The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

by The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries (retail) (epub)

  “Do you mean Hagar?”

  “Let him dare to say so!” cried the girl, leaping to her feet with flaming eyes. “I do not know your son, Mr. Dix.”

  “What!” said Vark, softly; “not red-haired Jimmy!”

  Hagar sat down with a pale face. “Red-haired!” she muttered. “Goliath! No, it is impossible!”

  Vark looked at Hagar, and she stared back at him again. With the approaching senility of old age, Jacob had ceased to take part in the conversation, and was moodily staring at the miserable fire, a trembling and palsied creature. The idea hinted at by Vark—that Hagar had been employed by Jimmy to destroy him—so stupefied his brain that he was incapable of even expressing an opinion. Seeing this, the lawyer glided away from the dangerous topic, to carry out the second part of his scheme.

  “Oh, dear, dear!” he said, hunting in his pockets. “My pipe is empty, and I have no tobacco with me.”

  “Then go without it, Mr. Vark!” said Hagar, sharply. “There’s no tobacco here.”

  “Oh, yes; I think in that jar,” said the lawyer, pointing one lean finger at the high shelf—“Jimmy’s jar.”

  “Leave Jimmy’s jar alone!” mumbled Jacob, savagely.

  “What! will not Mr. Dix spare one tiny pipe of tobacco for his old friend?” whined Vark, going towards the shelf. “Oh, I think so; I am certain,” and with this one of his long arms shot upwards to seize the jar. Jacob rose unsteadily as Vark took down the article, and he scowled fiercely at the daring of his visitor. Indifferent to what was going on, Hagar continued her sewing.

  “Leave that jar of Jimmy’s alone, I tell you!” snarled Dix, seizing the poker. “I’ll break your fox’s head if you don’t!”

  “Violence—and from gentle Mr. Dix!” cried Vark, still gripping the jar. “Oh, no, no, not at all! If he—”

  At this moment Jacob lost patience, and delivered a swinging blow at the lawyer’s head.

  Ever watchful, Vark threw himself to one side, and the poker crashed down on the jar, which he held in his hands. In a moment it lay in fragments on the floor. A pile of broken china, a loose bit of dried tobacco, and a carelessly folded paper.

  “See what your angry passion has done!” said Vark, pointing reproachfully to the débris. “You have broken poor Jimmy’s jar!”

  Jacob threw the poker inside the fender, and bent to pick up the folded paper, which he opened in a mechanical manner. Always methodical, Hagar went out of the room to fetch a dust-pan and broom. Before she could return with them she was recalled by a cry from Vark; and on rushing back she saw Jacob prone on the floor among the broken china. He had fainted, and the paper was still clutched in his hand.

  “Bring water—salts!” cried Vark, his eyes filled with a triumphant light at the success of his plot. “My venerable friend is ill!”

  “What have you been doing to him?” demanded Hagar, as she loosened the scarf round the old man’s neck.

  “I? Nothing! He read that paper which fell out of the jar—Jimmy’s jar,” added Vark, pointedly—“and went down like a ninepin!”

  There was a jug of water on the table, used by Vark for diluting his gin, so Hagar sprinkled the wrinkled face of her master with this fluid, and slapped his hands. Vark looked on rather anxiously. He did not wish the old man to die yet; and Jacob was a long time coming out of his swoon.

  “This paper made him faint,” said Vark, removing it from Jacob’s feeble grasp. “Let us see what it says.” He knew the contents quite well, but nevertheless he read it aloud in a distinct voice for the benefit of Hagar. Thus ran the words: “Memo: To extract the juice of foxglove—a poison difficult to trace—nothing can be proved after death. Small doses daily in old man’s tea or gruel. He would die in a few weeks without suspicion. Will trust nobody, but will prepare drug myself.”

  Hagar looked steadily at Vark. “Who wrote that,” she said in a low voice—“the old man’s son or—you?”

  “I?” cried Vark, with well-simulated indignation, “why should I write it?—or how could I write it? The penmanship is that of James Dix; it was concealed in his tobacco-jar; the jar was broken by accident; you saw it yourself. Do you dare to——”

  “Be silent!” interrupted Hagar, raising Jacob’s head; “he is reviving.”

  The old pawnbroker opened his eyes and looked wildly around. Little by little his senses returned to him, and he sat up. Then, with the aid of Hagar, he climbed into his chair, and began to talk and sigh.

  “Little Jimmy wants me to die,” he moaned, feebly. “Hagar’s son wants to kill me. Foxglove poison—I know it! Not a trace does it leave after death. Hagar’s son! Hagar’s boy! Parricide! Parricide!” he cried, shaking his two fists in the air.

  “He wanted the money, you know,” hinted Vark, softly.

  “He shall not have the money!” said Jacob with unnatural energy. “I’ll make a new will—I’ll disinherit him! Parricide! Hagar shall have all!”

  “I, Mr. Dix? No, no!”

  “I say yes, you jade! Don’t cross a dying man. I am dying; this is my death-blow. O Jimmy, Jimmy! Wolf’s cub! My will! my will!”

  Pushing back Hagar, who strove to keep him in his chair, he snatched up the candle and staggered towards the safe to get his will. While he was looking within, Vark hastily fumbled in his capacious pockets. When Jacob replaced the candle on the table, Hagar saw thereon a sheet of paper covered with writing; also pen and ink. Jacob, clutching the will, beheld these things also, and anticipated the question on Hagar’s lips.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Your new will, Mr. Dix,” explained Vark, smoothly. “I never did trust your son, and I knew some day that you would find him out. I therefore prepared a will by which you left everything to Hagar. Or,” added the lawyer, taking another document from his pocket, “if you chose to make me your heir—”

  “You? You? Never!” shrieked Jacob, shaking his fist. “All shall go to Hagar, the namesake of my dead wife. I’m glad you had the sense to see that, failing Jimmy, I’d leave her my money.”

  “Mr. Dix,” interrupted Hagar, firmly, “I do not want your money; and you have no right to rob your son of—”

  “No right! No right, you jade! The money is mine! mine! It shall be yours. I could have forgiven anything to Jimmy save his wish to poison me.”

  “I don’t believe he did wish it,” said Hagar, bluntly.

  “But the paper—his own handwriting!” cried Vark.

  “Yes, yes; I know Jimmy’s handwriting,” said Jacob, the veins in his forehead swelling with rage. “He is a devil—a par—par—!” The violence of his temper was such that Hagar stepped forward to soothe him. Even Vark felt alarmed.

  “Keep quiet, you old fool!” said he, roughly; “you’ll break a blood-vessel! Here, sign this will. I’ll witness it; and—” He stopped, and whistled shrilly. A man appeared. “Here is another witness,” said Vark. “Sign!”

  “It’s a plot! a plot!” cried Hagar. “Don’t sign, Mr. Dix. I don’t want the money.”

  “I’ll make you take it, hussy!” snarled Jacob, crushing the will up in his hand. “I shall leave it to you—not to Jimmy, the parricide. First I’ll destroy this.” With the old will he approached the fire, and threw it in. With the swiftness of a swallow Hagar darted past him and snatched the document away from the flames before it was even scorched. Jacob staggered back, mad with rage. Vark ground his teeth at her opposition. The stranger witness looked stolidly on.

  “No!” cried Hagar, slipping the will into her pocket. “You shall not disinherit your son for me!”

  “Give—give—will!” panted Jacob, and, almost inarticulate with rage, he stretched out his hand. Before he could draw it back he reeled and fell; a torrent of blood poured from his mouth. He was dead.

  “You fool!” shrieked Vark, stamping. “You’v
e lost a fortune!”

  “I’ve saved my honesty!” retorted Hagar, aghast at the sudden death. “Jimmy shall have the money.”

  “Jimmy! Jimmy!” sneered Vark, wrathfully. “Do you know who Jimmy is?”

  “Yes—the rightful heir!”

  “Quite so, you jade—and the red-haired Goliath who drove you to this pawn-shop!”

  “It is a lie!”

  “It is the truth! You have robbed yourself to enrich your enemy!”

  Hagar looked at the sneering face of Vark; at the dead man lying at her feet; at the frightened countenance of the witness. She felt inclined to faint, but, afraid lest Vark should steal the will which she had in her pocket, she controlled herself with a violent effort. Before Vark could stop her, she rushed out of the room, and into her bedroom. The lawyer heard the key turn in the lock.

  “I’ve lost the game,” he said, moodily. “Go and get assistance, you fool!” this to the witness; then, when the man had fled away, he continued: “To give up all that money to the red-haired man whom she hated! The girl’s mad!”

  But she was only honest; therefore her conduct was unintelligible to Vark. So this was how Hagar Stanley came to take charge of the pawn-shop in Carby’s Crescent, Lambeth. Her adventures therein may be read hereafter.

  THE FIRST CUSTOMER AND THE FLORENTINE DANTE

  It has been explained otherwhere how Hagar Stanley, against her own interests, took charge of the pawn-shop and property of Jacob Dix during the absence of the rightful heir. She had full control of everything by the terms of the will. Jacob had made many good bargains in his life, but none better than that which had brought him Hagar for a slave—Hagar, with her strict sense of duty, her upright nature, and her determination to act honestly, even when her own interests were at stake. Such a character was almost unknown amongst the denizens of Carby’s Crescent.

  Vark, the lawyer, thought her a fool. Firstly, because she refused to make a nest-egg for herself out of the estate; secondly, because she had surrendered a fine fortune to benefit a man she hated; thirdly, because she declined to become Mrs. Vark. Otherwise she was sharp enough—too sharp, the lawyer thought; for with her keen business instinct, and her faculty for organizing and administering and understanding, he found it impossible to trick her in any way. Out of the Dix estate Vark received his due fees and no more, which position was humiliating to a man of his intelligence.

  Hagar, however, minded neither Vark nor any one else. She advertised for the absent heir, she administered the estate, and carried on the business of the pawn-shop; living in the back-parlor meanwhile, after the penurious fashion of her late master. It had been a shock to her to learn that the heir of the old pawnbroker was none other than Goliath, the red-haired suitor who had forced her to leave the gipsy camp. Still, her honesty would not permit her to rob him of his heritage; and she attended to his interests as though they were those of the man she loved best in the world. When Jimmy Dix, alias Goliath, appeared to claim the property, Hagar intended to deliver up all to him, and to leave the shop as poor as when she entered it. In the mean time, as the months went by and brought not the claimant, Hagar minded the shop, transacted business, and drove bargains. Also, she became the heroine of several adventures, such as the following:

  During a June twilight she was summoned to the shop by a sharp rapping, and on entering she found a young man waiting to pawn a book which he held in his hand. He was tall, slim, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a clever and intellectual face, lighted by rasher dreamy eyes. Quick at reading physiognomies, Hagar liked his appearance at the first glance, and, moreover, admired his good looks.

  “I—I wish to get some money on this book,” said the stranger in a hesitating manner, a flush invading his fair complexion; “could you—that is, will you—” He paused in confusion, and held out the book, which Hagar took in silence.

  It was an old and costly book, over which a bibliomaniac would have gloated.

  The date was that of the fourteenth century, the printer a famous Florentine publisher of that epoch; and the author was none other than one Dante Alighieri, a poet not unknown to fame. In short, the volume was a second edition of “La Divina Commedia,” extremely rare, and worth much money. Hagar, who had learnt many things under the able tuition of Jacob, at once recognized the value of the book; but with keen business instinct—notwithstanding her prepossession concerning the young man—she began promptly to disparage it.

  “I don’t care for old books,” she said, offering it back to him. “Why not take it to a secondhand bookseller?”

  “Because I don’t want to part with it. At the present moment I need money, as you can see from my appearance. Let me have five pounds on the book until I can redeem it.”

  Hagar, who already had noted the haggard looks of this customer, and the threadbare quality of his apparel, laid down the Dante with a bang. “I can’t give five pounds,” she said bluntly. “The book isn’t worth it!”

  “Shows how much you know of such things, my girl! It is a rare edition of a celebrated Italian poet, and it is worth over a hundred pounds.”

  “Really?” said Hagar, dryly. “In that case, why not sell?”

  “Because I don’t want to. Give me five pounds.”

  “No; four is all that I can advance.”

  “Four ten,” pleaded the customer.

  “Four,” retorted the inexorable Hagar. “Or else—”

  She pushed the book towards him with one finger. Seeing that he could get nothing more out of her, the young man sighed and relented. “Give me the four pounds,” he said, gloomily. “I might have guessed that a Jewess would grind me down to the lowest.”

  “I am not a Jew, but a gipsy,” replied Hagar, making out the ticket.

  “A gipsy!” said the other, peering into her face. “And what is a Romany lass doing in this Levitical tabernacle?”

  “That’s my business!” retorted Hagar, curtly. “Name and address?”

  “Eustace Lorn, 4: Castle Road,” said the young man, giving an address near at hand. “But I say—if you are true Romany, you can talk the calo jib.”

  “I talk it with my kind, young man; not with the Gentiles.”

  “But I am a Romany Rye.”

  “I’m not a fool, young man! Romany Ryes don’t live in cities for choice.”

  “Nor do gipsy girls dwell in pawn-shops, my lass!”

  “Four pounds,” said Hagar, taking no notice of this remark; “there it is, in gold; your ticket also—number eight hundred and twenty. You can redeem the book whenever you like, on paying six per cent interest. Good night.”

  “But I say,” cried Lorn, as he slipped money and ticket into his pocket, “I want to speak to you, and—”

  “Good night, sir,” said Hagar, sharply, and vanished into the darkness of the shop. Lorn was annoyed by her curt manner and his sudden dismissal; but as there was no help for it, he walked out into the street.

  “What a handsome girl!” was his first thought; and “What a spitfire!” was his second.

  After his departure, Hagar put away the Dante, and, as it was late, shut up the shop. Then she retired to the back-parlor to eat her supper—dry bread-and-cheese with cold water—and to think over the young man. As a rule, Hagar was far too self-possessed to be impressionable; but there was something about Eustace Lorn—she had the name pat—which attracted her not a little. From the short interview she had not learnt much of his personality. He was poor, proud, rather absent-minded; and—from the fact of his yielding to her on the question of price—rather weak in character. Yet she liked his face, the kindly expression of his eyes, and the sweetness of his mouth. But after all he was only a chance customer; and—unless he returned to redeem the Dante—she might not see him again. On this thought occurring to her, Hagar called common-sense to her aid, and strove to banish the y
oung man’s image from her mind. The task was more difficult than she thought.

  A week later, Lorn and his pawning of the book were recalled to her mind by a stranger who entered the shop shortly after midday. This man was short, stout, elderly, and vulgar. He was much excited, and spoke badly, as Hagar noted when he laid a pawn-ticket number eight hundred and twenty on the counter.

  “ ’Ere, girl,” said he in rough tones, “gimme the book this ticket’s for.”

  “You come from Mr. Lorn?” asked Hagar, remembering the Dante.

  “Yes; he wants that book. There’s the brass. Sharp, now, young woman!”

  Hagar made no move to get the volume, or even to take the money. Instead of doing either, she asked a question. “Is Mr. Lorn ill, that he could not come himself?” she demanded, looking keenly at the man’s coarse face.

  “No; but I’ve bought the pawn-ticket off him. ’Ere, gimme the book!”

  “I cannot at present,” replied Hagar, who did not trust the looks of this man, and who wished, moreover, to see Eustace again.

  “Dash yer imperance! Why not?”

  “Because you did not pawn the Dante; and as it is a valuable book, I might get into trouble if I gave it into other hands than Mr. Lorn’s.”

  “Well, I’m blest! There’s the ticket!”

  “So I see; but how do I know the way you became possessed of it?”

  “Lorn gave it me,” said the man, sulkily, “and I want the Dante!”

  “I’m sorry for that,” retorted Hagar, certain that all was not right, “for no one but Mr. Lorn shall get it. If he isn’t ill, let him come and receive it from me.”

  The man swore and completely lost his temper—a fact which did not disturb Hagar in the least. “You may as well clear out,” she said, coldly. “I have said that you shan’t have the book, so that closes the question.”

  “I’ll call in the police!”

  “Do so; there’s a station five minutes’ walk from here.”