compunctions to stifle.

  “A few months more in this country, and I shall be all right,” he mused to himself: “then off to America—plunge into the far-west—change my name—buy land—and live comfortable for the rest of my days. This business of Katherine Wilmot must produce me something handsome:—Gilbert Vernon’s affair is sure to do so, in one way or the other;—and if any other business worth taking, and speedily done, comes in the meantime, all the better. That rascal Tomlinson regularly bilked me: and yet the fellow did it cleverly! Bolted with the old man—got clean away. For my part, I wonder he didn’t do it long ago. Well—perhaps I shall meet them both some day in America; for I dare say they are gone there. All run-a-ways go to America—because there is no fear of questions being asked in the back-woods, and no need of letters of introduction when a chap has got plenty of money in his pocket. With what I’ve got already, and what I hope to get from the things now in hand, I shall stand a chance of taking a few thousands with me. But before I do go I must pay one or two people out:—there’s that hated Markham—when he comes back; then there’s the Rattlesnake; and there’s Crankey Jem, who, they say in the papers, will have a free pardon before the trial of that young fool Holford comes on. Well—I have got something to do, in one way or another, before I leave England; but I’m not the man to neglect business—either in the pursuit of money or to punish an enemy. Ha! that was a knock at the door! who can come to me at this hour?”

  The Resurrection Man looked at his watch:—the time had passed rapidly away while he was smoking and thinking;—and it was now nearly an hour past mid-day.

  The knock—which was low and timid—was repeated.

  “It is a knock,” said Tidkins; and he hastened down to the street door.

  He opened it and beheld a lady, enveloped in a large cloak, and wearing a black veil which was so elaborately worked and so well arranged in thick folds that it was impossible to catch even the faintest glimpse of the countenance that it concealed.

  Tidkins, however, perceived at the first glance that it was no mean person who had sought his abode; for the delicate kid gloves were drawn on the small hands with a scrupulous nicety; the foot which rested upon the door-step was diminutive to a fault; and the appearance of the lady, even disguised as she was, had something of superiority and command which could not be mistaken.

  “Does Mr. Tidkins reside here?” she said, in a tremulous and half-affrighted tone.

  “My name’s Tidkins, ma’am
—at your service,” answered the Resurrection Man, in as polite a manner as he could possibly assume.

  It seemed as if the lady looked at him through her veil for a few moments, ere she made a reply; and she even appeared to shudder as she made that survey.

  And no wonder;—for a countenance with a more sinister expression never met her eyes; and she had moreover recognised the man’s voice, which she had heard before.

  “Will you step in, ma’am?” said Tidkins; seeing that she hesitated. “I am all alone;—and if you come to speak on any particular business—as of course you do—there’ll be no one to overhear us.”

  For another instant did Adeline—(there is no necessity to affect mystery here)—hesitate ere she accepted this invitation:—then she thought of her torturess Lydia—and she boldly crossed the threshold.

  But when Tidkins closed and bolted the door behind her, and she found herself ascending the steep staircase,—when she remembered that she was now alone in that house with a man concerning whom her notions were of the most appalling nature,—she felt her legs tremble beneath her.

  Then again was she compelled to encourage herself by rapidly passing in mental review the horrors of those tortures and the extent of those indignities which she endured at the hands of Lydia Hutchinson!—and her strength immediately revived.

  She ascended the stairs, and entered the back room, to which the Resurrection Man directed her in language as polite as he could command.

  Then, having placed a chair for his mysterious visitor near the fire, he took another at a respectful distance from her—for he knew that it would be impolitic to alarm one who was evidently a well-bred lady, by appearing to be too familiar.