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Rogues and Vagabonds

by George R. Sims · English · Gutenberg #46443 · 806,634 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Rogues and Vagabonds

Author: George R. Sims


        
Release date: July 29, 2014 [eBook #46443]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46443

Credits: David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROGUES AND VAGABONDS ***

ROGUES AND VAGABONDS

By George R. Sims


Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly

1892

[Illustration]

[Illustration]


To My Good Friends, Agostino and Stefano Gatti, This Story, Now First
Published in Novel Form, Is Gratefully


CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I. THE WRECK OF THE ‘BON ESPOIR.’

 CHAPTER II. TOPSEY TURVEY SEES A GHOST.

 CHAPTER III. MR. EDWARD MARSTON MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.

 CHAPTER IV. NO. FIFTEEN, LITTLE QUEER STREET.

 CHAPTER V. MISS DUCK HAS A WORD TO SAY.

 CHAPTER VI. AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.

 CHAPTER VII. A CHAT OVER OLD TIMES.

 CHAPTER VIII. MR. DUCK’S NEW LODGERS.

 CHAPTER IX. CONCERNING GERTIE HECKETT, A KIND LADY, A GOOD DOG, AND A
 WICKED BIRD.

 CHAPTER X. IN WHICH GRIGG AND LIMPET EXPLAIN.

 CHAPTER XI. A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN.

 CHAPTER XII. GOES INTO A LITTLE FAMILY HISTORY.

 CHAPTER XIII. THE MASTER OF EDEN VILLA.

 CHAPTER XIV. JABEZ SEES THE GHOST.

 CHAPTER XV. MR. GURTH EGERTON COMES TO LIFE.

 CHAPTER XVI. LIMPET, JUNIOR, TRANSACTS SOME BUSINESS.

 CHAPTER XVII. SMITH AND CO. AT WORK.

 CHAPTER XVIII. THE FORGED CHEQUE.

 CHAPTER XIX. GERTIE MAKES A PROMISE.

 CHAPTER XX. GERTIE MAKES A DISCOVERY.

 CHAPTER XXI. GURTH EGERTON BECOMES AMBITIOUS.

 CHAPTER XXII. MR. JABEZ DISSEMBLES.

 CHAPTER XXIII. THE ADRIANS AT HOME.

 CHAPTER XXIV. OLD SWEETHEARTS.

 CHAPTER XXV. GEORGE HAS ‘THE STRAIGHT TIP.’

 CHAPTER XXVI. PECULIAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR. SETH PREENE.

 CHAPTER XXVII. THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN.

 CHAPTER XXVIII. SQUIRE HERITAGE MAKES A WILL.

 CHAPTER XXIX. THE BURGLARY AT THE HALL.

 CHAPTER XXX. HOW FATHER AND SON MET AGAIN.

 CHAPTER XXXI. IS SLIGHTLY RETROSPECTIVE.

 CHAPTER XXXII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

 CHAPTER XXXIII. HUNTED DOWN.

 CHAPTER XXXIV. A BUNCH OF VIOLETS.

 CHAPTER XXXV. MRS. ADRIAN’S CONVERSION.

 CHAPTER XXXVI. RIVALS.

 CHAPTER XXXVII. SMITH AND CO. START IN A NEW LINE.

 CHAPTER XXXVIII. RUTH ANSWERS A LETTER.

 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE GOLD ROBBERY.

 CHAPTER XL. THE ADRIANS GO OUT TO TEA.

 CHAPTER XLI. AN AFTERNOON CALL.

 CHAPTER XLII. A DUEL OF WORDS.

 CHAPTER XLIII. THE GREAT BLANKSHIRE BANK.

 CHAPTER XLIV. A JOURNEY’S END.

 CHAPTER XLV. A FRIEND IN NEED.

 CHAPTER XLVI. SMITH AND CO. DISSOLVE PARTNERSHIP.

 CHAPTER XLVII. MR. JABEZ MAKES A DISCOVERY.

 CHAPTER XLVIII. MR. SETH PREENE EXECUTES A LITTLE COMMISSION.

 CHAPTER XLIX. MR. MARSTON GOES TO CHURCH.

 CHAPTER L. FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.

 CHAPTER LI. EXIT EDWARD MARSTON.

 CHAPTER LII. AN ESCAPED CONVICT.

 CHAPTER LIII. SHAKSPEARE’S NURSE.

 CHAPTER LIV. AT HERITAGE HALL.

 CHAPTER LV. THE ARREST.

 CHAPTER LVI. A RESCUE.

 CHAPTER LVII. SQUIRE HERITAGE HAS A BAD ATTACK.

 CHAPTER LVIII. DR. OLIVER BIRNIE’S NEW PATIENT.

 CHAPTER LIX. A VISITOR FOR RUTH.

 CHAPTER LX. A SECRET MEETING.

 CHAPTER LXI. A LATE VISITOR FOR MR. EGERTON.

 CHAPTER LXII. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.

 CHAPTER LXIII. EDWARD MARSTON GOES HOME.

 CHAPTER LXIV. GURTH AND HECKETT.

 CHAPTER LXV. MR. JABEZ DUCK DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF AT LAST.

 CHAPTER LXVI. BESS MAKES A CONFESSION.

 CHAPTER LXVII. GERTIE’S BIBLE.

 CHAPTER LXVIII. GERTIE GAINS HER HERITAGE.

 CHAPTER LXIX. AND LAST.




CHAPTER I.
THE WRECK OF THE ‘BON ESPOIR.’


The ship was going down!

The sky was cloudless, the sun rode high in the heavens, and the waves
glistened in the clear, bright light. It was a glorious summer day—a
time when life pulsed joyously, and everything invited a man to forget
his troubles, close his eyes, and lie basking in the warmth.

A soft, invigorating breeze fanned the pallid cheeks of the eager
watchers; the eyes worn with long vigils glistened in the silver light
that fell on them; the glowing orb above sent its rays upon haggard
faces and seemed to make them smile.

The ship was going down—going down in a calm sea. Here, shut off from
all human aid—here, with no one to know the secret of that last hour of
anguish and despair—Death had come to the fifty souls left on board the
_Bon Espoir._ They were alone upon the trackless ocean. Around them lay
leagues of lonely water. Their fate would be a mystery. As the weeks
went on, and no tidings came of the ship, her name would be upon every
tongue, and strange conjectures as to her fate would drop from
thousands of lips.

The world would picture the good ship caught in some furious tempest,
dashed to pieces, and engulfed amid the roar of the billows, the
howling of the wind, and the wild cries for help of terror-stricken
men.

But there was no tempest, no wind to howl—only a gentle zephyr, that
kissed the men’s checks as gently as their mothers did in their happy
childhoods; no billows to seethe—only little playful wavelets that
lapped against the ship’s side gently, and seemed to say, ‘You are
ours; presently we shall dance and sport above you, and toss your
bodies softly to and fro in the merry sunshine.’

A night had passed since the crew and passengers of the _Bon Espoir_
knew they were doomed. She had sprung a leak in midocean on the
previous night, in a lonely part, far out of the regular track, where
for weeks and weeks never a sail might be seen.

The night was dark.

The sea was rough, and there had been a panic. The boats had been
filled with passengers and some of the crew at once. The captain had
shouted to them to keep near the ship, but the order had been
disobeyed. When the light dawned those on board the _Bon Espoir_
scanned the horizon, and saw no floating thing upon the waves.

A light mist hung like a veil over the waters, narrowing their range of
vision. The wind had sunk, the waves were at rest, and the sun bursting
through the mist gleamed upon a vast expanse of smiling sea.

Those who had stuck to the ship, hoping against hope that she might
keep afloat yet until they fell into the track of other vessels, took
counsel together and talked of a raft when every effort to save the
vessel had been found useless.

But they were in a latitude where the storm came swiftly on the calm;
where, with little warning, the baby waves swelled into gigantic
billows, and the sighing zephyr, gathering sudden strength, shrieked
aloud and lashed the sea to fiercest fury.

The sailors who remained were principally foreigners. They had remained
on the ship all night, refusing to work when they found the water
gaining on them. They had gone below, torn their hair, beaten their
breasts, cried aloud to the saints. Then they attacked the spirit
store, and drank till they reeled down and slept a brutish, drunken
sleep where they lay.

The passengers still left were all men, but unskilled. Without the aid
of the sailors they could not make a raft. The sailors were not in a
condition to move—certainly not to work. They had resigned themselves
to their fate now. That strange sense of calm which comes mercifully
even to cowards when hope is absolutely dead had fallen on them all.

They stood leaning over the ship’s sides, waiting for the end, their
faces pale, their eyes haggard, and their thoughts far away.

Some of them had wives and children at home, and the images of their
beloved ones rose up before them. They seemed to pierce the space and
see the place that would know them no more. One man whispered to those
who stood near him that he had heard his little boy cry “Father!” and
another said that in the night he had seen his wife hearing his little
ones their prayers, and when they said “God bless papa!” she looked up,
and her eyes were filled with tears.

There were yet some hours between them and death, and they could still
talk to each other.

It seemed a relief to do so; it created a companionship in misery; they
cheered each other with their voices.

There was a clergyman among the passengers, and, as the captain went
away to his post after a few last words of encouragement to the little
band, the reverend gentleman asked their attention for a moment.

Earnestly and calmly, as became an English gentleman in the presence of
death, the man of God prayed to the Throne of Grace for strength and
sustenance in this hour of supreme peril. Briefly he addressed his
little flock of doomed ones, and then went his way, deeming the last
moments of his fellow-voyagers sacred to themselves.

As he was walking quietly aft, he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

He turned, and found that one of the passengers had followed him. He
was a quiet, gentlemanly man, who had hardly spoken to any one during
the voyage. He was tall, dark, and well built, apparently a man of five
or six and thirty. The face was pleasing at first glance, the features
being well cut, and not too prominent. But on a closer inspection the
defects were apparent. The lips were sensual; the eyes had that strange
look which one sees in the hunted animal. The fear of something behind
was apparent upon the face the moment the features were disturbed from
their repose. A dark moustache covered the too thick upper lip, and the
rest of the face was bronzed with long travel and exposure to sun and
sea. One thing would instantly attract the attention of the ordinary
observer—the strange way in which “indecision” was expressed in his
countenance. His eyes and his lips would have revealed the secret of
his character to a physiognomist at once.

He had evidently made up his mind in a hurry to say something to the
clergyman. Directly that gentleman turned kindly, and asked what
service he could render him, he hesitated.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, after a pause; ‘but can I speak with you
alone?’

They walked to a deserted part of the ship.

‘I am going to make an extraordinary statement to you,’ said the
passenger, his undecided eyes now looking in the clergyman’s face and
now resting on the deck; ‘but I think I ought to. You are a clergyman,
and I know no one better to whom in the hour of death I can confess a
secret that should not die with me.’

The clergyman surveyed his interviewer earnestly for a moment.

‘Is it a crime?’ he asked.

The passenger nodded.

‘I don’t want to die with it on my mind,’ he murmured. ‘I fancy when
the—the end comes, I shall die easier.’

‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, kindly, ‘do not imagine that a
confession at the last moment takes guilt from the soul. To confess a
crime to one who is about to share your fate is, perhaps, rather a
superstitious than a religious deed. Let us understand each other. We
both believe that we are about to die. You confess to me, perhaps
thinking that no possible harm can come to you from it—that you run no
such risk as you would in confessing under other circumstanccs.’

‘I haven’t thought about that,’ answered the passenger, almost in a
whisper. ‘Let me tell some human being my secret, and it will at least
be off my mind. I feel as if the secret would choke me if I kept it any
longer. I cannot die with murder on my soul.’

‘Murder!’ exclaimed the clergyman, starting back; then, recovering
himself, he added, ‘Speak on; but I warn you that whatever you tell me,
should we, by the Lord’s will, be saved, I will keep as no secret.
Neither shall you deny it. Write.’

The clergyman drew out his pocket-book, and handed it, with a pencil,
to the passenger.

The latter hesitated.

Presently, with a supreme effort, he wrote:—

‘On board the _Bon Espoir_.

‘The ship is sinking rapidly. I, Gurth Egerton, believing that I am
about to die, do solemnly declare that on the night of the 15th of
September, 18—, I stabbed my cousin, Ralph Egerton, in a
gambling-house, kept by a man named Heckett, and that the wound proved
fatal. I freely make this confession, and may God forgive me.

‘Signed, Gurth Egerton.’

The clergyman took the book from him and read it. Then he wrote
something beneath it.

The confession once made, a swift revulsion of feeling came over Gurth
Egerton. He reached out his hand, as though he would have snatched it
back.

The clergyman closed the book and thrust it into his pocket.

‘Unhappy sinner!’ he said; ‘even now you repent the acknowledgment of
your awful crime. Pray, for your time is short. Remember, should God
spare me, I will use every effort to bring you to justice.’

As the last words left his lips, and Gurth Egerton, with a white face,
was about to turn away, a loud cry rang out from the look-out man.

‘A sail! A sail!’

The doomed men rushed to the side of the vessel and strained their
eyes. In that wild moment of sudden hope all was forgotten. Gurth
Egerton flew to the vessel’s side.

Yes. Far away in the distance, but still visible, were the white sails
of a ship.

Hope sprang up with renewed vigour in every breast. Strong men laughed
and cried and hugged each other. A strange delirium animated them.

One or two of the sailors awoke from their drunken sleep, and came
staggering on deck.

The excitement was at its height, each man shouting above his neighbour
what was to be done to attract the passing ship’s attention, when
suddenly the vessel heeled over, there was a gurgling sound, the roar
and rush of a huge volume of water pouring in, and then down like a
stone, to the depths of the ocean, went the _Bon Espoir._


The waves danced and glittered in the sunlight. Over the spot where the
ship and her living freight had sunk the blue waves closed, and there
was nothing to tell of their vanished prey.

A bottle bobbed about, carried now here now there by the playful waves.
As the _Bon Espoir_ sank, the clergyman’s hand had hurled it far out to
sea. It contained a leaf torn from his pocket-book.

The ship _Diana_, bound for Baltimore, sailed late that afternoon over
the spot where the _Bon Espoir_ had sunk.

A sailor who was in the rigging cried out that he could see something
that looked like a barrel floating in the sea some distance away.

A boat was manned and put off.

In half an hour it returned with a strange story.

To the barrel they had seen in the water clung a man in the last stage
of exhaustion. They had released him, and brought him with them.

Tenderly the sailors lifted a half-drowned body from the stern of the
boat, and it was hoisted on board.

The surgeon of the _Diana_ took it in charge, and pronounced it to be
still alive.

Presently the half-drowned man opened his eyes.

‘What ship?’ asked the captain, when he had recovered sufficiently to
speak.

‘From the _Bon Espoir_,’ answered the man, feebly. ‘She sprang a leak
and went down.’

‘Who are you?’

The man hesitated a moment. His senses were evidently half scattered.

‘My name is George Englehardt, of Philadelphia,’ he said presently.

Then he looked round anxiously.

‘Are there any saved except me?’ he asked, in a faint whisper.

‘Not a soul.’

The man heaved a deep sigh, and relapsed once more into
unconsciousness.




CHAPTER II.
TOPSEY TURVEY SEES A GHOST.


I don’t imagine that Mrs. Turvey had ever read Cowper: in fact, it is
exceedingly improbable that Mrs. Turvey’s poetical readings had ever
extended beyond the works of the late lamented Dr. Watts. This talented
author had, it is pretty certain, come under her notice, for it is on
record that she once reprimanded her niece, Topsey, for putting her
fingers into the marmalade-pot, by telling her that—



‘Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.’




And fancying that this solemn warning by itself might not be
sufficient, she had added to it a picture of the delights of an active
life by requesting Topsey to contemplate the habits of the busy bee,
who ‘improves each shining hour by gathering honey all the day from
every opening flower.’ A quotation which was singularly inapt under the
circumstance, for, substitute marmalade for honey, and open jam-pot for
opening flower, and Topsey had been really doing her best to imitate
the bright example aforesaid.

Topsey might have retorted to this effect had she been a sharp child,
but unfortunately she was not. So she just wiped her sticky little
fingers on her pinafore, looked up with a roguish smile at her ‘aunty,’
and darted from the room, to find as much mischief (or marmalade) as
she could elsewhere.

Mrs. Turvey and Topsey, her twelve-year-old niece, were the sole
inhabitants of a great old-fashioned house in a street near Russell
Square. Mrs. Turvey was housekeeper to Mr. Gurth Egerton, a gentleman
who was travelling abroad for the benefit of his health, and feeling
lonely with fourteen rooms all to herself, not to speak of cellars,
dark corners, and gloomy passages, she had, in an evil hour, obtained
permission of her brother, a widower and a railway guard, to take his
little daughter into her keeping, and so have the echoes of the
desolate mansion occasionally awakened with a human voice.

Topsey woke the echoes, and no mistake. The echoes had a bad time of it
if they were at all sleepy echoes. They did have forty winks now and
then in the day, when Topsey ran errands; but as a rule they were only
allowed to drop off and take their natural rest when Topsey took
hers—at night.

See what a mischievous little thing this Topsey is. She has actually
kept Cowper waiting while we are attending to her.

Let us hark back to Cowper and Mrs. Turvey at once.

There is a well-known passage in ‘The Winter’s Evening,’ which I never
read, even on a hot June day, without wishing it was a winter’s
evening, and I could take the poet’s advice. Thus it runs:—



‘Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in.’




Now Mrs. Turvey, I will venture to say, had never read this charming
piece of advice, but she was certainly putting it into practice. It
_was_ a winter’s evening, singularly enough, and she had stirred the
fire, closed the shutters fast, and let fall the curtains. The table
stood too near the fire for a sofa, to be wheeled round, but three
chairs were set in nice convenient places, the urn was bubbling and
hissing away as cheerily as possible, and three cups and saucers stood
waiting in a quiet and contented manner to take their proper part in
the programme of the evening’s entertainment.

Cowper doesn’t mention muffins, beautifully browned and lavishly
buttered, standing on the hob, and he is discreetly silent as to a
glass dish of home-made marmalade. Neither can I discover any reference
to a fat black pussy dozing, the picture of sleek contentment, on the
hearthrug. In these particulars Mrs. Turvey had, I make bold to assert,
improved upon the poet. But then Cowper only proposed to welcome the
evening in. Mrs. Turvey’s welcome was designed for something with a
more substantial appetite.

Don’t imagine I intend to convey that Mrs. Turvey’s visitor was going
to eat the cat. That was always on the hearthrug. The marmalade and the
muffins were the specialities which denoted the expected advent of
company.

There were _three_ cups and saucers set. Now, allotting one to Mrs.
Turvey and one to Topsey, we might, by setting our wits to work, arrive
at the conclusion that only one visitor was expected. Our wits would
have performed the task confided to them most creditably if this was
the result of their labour, for there is a knock at the door, and
presently Topsey, who has been upstairs on the _qui vive_, comes
dancing down into the housekeeper’s little room with the intelligence
that ‘He’s come.’

‘He’ follows very closely at Miss Topsey’s heels. ‘He’ is a fat,
smiling gentleman of fifty, and so shining that it seems almost a waste
to burn the gas when he is in the room.

His bald head shines, his face shines, his coat shines, his boots
shine, his buttons shine, his black stock shines, and his old-fashioned
stand-up collar shines.

He smiles a sweet smile at Mrs. Turvey, and when he opens his mouth you
see that he has white shiny teeth.

‘You’re late, Mr. Jabez,’ says Mrs. Turvey, as, having shaken hands
with her visitor and motioned him to the tea-table, she seats herself
and prepares to do the honours.

‘Business, my dear madam, business. Nothing but business would have
made me late for this appointment, you may be sure,’ answers the
gentleman, shining all over his face, till he reflects the teapot and
the teapot reflects him.

‘Ah!’ sighs Mrs. Turvey, ‘business is a strange thing!’

‘Yes, my dear madam, it is, and never stranger than in our line.
Muffins—thank you; I adore muffins. I’ve been in our line thirty years,
Mrs Turvey, and our business gets stranger every day. Now our business
to-night, for instance——’

‘Ahem!’

Mr. Jabez is so suddenly interrupted by the warning eye of Mrs. Turvey
that he gives a little cough, and swallows a little piece of muffin,
and the redness which ensues, together with the extra shininess, makes
him look like a setting sun sinking slowly below the horizon of Mrs.
Turvey’s tea-table.

Mrs. Turvey’s glance has implied that the conversation is to be
deferred till Topsey is out of the room. Let us take advantage of the
lull in the conversation to properly introduce the worthy housekeeper’s
visitor.

Mr Jabez Duck is a clerk in the employ of that eminent firm of
solicitors, Messrs. Grigg and Limpet, Lincoln’s Inn. Messrs. Grigg and
Limpet are the family solicitors of Mr. Gurth Egerton, and have the
entire management of his affairs during his long absence abroad. Mr.
Duck is the clerk specially entrusted with this part of the firm’s
business, and occasions for visits to the house have from time to time
arisen.

Mr. Duck pays Mrs. Turvey her housekeeping allowance, sees her with
regard to accounts that are applied for, authorises repairs, and comes
occasionally to refer to papers and documents, or to see if they are in
the library of the firm’s absent client. This is the business part of
the acquaintanceship. But beyond this there is a little personal
friendship. Mrs. Turvey is a spinster, in spite of her matronly
appellation, and Mr. Duck is a bachelor. Mr. Duck stays occasionally to
take a friendly cup of tea after his business has been transacted.
Confidences have been exchanged; under the potent influence of the
cheering cup their hearts have been opened, and little secrets have
oozed out. Curiosity has been awakened on both sides, and the affairs
of the absent Mr. Egerton have become deeply interesting to them.

Mr. Duck has come to tea this evening by special invitation, for
something has occurred of the deepest interest. The firm have news of a
very startling character; and what more natural than that, having
called in the morning and hinted that he should perhaps have something
of great importance to communicate, Mr. Duck should have been requested
to come to tea that evening and have a quiet chat?

Mrs. Turvey hated to hear important intelligence on the doorstep, or to
have a secret imparted to her in the vulgar daylight, when brushes and
brooms were about. If there was a nice delightful mystery to be
revealed, or a little scandal to be whispered, let her drink it with
her tea, after her work was done, and when she could sit still and
enjoy it with muffin and marmalade.

Mr. Duck was quite of her opinion, and so the invitation had been
readily accepted.

The only difficulty was Topsey; but this, with great diplomacy, Mrs.
Turvey had got over.

The servant next door was going to the Polytechnic that evening, and
had promised to take Topsey with her directly Mrs. Turvey hinted that
her niece had few opportunities of going out, and she thought that the
ghost entertainment was one which, from an educational point of view,
no child should miss.

The glance with which Mrs. Turvey favoured Mr. Duck was therefore
intended to inform him that he was to hold his tongue on the important
matter for the present, but that by-and-by he would have an opportunity
of speaking unreservedly.

Mrs. Turvey had not calculated upon also sending the good man’s piece
of muffin the wrong way. That was an unforeseen contingency, from
which, however, Mr. Duck speedily recovered, and shone as placidly as
ever.

When tea was over, and Topsey had been packed off to see the ghost,
with instructions not only for the evening but for her entire conduct
in life, with many warnings not to tumble under ‘buses or to leave go
her friend’s hand, and with strict injunctions not to get entangled in
any machinery that might happen to be going at the Polytechnic, Mrs.
Turvey settled herself down and prepared to hear Mr. Duck’s narrative.

Mr. Duck commenced by solemnly lifting his eyes to the ceiling, and
exclaiming, in dramatic tones:

‘Mrs. Turvey, madam, Mr. Gurth Egerton is there!’

Mrs. Turvey started up with a little scream, and glanced in amazement
at the ceiling. Then she looked at Mr. Duck, to see if he was in his
right senses.

‘Where?’ she gasped, presently.

‘In heaven, ma’am,’ answered the gentleman; then, dropping his voice
and glancing significantly at the carpet, he added, ‘I trust he’s not
_there_.’

‘Lawks a mercy, Mr. Duck, how awful! You don’t mean to say that the
master’s dead?’

‘I don’t say positively he is, ma’am, and I can’t say positively that
he is not, but the chances are that he is _there_ now.’ Mr. Duck had
glanced at the carpet as he spoke, but he instantly corrected the
mistake, and looked up solemnly at the ceiling.

‘Mr. Duck,’ said Mrs. Turvey, half crying, ‘don’t trifle with my
feelings. I’ve been alone in this house so long, I’ve lost all the
nerve I ever had. If the master’s dead I’d rather not stop here. I
shouldn’t like to be in a dead man’s house. He was never easy in his
life, poor man, and—and——’

‘And he’s just one of those men you’d expect to come wandering about
his house after death—eh, Mrs. Turvey?’

‘Well,’ answered the lady, glancing uneasily round, ‘it’s a dreadful
thing to say, but I always did believe, and I always shall believe, as
the master had—had——’

‘Had something on his conscience that wouldn’t let him rest. Exactly,
Mrs. Turvey.’

‘Lor’ how you do catch me up. Well, yes. It’s no good mincing matters.
But how and where did he die?’

‘How and where we can’t exactly tell,’ answered Mr. Duck; ‘but from
information received, as they say at Scotland Yard, he left America in
the _Bon Espoir_, that was wrecked last summer; and as he has never
been heard of since, the conclusion is obvious.’

‘But he might not have come in the _Boney’s Paw_.’

‘We are certain that he did sail in her. The information that he was
among the passengers reached our firm only this week, though the wreck
took place six months ago. But the information is correct; the owners
confirm it upon application.’

‘But he may be heard of yet. There were some persons saved.’

‘Every one of them is accounted for. The boats were all picked up, and
the passengers our firm have written to all state that a Mr. Gurth
Egerton was on board. The _Diana_ passed the scene of the wreck, and
reported, on her arrival at Baltimore, that she had saved one
passenger—a Mr. George Englehardt. Besides, if he had been saved we
should, of course, have heard from him. Dr. Birnie was his intimate
friend, and is left executor to the will. Dr. Birnie agrees with the
firm that Mr. Gurth Egerton went down, my dear Mrs. Turvey, in the _Bon
Espoir_.’

When she realised that her master was actually dead, Mrs. Turvey felt
she ought to cry, and she begged Mr. Duck to excuse her while she did
so. What was to become of her? She’d lived in the house this ten years,
first as servant and then as housekeeper, and of course it wouldn’t be
kept on. Oh, it was very dreadful, and she didn’t know what she should
do.

Mr. Duck let her have a good cry, and then he shone upon her. ‘My poor
soul,’ he said, when the paroxysm was over, ‘you distress yourself
needlessly. I think I may tell you, without a breach of confidence,
that you are provided for. The will was opened by the firm to-day.’

Mrs. Turvey sobbed again.

Mr. Duck edged his chair a little nearer to her. ‘Susan,’ he said,
softly, ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so abruptly but for this. Oh, Susan,
you need never want a home.’

Mrs. Turvey looked up through her tears and beheld the shining face of
Messrs. Grigg and Limpet’s clerk so close to hers that it almost made
her blink. At least that must have been the reason that she turned her
head away.

Mr. Duck took her hand.

‘Susan,’ he said, pressing the imprisoned member gently against his
shiny satin waistcoat, ‘don’t spurn me. You are alone in the world now,
but I can offer you a shelter.



Come, weep on my bosom, my own stricken deer,

Though the world all turn from thee, thy shelter is here.




Those are lines, Susan, which I composed myself the first time I saw
you, but which I dared not utter till now.’

The stricken deer sighed, but declined to weep upon the shiny bosom of
her adorer.

‘It is very sudden,’ she faltered. ‘I—I really never thought there was
anything——’

Jabez assured her there had always been a suspicion; that now it had
ripened into a fact.

For an hour or more the conversation was a mixture of poetical
quotations, business suggestions, reminiscences of Mr. Gurth Egerton,
and tender declarations in Mr. Duck’s shiniest and sweetest manner.

Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door.

Mrs. Turvey jumped up from her chair and straightened her cap.

‘Who is it?’ exclaimed Mr. Duck, nervously.

‘Why, it must be Topsey,’ said the lady, after a moment’s thought.
‘Dear me! I’d no idea it was so late. I think you’d better go, Mr.
Duck.’

‘And when shall I call again, Susan?—for your answer.’

Mr. Duck showed his shiny teeth and rolled his shiny eyes so sweetly
that Mrs. Turvey could not resist him any more.

‘To-morrow, Jabez.’

There was a soft sound as of the sudden collision of a pair of lips and
a cheek, and then Mrs. Turvey, followed by Mr. Duck, went upstairs to
the front door.

It was Topsey brought back. Mr. Duck bade Mrs. Turvey good-night on the
steps as though nothing had happened, for Topsey’s sharp little ears
were open, and he went off whistling ‘’Tis my delight on a shiny
night,’ and Topsey went downstairs with her aunt.

She was full of the ghost. She acted the ghost. She showed her aunty
how the ghost looked, and how it rose mysteriously from nothing and
walked towards its victim.

Mrs. Turvey did not enter very heartily into the scene. She did not
like ghosts at any time, but to-night, when her master’s death had been
so suddenly communicated to her, she positively hated ghosts.

Do what she would, she could not shake off the idea that she was in a
dead man’s house. All the stories of uneasy spirits visiting their
earthly dwelling-places floated across her brain, and presently she
turned sharply to the child, and told her not to chatter but to get
ready for bed.

They slept on the ground floor, in a room that had been a servant’s
room in the days when Mr. Egerton kept up an establishment.

Now in her confusion at parting with her elderly admirer right under
Topsey’s watchful eye, Mrs. Turvey had forgotten to fasten up the front
door. As a matter of fact, she had closed it so carelessly that the
lock had not caught at all.

She suddenly recollected her omission to examine the fastenings with
her usual care, so she sent Topsey to do it, while she got the bread
and cheese out of the larder for her frugal supper.

Topsey ran up and got half-way down the hall. Then she started back,
trembling in every limb. It was quite dark in the passage, but the door
was slowly swinging back on its hinges. As it opened and the pale light
of the street lamp wandered in, the figure of a man with a face ghastly
in the glare of the flickering illumination from without glided towards
her. Her brain was full of the ghost illusion she had seen that
evening. This was just how the apparition had walked.

Slowly it came nearer and nearer to her.

With a sudden effort the terrified child found her voice and gave a
wild cry.

‘Aunty!’ she shrieked. ‘Save me! The ghost! the ghost!’

Mrs. Turvey ran upstairs, terrified at the child’s cries.

She reached the hall, held up her arms, and fell down in a swoon.

The sea had given up its dead.

There, in the hall of his earthly dwelling, stood the ghost of Gurth
Egerton.




CHAPTER III.
MR. EDWARD MARSTON MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.


Now, gentlemen, please!’

The landlord of the Blue Pigeons had one eye on the clock and the other
on his customers. It wanted only five minutes to closing time, and the
patrons of the Blue Pigeons required a great deal of soft persuasion,
as a rule, before they shook themselves up from their free-and-easy
attitudes at the counter and on the benches, and filed out into the
street.

On this especial night there was every excuse for the apparent
inattention with which they received the landlord’s hint. Inside it was
warm and cheery, the brilliant gas flared upon polished pewter, and
gay-coloured glass, through the open door of the bar-parlour the ruddy
glare of the fire could be seen dancing on the hearth, and everything
was suggestive of warmth and light and comfort.

Outside—oh, what a night it was outside! The rain was coming down in
torrents, the streets were seas of slush, and every time the big door
swung open to admit a benighted traveller a roaring blast of east wind
followed him to give him a final buffet, and seemed to say, ‘Take that;
and I’ll give you another when you come out.’

It was no wonder the Blue Pigeons was crammed such a night as this; it
was no wonder that once under the hospitable portals, and sheltered
from the rain and the wind, the customers hesitated to leave the haven
behind them.

‘Now, gentlemen, please!’

This time the landlord put a little more determination into his warning
note, and gave the sign to the potman to lower the gas and fidget with
the front door.

Reluctantly the gentlemen and ladies drained their glasses, wiped their
lips, and shook themselves together preparatory to turning out into the
night. Coat-collars were turned up, shawls were flung over battered
bonnets, hands were thrust deep into trousers pockets, there was a
little laughing, more growling, and a great deal of swearing, mixed
with maudlin farewells and some rough horseplay, and then the motley
crowd of drinkers oozed through the swing doors, melted gradually, and
vanished.

Where to?

To foul alleys and rookeries, to cellars and human kennels, to low
lodging-houses and tumble-down hovels.

The lights of the Blue Pigeons go out one by one, silence steals over
the street, and the great crowd of drinkers separates, and each
component part of it wends his or her way to some place which is
‘home,’—some place—mean, vile, and awful though it be—which contains
the scanty household gods and something near and dear.

Although the Blue Pigeons is within a stone’s throw of the Seven Dials,
its immediate vicinity is wrapped in silence when the clock strikes
one. As a rule the sounds of revelry and riot linger in the narrow
streets long after the public has disgorged its prey, and men and women
stand about at the street corners, and joke and laugh and quarrel,
despite the rough injunction to move on bestowed upon them by the
especial policeman told off to superintend their conduct.

To-night the rain is so pitiless and the air so keen and merciless that
the lowest and meanest of the populace have hurried off to such shelter
as they can find. A thick fog, too, has begun to settle down upon the
scene of desolation, and it is not a time for the proverbial dog to be
out of doors.

But there is one customer who still hovers about the closed doors of
the “Blue Pigeons.”

He had been inside from nine until closing time, and has come out at
the last moment with the rest.

He had stood about unnoticed among the little groups, shifting about
from one to the other, and pretending to belong to them. In the Dials a
pot of beer does duty for a good many mouths sometimes, and neither the
landlord nor the potman noticed the stranger sufficiently to discover
that during the entire evening he had been enjoying the warmth and
light and the smell of the spirits and tobacco-smoke without spending
one penny for the good of the house.

Edward Marston hadn’t anything to spend or he would have spent it. He
had made a dive into the house to escape the storm, and it had
sheltered him for an hour or two. Now the doors were shut, and he was
out in the streets again—homeless! penniless!

‘I’m on my beam ends now, and no mistake,’ he said to himself. ‘What
the dickens am I to do? I suppose I’d better go and get quietly into
the river.’

He passed his hands over his soaked jacket, looked up at the sky and
laughed.

‘I don’t think I need go to the river,’ he muttered; ‘if I stay here a
little longer, I can be drowned where I am. I’ll look about for an arch
or a gateway; I may as well stand in the dry, if it doesn’t cost any
more than this.’

Edward Marston was a gentleman. You saw it in the face under the
shapeless billycock hat; you saw it in the thin hands that every now
and then wiped the rain-drops from his beard and moustache; you saw it
in his bearing as he stepped from the poor shelter of the Blue Pigeons
doorway and made a dart round the corner in search of a gateway.

He was evidently accustomed to something very like his present
position, and there was nothing startlingly new to him in the utter
emptiness of his pockets; but it was the first time he had been
homeless.

He had been in America for some years, having left his native land in a
hurry. He had returned a few weeks since, almost penniless, and tried
in vain to drift into some means of gaining a livelihood. Every avenue
was closed against him, for his past life was a sealed book, and he had
no one to speak a good word for him. So he had hung on to existence
till his last copper was spent, and now he was without even a shelter
for the night.

He had been turned out of his lodging that morning, and everything he
had had been detained for the four weeks’ rent which he had promised
again and again, and which he had never been able to pay.

A few papers had been all that he had been allowed to secure from his
scanty belongings, and these only because they were of no value to any
one but himself.

As he hurried round the corner in search of a convenient gateway in
which to spend the night, he drew his hands out of his trousers pockets
to shake from the brim of his hat a small pool of water which had begun
to trickle down his neck. He drew the lining of his pocket up at the
same time, and a piece of folded paper fell on the ground. He picked it
up, opened it, and read it.

It was an old acceptance, torn with lying long in folds and dirty with
being carried about.

‘Birnie’s acceptance for £500,’ said Marston, as he read it over. ‘Ten
years old, and not worth the paper it’s written on. I wonder how that
got in my trousers pocket, instead of being with the other papers! I
must have put it in in the hurry. I wonder whether Birnie’s alive or
dead! If he’s alive, I hope he’s as badly off as I am—curse him!’

He folded the old acceptance carefully, and put it back in his pocket.

‘Birnie owed me more than this when I left England. By Jove, if I had
the thousandth part of it now I should be happy. I could get out of
this confounded rain and lie quiet a bit. I wonder what’s become of the
old set—if they’ve all gone to the dogs, like I have! Egerton was a
queer fish, but he had rich relations. Ralph must have left a lot of
money behind him, and Gurth Egerton would have some of it by hook or by
crook. I wonder what the upshot of that affair was.

Walking along and thinking, with his eyes on the streaming streets, he
was suddenly aroused from his reverie by a vigorous ‘Hi, my man!’

A carriage, evidently a doctor’s brougham, was drawn up in the middle
of the roadway, and a gentleman was leaning out of the carriage window,
and shouting at him to arrest his attention.

‘Hi, my man!’ said the gentleman, peering through the fog, as Marston
looked up, ‘can you tell me which is Little Queer Street about here?
This fog makes all the streets look alike.’

‘No, I can’t,’ answered Marston; ‘I’m a stranger myself.’

‘Well, Would you mind looking for me? My coachman can’t see the names
written up at the corners from the road, and I can’t tramp up and down
the neighbourhood in the rain—I should get wet.’

‘What about me?’ asked Marston, with an offended tone in his voice.

The occupant of the carriage gave a short little laugh.

‘My good friend, I don’t think a little more rain will do you much
harm; you don’t appear to have been under an umbrella lately.’

Marston remembered that he was a penniless outcast, soaked to the skin;
for the moment he had forgotten it, and fancied he was a gentleman
walking home.

‘What do you want me to look for?’ he said, altering his tone.

‘Little Queer Street, No. 15; and if you find it I’ll give you a
shilling.’

Marston walked up one side street and down another, peering through the
fog towards those wonderful arrangements in white and black with which
the Board of Works are good enough to label the street corners, and
which are so high up and so small that an ordinary-sighted person
requires a ladder and a magnifying glass before he can tell what they
are, and at night even this would be insufficient unless accompanied by
an electric light.

After much wandering up and down, and straining of the eyeballs and
cross-examination of a solitary policeman, who was standing up out of
the wet, and enjoying a quiet pipe down a particularly deserted side
street, Marston discovered where Little Queer Street was, and
ascertained which side of the way and which end was honoured by the
presence of that No. 15, which was evidently about to be visited by a
gentleman who kept his carriage.

He came back with the intelligence, and communicated it to the
coachman.

‘Wait a minute, Cook, I haven’t rewarded this poor fellow for his
trouble,’ said the doctor, for the coachman was whipping up the horses,
without waiting for such a trifle.

The doctor fumbled first in his trousers pockets, then in his
waistcoat, and then in his overcoat.

‘Cook,’ he exclaimed, presently, ‘have you got a shilling?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Dear me, how very peculiar! no more have I. My good man I’m very
sorry—most extraordinary thing—but I’ve come out without any money.
Here, however, is my card. Call to-morrow and I will leave a shilling
with the servant for you. Drive on, Cook.’

Cook, the coachman, whipped up his horses and shot off, splashing
Marston with mud, and leaving him crestfallen and disappointed in the
middle of the road, with a card in his hand.

‘My luck!’ he said, as the light of the carriage vanished in the mist;
‘my infernal luck! That shilling would have been a bed and breakfast. I
earned that shilling, and I never wanted it more in my life. What the
dickens does a two-horse doctor do here, I wonder! I thought he was
sent by Providence to give me a shilling, at first. Bah! Providence
turned me up long ago. Let’s look at the card.’

He came out of the roadway, and stood under a lamp-post to read the
name of his debtor.

The light flickered and blew to and fro in the night air, and the rain,
driven against the glass, made a mist through which the rays fell
feebly. But feebly as they fell on the small piece of pasteboard and
the face of the man who read it, they showed the sudden gleam of joy
that flashed into his white damp face.

For a moment he stood speechless as one dazed; then he read the card
aloud, to make sure that he was not dreaming:

‘Dr. Oliver Birnie,

‘The Lodge,

‘Lilac Tree Road,

‘St. John’s Wood.’

‘Oliver Birnie!’ he exclaimed, triumphantly. ‘And keeps a carriage and
pair! By Jove! Providence has not deserted me. I’m glad I didn’t
recognise him in the dim light of carriage lamps, or I should have
cried out and betrayed myself. I can do better by waiting, perhaps. Ah,
Mr. Oliver Birnie! it isn’t a shilling I’ve earned to-night—it’s many
and many a golden pound. I’ve one bird safe, at any rate. Now I’ve only
Gurth Egerton to find. If he’s gone up in the world too, you are all
right for a little while, Ned Marston.’




CHAPTER IV.
NO. FIFTEEN, LITTLE QUEER STREET.


Little Queer Street, Seven Dials, is not a particularly nice street to
live in, but as every house in it is inhabited to the utmost extent of
its inhabitable capacity, it is evidently a street in which a great
many people are very glad to live.

Squalor and vice and misery, and everything that can make life
horrible, find their way into Little Queer Street, but fail to frighten
the inhabitants. Dirt they like—it suits them; most of them have been
brought up from infancy in close contact with it, and would feel
uncomfortable without it. As to vice and misery, they have seen so much
of them that any terror such things might once have possessed has long
since worn off. They may be real spectres to some people, but to them
they are only clumsy turnip-headed bogies, and he must be a very young
native of the locality indeed who would betray the suspicion of a
shudder at the sight of either.

All day long the muddy roadway is blocked with costers’ barrows, who
drive a roaring trade in cheap crockery, stale vegetables, doubtful
meat, and still more doubtful fish, which one class looks upon as
abominations, and another holds in high esteem as luxuries.

There are shops, too, in Little Queer Street. Such shops! Dusty, dirty,
barn-looking rooms, where sallow-faced women sit, dishevelled and
ragged, amid old boots and shoes, tumbled and dirty dresses, old coats,
and promiscuous heaps of cast-off wearing apparel.

Sometimes the shop is not large enough to contain the varied assortment
of ‘goods’ in which the proprietor deals, and a portion of the narrow
pavement is taken into the service.

Rows of boots—very much worn at the heels, and very shabby about the
uppers, but thickly coated with a blacking which is rather sticky than
shiny—stand in military array to tempt the shoeless.

But though the habits and customs and source of income of the
inhabitants of the lower portion of the houses in Little Queer Street
are thus openly demonstrated, the rest is all mystery. How the second,
third, and fourth floors get their living, what they are, and what they
do, it would be a difficult matter to explain. Most of them evidently
have very small incomes and very large families. There are more
children of all sizes and conditions in Little Queer Street than in any
other street in the United Kingdom.

Almost every female carries a baby, and some females carry two. There
are children in heaps at the corner of the street, children on the
doorsteps, children in the gutter, children under the wheels of hansom
cabs, up the lamp-posts, hanging over the window-sills, crowding the
staircases, lying in the areas, rolling with the cabbage-stalks under
the stalls, swarming and crawling all day long among the crowd,
laughing, crying, screaming, and playing, unheeded, uncared for,
unowned.

Their hair is rough and matted, their little hands are black with mud,
their faces are grimed with dirt, and often, alas! scarred with
disease. Sometimes they get lost, every now and then one or two will be
run over by a cab or a brewer’s dray, and sometimes an epidemic will
swoop down upon Little Queer Street, and thin the ranks of the great
gutter army, and make more room for the remainder.

All day long these human waifs loiter in the street, at the peril of
life and limb. They have no regular meal-times. They get a slice of
bread-and-butter, occasionally a slice of bread-and-treacle, at
irregular periods, and this constitutes their staple sustenance.

Many of them are turned out at seven, when mother and father go to
work, and called in again at whatever hour it may suit father and
mother to return. It is considered safer to leave them outside than in.
Out of doors they may get killed; indoors they might damage the
‘furniture’ or set fire to the house.

Two days after Edward Marston’s strange meeting with Dr. Birnie, a
little girl sat at one of the open doorways in Little Queer Street,
gazing vacantly at the busy scene around her. A stranger would have
been instantly attracted by the extraordinary appearance of her face.
_It was quite clean_. Her hair was neatly brushed, and over her plain
little brown merino frock she actually wore a white pinafore. Not only
would a stranger be struck with amazement at the phenomenal
appearance—a clean and tidy little girl on a Little Queer Street
door-step—but the inhabitants have been for a long time so struck with
it that Gertie Heckett, the child in question, has become quite a local
celebrity.

‘That gal ‘ll die a orful death,’ said Mrs. Maloney, of the fish-shop
at the corner, to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Moss. ‘Larst night she
came for a pen’orth o’ fried fish, and I guv her a ha’penny too much
change out o’ sixpence, and she guv it me back.’

‘Lor,’ replied Mrs. Moss, ‘you don’t say so! I fancy she can’t be quite
right ‘ere.’ And Mrs. Moss put a very dirty and very fat forefinger on
her matronly brow.

‘I don’t believe she’s old Heckett’s gal at all,’ added Mrs. Maloney,
as she stared hard across the road to the doorway where sat the
unconscious object of her criticism. ‘It’s my belief she’s been stole,
like the gal in the play as was a nobleman’s dorter, arter all.’

What Mrs. Moss would have replied to this suggestion can never be
known, for at this moment the attention of both ladies was attracted by
the very extraordinary conduct of the child in question.

Gertie Heckett, who had long been wistfully looking up the street,
suddenly leaped up and made a joyful dash at a gentleman who was
elbowing his way through the crowd.

He was a good-looking, well-dressed gentleman, of about
eight-and-thirty. Gertie Heckett’s pretty face lit up with pleasure the
moment she caught sight of him. She was by his side in a moment, and
looking up into his face with her wistful blue eyes.

‘Oh, Dr. Birnie, I’m so glad you ‘ve come. Grandfather’s worse—I’m sure
he is.’

‘What makes you think he’s worse, my child?’

‘Because he gets crosser and crosser, and’—here a flush of shame came
upon her cheeks and she held her head down—‘and because he swears at me
worse than ever.’

Dr. Birnie laughed. He didn’t notice the pained tone in which the child
made her confession.

‘Cross and swears, eh, little one? That’s a good sign, not a bad one.
People are always cross when they’re getting well.’

‘Oh, then I don’t mind his being cross; but, Dr. Birnie, will you be
very kind, and do me a favour?’

She looked up at the doctor timidly, as though she was taking a great
liberty.

‘A favour? Eh, what is it? Has your doll got the measles, or does Lion
want a cough mixture?’

The child laughed for a moment, tickled by the notion; but her face
resumed its serious expression again directly.

‘No, it isn’t that, Dr. Birnie; but I want you to ask grandfather not
to swear at me. It hurts me here.’

She put her hand on her heart, and spoke with such earnest emphasis,
that the doctor stopped on the threshold of the house, which they had
just reached, and looked earnestly in her face.

‘Poor little thing!’ he said, laying his hand kindly on her smoothly
plaited hair, ‘what a shame it is!’ Then, without answering Gertie
Heckett’s petition, he ran rapidly up the stairs, the child following
him.

Mr. Josh Heckett, the invalid, was in bed when the doctor entered; that
is, he was lying partially dressed, with a dirty counterpane flung over
him and the pillows propped up under his head. The said head was
covered with surgical bandages, and a considerable portion of the face
below was ‘discoloured and bruised. That Mr. Heckett was in pain was
evident, for every time he moved—and he was very restless—he drew
liberally from that well of Saxon, impure and defiled, which is so
largely patronized by the free-born Englishman who wishes to add force
to his conversation.

He was a strange-looking invalid, with his burly limbs and giant
strength lying prostrate, like a lightning-stricken oak, and he was
surrounded by strange companions. Round the walls, wherever a nail
could be driven, hung cages full of all sorts and conditions of birds,
from the parrot to the lark. Lying about on the floor, in various
attitudes of repose, were two toy terriers, a fox-hound, and a fierce
and exceptionally ugly bull-dog. A pretty King Charles spaniel, with a
litter of puppies, occupied an empty box in one of the corners, and
scattered about the room in picturesque confusion were rabbits in
hutches, squirrels in revolving cages, guinea-pigs, and white mice, and
a few other animals, who had rolled themselves up so completely into a
ball for their noonday siesta, that it was quite impossible to say what
they were until they condescended to disentangle their heads from their
tails.

The central figure of the group, however, was a splendid mastiff dog.
He lay at the foot of Heckett’s bed, a perfect picture of unstudied
grace. His leonine head was slightly on one side, as though listening
for a footstep, and his paws were crossed in front of him. His sleek
fawn coat shone like velvet, and spoke of some one’s constant care and
attention. There was something of contempt for the other inhabitants of
the room in the dog’s look at times. When the other dogs barked, he
would glare towards them with a lazy, sneering expression, as much as
to say, ‘Poor idiots! what are you frightened about?’ But suddenly he
became agitated himself, and sprang from the floor. He uttered a deep
growl, and crouched in an attitude of attack, There was a footstep on
the stairs. The door opened, and Dr Birnie walked in.

At sight of him the dog dropped his tail, and, growling, slunk back
into the corner of the room, with his eyes steadily fixed on the
doctor, half in dislike, half in fear.

‘Why don’t you teach that brute not to growl at me, Heckett?’ said Dr.
Birnie, seizing a rabbit-hutch by the bedside, and sitting on it, much
to the terror of the occupant.

‘It’s his natur,’ the man answered. ‘He don’t like you; he’s a very
good judge, is Lion—he knows my pals in a minute.’

‘I suppose you mean he knows your friends from your enemies?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then he ought not to growl at me. I’m one of your friends.’

‘You’re friendly as long as it suits yer purpose, that’s all.’

‘All right, Heckett; have it your own way. How’s the head?’

‘Orful; can’t sleep with it.’

‘Let’s look at it again.’

With a hand as gentle as a woman’s, Birnie removed the bandages, and
examined the wounded man.

After carefully looking at a rapidly healing wound, he put back the
strappings and the linen, and felt the patient’s pulse.

‘All right, Heckett, you’re going on well. You’ll be able to get out in
a week. By Jove! I thought it was all up with you that night you sent
for me in a hurry. I didn’t expect you’d live till the morning.’

‘But I did, ye see; and I mean to live a good bit longer yet. Josh
Heckett isn’t going to snuff: it just for a crack on the head.’

‘No, you weren’t born to die that way, Josh.’

The invalid glanced up at the doctor’s face with a look of such intense
rage that it convulsed his swollen features, and made him cry out with
pain.

‘Mind what you say, governor,’ he hissed, clinching his fist under the
counterpane. ‘If I come to a bad end there’s others as ‘ll have to be
in the same boat with me.’

The doctor laughed, and turned the conversation.

‘How does Gertie manage?’

‘Oh, all right. She’s a kind wench; I don’t know what I should do
without her. She’s a fust-class nuss, and she attends the animiles, and
she can talk to the customers better nor I can.’

‘Well, then, why do you swear at her?’

The man looked at him a moment as if he had not heard aright.

‘Swear at her! Why, you’ll ask me why I looks at her next. There ain’t
nothin’ in swearing at anybody, is there? ‘Tain’t hitting of ‘em, is
it?’

Mr. Josh Heckett was lost in amazement. The doctor objected to his
swearing at Gertie. Why, he swore at everything—at the dogs, at the
guinea-pigs, at the chairs and tables, at himself—why should he make an
exception of Gertie?

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ he added, when he had fully realized the enormity
of the objection. ‘This here’s a free country, and a cove ain’t to
swear at his own gal. Oh, crikey!

‘Well, don’t do it, Josh; that’s all I ask you. The girl’s a good
little lass, and she doesn’t like it.’

Josh Heckett pulled himself up in bed.

‘Look here, Oliver Birnie, Hessquire, Hemd., you get my head well,
that’s your business. Me and my gal’s got on pretty well without your
assistance up to now, and we’re wery much obliged, but “declined with
thanks,” as they sez in the noose-papers. Oliver Birnie, Hessquire,
Hemd., drop it.’

‘You’re facetious to-day, Josh. Never mind; you’re always glad enough
to send for me when you’re in a mess.’

‘Yes, and you was very glad of my services once.’

The doctor’s brow darkened as he muttered:

‘That was a bad time for a good many of us—a time we should like to
forget.’

‘I dessay,’ growled Heckett; ‘and as you’d like other people to forget
too. You’ve got on in the world, and rolls your eyes hup, and does the
wirtuous now. I can’t afford to.’

‘You’ve had no end of money,’ said the doctor. ‘Heaven only knows what
you do with it. Why do you keep on this wretched den, and these
wretched animals? You could afford to retire and live decently and in
comfort.’

‘No, I couldn’t. I’ve spent all the money I ever made. You don’t
believe it, but I have. Besides, I must keep on this place. If I hadn’t
a crib like this, how could I live? It isn’t so respectable as the old
crib you and Egerton and Marston, and all the lot of you, was glad
enough to come to once, perhaps, but it soots me quite as well.’

The man winked at the doctor as well as his bruised face would let him.
The doctor thrust his hands in his pockets, and walked up and down the
room, treading on the toy terrier’s tail, and narrowly escaping a grab
from the bull-dog in consequence.

‘Heckett, do you ever think what might have happened if Marston had
turned traitor?’

The invalid went pale on the only side of his face that could change
colour.

‘Don’t talk like that,’ he growled. ‘I ain’t well, and it worrits me.
Bah! he’s died in furrin parts, or gone too stone broke ever to get
‘ome agin. I ain’t always sure as may be it wasn’t him as done it. What
did he bolt to America for directly afterwards? Only he hadn’t no
motive, and the other had, and I allus looks at motives. Besides,
anyway, it ‘ud be wus for you, now Egerton’s drownded, than it would
for me. You’re better off now than you wos then, and he might want to
go snacks, perhaps. A poor cove like me wouldn’t be high enough game
for him to fly at.’

Birnie glanced at the old dog-fancier, as he lay with his grey hair
straggling over his bandaged head.

‘You’re very poor, aren’t you, Heckett!’ he said presently with a
peculiar intonation in his voice.

‘Yes, I am. Curse you! what do you look like that at me for? Perhaps
you think I ain’t poor? Perhaps you thinks as I’m Baron Rotschild,
a-livin’ in this here drum for the benefit o’ my ‘elth? Perhaps you
thinks as I lends money to the Emperor O’ Rooshia at five per cent.,
and only goes out after dark, for fear the Goverment should call in the
day-time for a loan, and have to go away without it?’ The old man rose
in the bed, his body quivering with rage.

‘Nonsense, Heckett!’ said the doctor, trying to quiet him.

‘What a queer old fellow you are! Of course you’re poor. Why, you
wouldn’t worry me for money as you do if you weren’t.’

‘No, of course, I shouldn’t.’

‘There, there,’ continued the doctor, arranging his pillows and
smoothing the bandage that Heckett had moved in his excitement; ‘lie
still and get well; that’s what you’ve got to do. I’ll come and see you
again in a day or two.’

The doctor nodded to his patient, tumbled over the bulldog, and made a
bolt for the door. Outside Gertie was waiting for him.

‘Your grandfather’s better, my child,’ he said. ‘He’ll be about in a
week again. Good-bye.’

Dr. Birnie patted her face and went out of the door. He walked rapidly
up Little Queer Street and through the Dials, making his way into New
Oxford Street. Then he turned up past the Museum, and into Russell
Square. Leaving the square, and turning into one of the streets
branching off from it, he became aware of something shiny on a doorstep
that seemed to shine right _at_ him.

He looked up.

He nodded pleasantly, for he had recognised the highly polished face of
Mr. Duck, the clerk of his legal advisers.

‘Fine morning, Mr. Duck!’

‘Doctor,’ gasped the shiny one, running after him, and grabbing him by
the coat-tails, for Birnie had walked on rapidly, ‘Doctor, one moment.
I wish you’d come in and see Mrs. Turvey. She’s quite queer in her
head. I can’t make her out.’

‘What, Mr. Egerton’s housekeeper?’

‘Yes, doctor. She’s quite light-headed. Swears she’s seen his ghost.
Just come in and see her, sir, if you will. It’s the rummest case I
ever heard of.’

The doctor walked back with Mr. Jabez.

‘It’s shock to the system,’ he said; ‘that’s all. When did she hear the
news of his death?’

‘Last night, sir,’ answered Mr. Duck. ‘I told her, sir. Thought it was
best. Old and faithful servant, sir—very much attached. He’s left her
five hundred pounds in his will—as of course you know, sir, being
executor.’

‘Of course,’ muttered the doctor, and then he silently followed his
guide into Gurth Egerton’s house.

As he passed through the hall, and saw the late owner’s picture hanging
there, his memory went back to a time when he, Oliver Birnie, and this
very Gurth Egerton were companions in adversity, and were not quite
sure where their next pound was coming from.

Now he was a rising practitioner, with a balance at his banker’s, and
Gurth—well, Gurth had been drowned in the _Bon Espoir_, and had left
his housekeeper five hundred pounds.




CHAPTER V.
MISS DUCK HAS A WORD TO SAY.


Mr. Duck was at breakfast one morning in his eight-roomed house at
Dalston, and his revered sister, Miss Georgina, was pouring out the
first cup of tea in the pot for him, and selecting the worst piece of
bacon and the most suspicious-looking egg from the dish before her.
Having jerked these delicacies on to his plate, and thus ensured the
survival of the fittest, she proceeded to help herself to the
remainder.

‘Jabez,’ said Miss Georgina suddenly, ‘some day you will die!’

‘Lor’, Georgie, don’t!’ exclaimed Jabez, bolting a particularly cindery
piece of bacon, and thereby nearly bringing his sister’s prophecy off
there and then.

When he had coughed and choked and increased in shininess from ten to
thirty candle power, he gradually recovered, and, polishing his
perspiring face with a large red handkerchief, proceeded to expostulate
with Georgina on the impropriety of talking of death to a man with his
mouth full.

‘You are a weak-minded idiot, Jabez!’ answered the lady. ‘All men are.
Do you imagine that you _won’t_ die?’

‘No, my dear; of course not. Only, why remind me of an unpleasant fact
just when I’m having my breakfast?’

‘Because it is only at breakfast I see you, and I think you ought to
make your will while you are in a sound state of mind. You’ve changed
lately, brother Jabez—changed very much for the worse. You don’t come
home to tea, and you have ceased to take me into your confidence.’

‘Nonsense, my dear!’ stammered Mr. Duck, going very red. ‘A little
business has detained me the last night or two, I confess, but——’

‘Jabez Duck, you’re deceiving me. You’re making a fool of yourself.’

‘Georgina—really, upon my word——’

‘Hold your tongue. I’ve looked after you and managed your house for
more than twenty years, and I’m not going to desert you now. I will
protect you against designing minxes with the last drop of my blood.’

Miss Duck waved her teaspoon in the air at an imaginary minx, and
brought it down on her cup with a clang, as though she were striking
her shield with a sword, and inviting the foes of Jabez Duck to come
on.

Jabez grew very uncomfortable, and fidgeted about on his chair. The
eagle eye of Georgina was reading his soul. He knew it was. He felt
that the name of Susan Turvey was written on his guilty brow, and that
Georgina was spelling it out.

He plucked up a little determination, and inquired, in a quavering
voice, if his sister would kindly drop conundrums and come to the
point.

Yes, she would come to the point. There was an old frump of a
housekeeper at Mr. Egerton’s—that was the point.

‘Oh, indeed!’ said Jabez. ‘And pray who has been telling you this fine
cock-and-bull story?’

‘You yourself,’ answered Miss Georgina triumphantly.

Herewith she put her hand into her pocket, and drew forth a crumpled
piece of paper, which she handed to him.

‘I found this in your trousers pocket.’

Jabez rose in wrath. The cloud on his brow quite obscured the skin for
a moment.

‘Georgina, you’ve no business at my trousers pockets! It’s—dash it—it’s
embezzlement!’

Miss Duck laughed, an irritating, satirical little laugh, and, seizing
the piece of paper which her brother held in his hand, she spread it
out and read it aloud.

‘Dear Mrs. Turvey—may I say Susan?—Dr. Birnie tells me, my own, you are
progressing favourably, and may see visitors in a week’s time. I count
the hours. As the poet says:—



‘“Thou wert all the world to me, love,

For which my soul did pine;

A green isle in the sea, love,

To be your valentine.”




Oh, Susan, when reason returns, and health mantles your cheek once
more, may I hope that you will grant the prayer of your ever-devoted
Jabez?’

‘Give it to me!’ shrieked Mr. Duck, making a violent effort to seize
his crumpled _billet-doux_.

‘Certainly,’ said Miss Georgina, tossing it contemptuously across the
table to her brother, who tore it into fragments, and jumped upon it.

‘How dare you, Georgina?’ he exclaimed—how dare you interfere with my
business? It’s a crime to steal a letter. You could be prosecuted by
the Postmaster-General.’

‘Postmaster fiddlestick! I hope you didn’t send any sane woman such
twaddle as that, Jabez.’

‘No, I didn’t; I thought better of it,’ stammered Mr. Duck.

‘That’s nothing. It wasn’t a copy of a letter at all. It was an
exercise of the imagination, that’s all.’

‘Well, don’t leave your exercises in your pockets, Jabez.’

‘I’ll empty my pockets, Georgina—rely on that. Never do you have
another coat or waistcoat of mine to brush till it’s been searched as
if it were a shoplifter brought into the police station. Give me my hat
and coat. I’m going. Good morning, Georgina.’

Mr. Jabez burst out of the room in a towering passion. He brushed his
hat the wrong way and quite took the shine off it; and when he jumped
up on the box seat of his regular omnibus, there was so little shine in
his face that the driver looked round to see if there was any fog
about.

Mr. Duck was excessively annoyed that his sister had found this copy of
his first love-letter in his pocket. He had intended her to know
nothing about the matter till it was all arranged. In fact he wasn’t
quite sure that he should let her know anything about it till the
ceremony was over, and he couldn’t be bullied out of his resolve. He
went in mortal terror of Georgina. She had a sharp tongue and a sharp
eye, and she persisted in looking upon him as a weak-minded man, who
could only prosper with her assistance.

When he had called at Mr. Egerton’s house on the morning after the tea
party, he had only seen Topsey, and Topsey had told him her aunt was
very ill and couldn’t see anybody, because she’d seen a ghost. She,
Topsey, had seen the ghost too, and she described it. Mr. Duck’s horror
was intense when he found the apparition the child described was the
exact counterpart of the firm’s drowned client. It was coming away from
the house that he met Dr. Birnie, and sent him in to see what was the
matter with the housekeeper. From the doctor he learned the particulars
of the case. Mrs. Turvey declared she had seen the ghost of her master,
and the child corroborated her.

It couldn’t be Gurth Egerton in flesh and blood, because he would have
come in and spoken to them. He would have said, ‘Here I am,’ or made
some observation.

But this ghost said nothing, and when Topsey, who had seized her aunt,
and hidden her face, looked up, the door was shut and the ghost was
gone.

Mrs. Turvey came to herself to find Topsey sobbing beside her and white
with terror. They got downstairs the best way they could, and locked
themselves in, and had the gas on full all night.

The next morning Mrs. Turvey was very ill, and Dr. Birnie had attended
her ever since.

Jabez, who could keep very little to himself, had told this ghost
story, with sundry reservations, to his sister, and she, finding the
draft of a tender declaration in the pocket of a pair of trousers he
had left out to be brushed, immediately put two and two together, like
the clever woman that she was, and determined to tackle her brother at
once.

Miss Georgina Duck was a strong-minded, hard-featured damsel, who had
passed sweet seventeen some thirty years ago. She was mistress of a
house without being plagued with a husband. She managed her brother’s
home, and her word was law. She ruled him, and she ruled the lodgers in
the first floor, and she ruled the charwoman who came in to help
occasionally, and she ruled the butcher and the baker and the milkman,
and everybody in the neighbourhood who came within the circle of her
magic influence.

She even ruled the cats. No cats came into _her_ garden, or if by
chance they did cross it _en route_ for the gardens beyond, it was
always in fear and trembling. Before the eye of Georgina Duck the most
daring Tom would quail, and it was wonderful how quickly the whole of
the neighbouring feline colony learned to shun a conflict with Miss
Duck.

Now this was hardly the woman quietly to resign her sceptre after a
long despotic reign just because her elderly idiot of a brother had
taken a fancy to an old woman’s legacy.

‘A pretty thing, indeed,’ said Miss Duck to her bosom friend, Miss
Jackson, from over the road, ‘for him to go making a fool of himself at
his age! The house wouldn’t hold her and me long. I suppose I should be
expected to turn out. Not me!’

The idea of Miss Duck turning out so shocked Miss Jackson that she fell
upon her friend’s neck and wept.

Miss Jackson always wept. Tears with her supplied the place of speech.

‘Don’t be a fool, ‘Lizer,’ said Miss Duck, harshly. ‘There’s nothing to
cry about. He hasn’t done it yet. _And he isn’t going to!’’_

If Mr. Duck had been present he would have accepted his fate there and
then, and resigned Mrs. Turvey without a struggle. Fortunately, he
still believed that he could evade the watchful guardianship of
Georgina, and did not allow his little plans to be disconcerted.




CHAPTER VI.
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.


At the lodge-gates of an old-fashioned country mansion, which stands in
a well-wooded park shut in among the Surrey hills, a young girl was
waiting one winter night. Every now and then she would turn and glance
towards the house, as though she expected some one to come from it.

Twice she fancied she heard a footstep and stepped out into the shadow
of the roadway, and twice she found her faney had deceived her.

But the third time it was no fancy. There was a well-known step upon
the broad gravel path, and in the dim light she could see the figure of
a man coming rapidly towards her. She gave a nervous glance towards the
lodge-window, then darted out into the roadway, and, walking in the
shadow of the hedge that skirted the park, reached a spot where the
bend of the road would hide her from the view of any one looking out of
the lodge-gates.

The man, walking rapidly, soon caught her up.

She ran to him, and, looking up into his face, questioned him eagerly
with her eyes.

He shook his head sorrowfully.

‘Failure, Bess,’ he said. ‘I must leave this place to-night.’

The girl gave a little cry, and, taking the man’s arm, clung closely to
him.

‘Yes, Bess; the old man’s as hard as iron. I flung myself on his mercy.
I told him all. He heard what I had to say, and then turned me out like
a dog. Swore I wanted to ruin him. The old miser!’

‘Hush, George—he is your father.’

‘He was, you mean. We’ve parted for ever. He says I’m no son of his. So
be it. He’s no father of mine. A paltry thousand would have put me
straight.’

‘Can nothing be done, George?’

‘Nothing, my girl. I’m what they call dead broke. I must get up to
town, and trust to luck. I’m young and strong, and if I can’t pay my
debts, at any rate I can earn bread-and-cheese.’

The girl let him run on, but his flippant manner distressed her. You
could see that in her face. The dark eyes were filled with tears, and
the red lips trembled. She was a village beauty—a handsome
brunette—this lodge-keeper’s daughter, and many a village swain had
laid his heart at her feet, but she had laughed their love away, and
kept her heart for one who was far above her. The man by her side was
her master’s son, young George Heritage, heir to the house and
lands—‘the young squire’ they called him in the village, but Bess only
called him ‘George.’

Bess Marks was no ordinary rustic beauty, or I question very much if
she would have won George Heritage’s heart. She was a strong-minded,
pure-hearted, clever girl—a girl who exercised a strange fascination
over the young squire.

Their sweethearting was a profound secret from every one. There was
enough romance in it to redeem it from vulgarity, and it was a
perfectly serious affair.

No thought of harm had ever entered the young man’s breast. He had
accepted the fact that he had fallen in love with a lodge-keeper’s
daughter as he accepted the fact that he had got heavily into debt. He
couldn’t help it. That was his answer to himself when he and his
conscience had a quiet quarter of an hour together.

Some day he supposed he would have to pay his debts; some day he
supposed he would marry Bess. ‘Some day’ was a movable feast, and so
George didn’t worry himself about it.

But to-night a crisis had come. To-night he had to begin a new life. He
was no longer Squire Heritage’s heir.

George had not exaggerated the nature of his interview with his father.
The old squire was the last man in the world who should have been
George’s father.

He was as careful of money as his son was prodigal. His notions of what
a young man of three-and-twenty ought to be were founded upon what he
himself had been at that age—a steady young fellow, contented to ride
about his father’s estate, talk with the old men, and spend his days
about the land and his evenings in the library. He was matter of fact,
stern, and uncompromising. He came of Puritan stock, and he had notions
of morality which were scandalized by the fashionable follies of
to-day.

He was bitterly disappointed in his son, in whom he had hoped to find a
companion. When Mrs Heritage died the lad was fifteen and at school,
and he saw but little of his father. In due course he went to Oxford,
and there he developed his ‘fast’ tendencies. He got into a fast set,
went the pace, and ran heavily into debt.

The squire had him home, read him a lesson, paid his debts, and told
him he need not go back to Oxford again; that what he was learning
there wasn’t likely to do him any good.

The old hall was dull for the lad. About a fortnight he grew tired of
dining with his father and going to bed at ten. He looked out for
something to amuse him, and two things happened which influenced the
whole after-course of his life. He fell in love with the lodge-keeper’s
daughter, handsome Bess Marks, and he took to going up to London and
joined a club.

Gradually the club claimed most of his attention, and he broke out into
another gambling fit.

He took to attending race meetings and to card-playing, and once again
came what in sporting language is called a ‘cropper.’ He got his name
on stamped paper which had an awkward habit of coming due, and let
things go on in his easy, happy-go-lucky way, till he found himself in
such a muddle that he was bound to appeal to his father.

A second time the squire drew a cheque and paid his son’s creditors.
But from that moment there was an estrangement. George resented the
severity of the lecture which accompanied the cheque, and took little
pains to conceal his feelings.

The squire was stately and cold. His son avoided his society, and it
was not forced upon him.

But when, after the lapse of a few months, a fresh burden of debt came
upon the scapegrace, and the young man went half-defiantly to his
father for assistance, the storm burst.

The old squire was honestly indignant, and he spoke his mind.

The terrified servants passing to and fro heard high words that evening
in the little library, and the voices of father and son quivered with
passion.

The young man was a favourite with all the people about the place, and
many were the hopes expressed that the squire wouldn’t be too hard on
Master George, as was a bit wild, perhaps, as was but natural, but he’d
settle down when he’d sown his wild oats, bless him, and be a squire as
‘ud do the old hall some credit yet.

The good souls who spoke up for the young scapegrace didn’t know what a
plentiful crop of oats Master George had sown, neither had they had to
draw the cheques to pay for this rather unprofitable agricultural
produce.

George and his father quarrelled fiercely this time. The squire swore
that not one penny more should George have. He was a reprobate and a
vagabond. He was wasting his substance in riotous living and bringing
discredit on an honoured name.

The young man in turn reproached his father. He had made the home dull
and repellent. It was like a monastery more than a gentleman’s house.
Because he was no longer young himself and had had his pleasure and
seen life, he had no sympathy with young men. George wasn’t going to
turn goody-goody and take to psalm-singing and dryasdust books for
anybody. If his father wouldn’t give him any more money, he’d do
without it. He didn’t want money that was grudged him. Let the squire
keep his money, if he was so fond of it.

Taunt succeeded taunt, reproach reproach, and so the wordy warfare was
worked up to its climax.

It ended by the squire denouncing his son as an unprincipled rascal,
and swearing that he would disinherit him.

Then George spoke some bitter words and marched out of his father’s
presence, vowing that he should see his face no more.

‘I’m young and strong, and I’ll be independent of you,’ he said. ‘You
say I’m no son of yours—so be it. From this moment I renounce my name.
I have no father—you have no son. Leave your money to the missionaries,
or do what the deuce you like with it. You can’t take it to heaven with
you when you die.’

With these words the young man strode out of his father’s presence,
bade the servants in a loud voice pack up his things and send them up
to Waterloo Station the next day, as he was going on a journey; and
then he walked hastily down the Avenue, his small travelling-bag in his
hand, and went to the spot where Bess was anxiously awaiting the result
of the interview.

‘Oh, George, what will you do?’ moaned the girl.

‘Do, my darling?’ answered the young man, looking at her lovingly, and
then stooping down and kissing her. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll
marry you, and we’ll settle down into a hardworking young couple, and
perhaps, some day, if we’re good, we shall have a public-house.’

Bess was hot and cold, and the rich blood faded from her olive cheeks
only to rush back again and suffuse them with a burning crimson, for
George’s sudden proposition had turned her first giddy and then faint;
but, confused and troubled as she was, she could not help laughing at
the idea of George keeping a public-house.

In spite of his gay manner, there is no doubt he was in earnest in his
offer to Bess.

‘You’ll keep me steady,’ he went on, in reply to her remonstrances.

‘I’m a ship without a rudder now, and I might drift on to the rocks.
You’ll keep me straight for port. I know you will, little woman.’

‘But, George, think of your friends.’

‘I have no friends. From this day I’m George Smith, and you shall be
Mrs. Smith. I’ll get something to do in the City, and earn my dinner
before I eat it. It’ll be quite a romance.’

George rubbed his hands. He was already in imagination bringing home
his golden salary on Saturday, and flinging it into Bess’s lap.

Many idle words he said that evening, and many serious ones, but the
upshot of it all was that he went off to town to look for quiet
furnished apartments in which they could start housekeeping, and to buy
a licence to marry Bess Marks.

And Bess went back to the lodge, half broken-hearted and half mad with
delight, to cry on her father’s neck and keep the big secret that her
lips were dying to utter.

And all supper-time she sat and looked at him and wondered what he
would do when she was gone, and what he would think of her.

George had told her that her father must not know they were
married—‘Not for a little while, darling,’ he said.

He thought if the lodge-keeper knew it, the faithful old servant would
not be able to keep the news long from his master.

George Heritage had made up his mind to marry Bess Marks, but he
couldn’t quite screw his courage up to the point of having his
_mésalliance_ proclaimed.

That he put off to ‘some day.’

On the following morning, while Bess was sitting by the open window
thinking of her sweetheart and talking to her father, answering at
random, and dropping furtive little tears on to her needlework, George
was roaming about London looking for furnished apartments suitable for
a young couple with limited means.

After trying a few dozen houses where cards were exhibited in the
windows, and finding everything that he did _not_ want, such as musical
societies, religious families, new babies on each floor, and high rents
and low ceilings, he came to a little house in a street at Dalston, in
the front window of which hung a card, and on the card was written
‘First floor to let furnished. Apply within.’

George applied, and the rooms just suited him. Sixteen shillings a week
was not dear, certainly, for a bedroom and sitting-room; and though the
landlady seemed a little starchy and inclined to be acidulated, she was
very clean and respectable-looking.

That evening when Mr. Jabez Duck returned from the City, Miss Georgina
informed him that she’d let the first floor—no references, but rent a
week in advance—to a Mr. and Mrs. George Smith, a newly married couple.

‘What are they like?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered Georgina, tartly; ‘I’ve only seen the
gentleman at present, and he _is_ a gentleman.’

‘Well, my dear, I didn’t expect he was a lady;’ with which remark Mr.
Jabez sat down and had his tea, utterly oblivious of the terrible
contempt which spread itself over the features of his sister, who
despised small jokes of any kind, and her brother’s small jokes most of
all.




CHAPTER VII.
A CHAT OVER OLD TIMES.


There is a quiet little road in St. John’s Wood which seems specially
to have been designed for ladies and gentlemen of a retiring
disposition, who wish for a peaceful arcadia at a convenient distance
from trams, omnibuses, and railways. You turn out of the main
thoroughfare to find yourself suddenly shut in between a double row of
small villas, all well set back in high-walled gardens, and further
protected from the gaze of the curious by luxuriant foliage.

The Arcadian inhabitants of this out-of-the-world by-way—a by-way so
narrow that a hansom cab can scarcely be driven down it without getting
on to the kerb—seem to be slightly suspicious of visitors. The villas
are constructed on a system of defence not unpopular during the middle
ages. There is no room for a drawbridge or a moat, but this deficiency
is supplied by a very high and solid garden gate, which effectually
bars the progress of the attacking party—and not only his progress but
his view.

Over the tops of the trees in the front garden, if you stand well back
on the opposite side, you may catch sight of the tops of the villa
chimney-pots, but of the villas themselves you can see nothing.

The garden gate affords you no better standpoint. It is a solid piece
of woodwork, grim and forbidding as a prison door.

If you knock and ring with the idea that the gate will be opened, and
you will thus get a glimpse within, you are wofully mistaken.

Your summons may be answered or not, as the case may be. If it is, a
small wooden flap at the back of an iron grill is let down, and a face
appears blocking up the aperture. The eyes of this face regard you
carefully, and if these eyes fail to recognise you the lips move and
request to know your business. If your explanation is satisfactory, you
may be admitted; if it is not, up goes the wooden flap again with a
bang, and silence reigns around.

At the gate of one of these curious and secluded little villas, which
by the inscription on the door-posts we learn is called ‘The Lodge,’
and by the brass plate on the door we find is inhabited by Dr. Oliver
Birnie, there stands a gentleman whom we have seen before.

He is a tall, good-looking fellow, very shabby about the clothes, and
not particularly tidy about the hair and beard.

The face which blocks up the little peephole of The Lodge is a female
face of the domestic servant order, and it evidently regards the
visitor with some suspicion. There has been a preliminary verbal
passage of arms, and the female face is hot and angry-looking.

‘If you can’t tell me your name, I shan’t go and disturb master,’ say
the lips.

‘You go and tell your master what I say,’ answers the shabby
gentleman—‘that an old friend from abroad wishes to see him.’

The lips move again—this time in a curled-up and scornful manner.

‘People as is ashamed o’ their names ain’t no friends o’ master’s, I’m
sure.’

‘That’s more than you know, you impertinent hussy! Take my message.’

‘Shan’t!’

With that the flap goes to with a bang.

The shabby gentleman is not in the least abashed. He takes the
bell-handle calmly and proceeds to tug at it.

He continues tugging till the female face, hotter and angrier than
ever, once more appears at the peephole.

‘If you don’t go away I shall send for the perlice.’

‘Will you take my message?’

‘No, master ain’t at home.’

‘Then why the devil didn’t you say so before?’

‘Cus I didn’t choose. P’raps you’d like to know where he is, and where
he was borned, Mr. Impertinence; and how many times he’s been
waksinated, and what he had for dinner o’ Sunday. Come, what is it?
’Ave you called to see the meter and help yourself to the hovercoats;
or d’ye want to be shown in and see which is the heasiest way through
the back window on sone futur’ ercashun?’

The domestic was fully roused now, and she let the shabby gentleman
have it. She knew a thing or two; and she wasn’t going to be made a
fool of, like the silly girls master read to her about in the
newspapers.

Her particular instructions were never, under any circumstances, to
admit a visitor when her master was out, and she meant to obey them.
Besides, what could a shabby fellow like this want but what he’d no
right to?

The shabby gentleman wasn’t angry in the least. He accepted the attack
with a smile.

‘Bravo, Jemima! or whatever your name is,’ he said. ‘You are a shrewd
girl, and deserve encouragement. I’ll report to the doctor, when I see
him, what an admirable watch-dog you make.’

‘Dog yourself! and my name ain’t Jemima; and if it was, I shouldn’t be
ashamed on it, like you are o’ yourn. Go away. There ain’t nothing to
be got here.’

Bang went the flap, and the shabby gentleman was still on the wrong
side of the door.

He was about to stroll away when a carriage came dashing down the
narrow roadway, and was pulled up in front of The Lodge. Dr. Birnie
jumped out, the carriage drove off, and then the shabby gentleman,
coming close up to the doctor as he was putting his latchkey into the
garden gate, touched him gently on the arm.

The doctor turned.

For a moment he hesitated and turned slightly pale, then he looked
closely into the shabby gentleman’s face and gasped out: ‘Good God,
Marston! I thought you were dead.’

Edward Marston smiled.

‘Not yet, Birnie. I’ve been very near it, though, once or twice.’

‘How strangely things happen,’ thought Birnie to himself. ‘I’ve been to
Heckett’s and Egerton’s to-day, and now here’s Marston dropped from the
skies, as if to complete the circle.’

The doctor glanced at his visitor’s costume, and then at his face
again.

‘Hard up, I suppose?’ he said uneasily.

‘Devilish hard up, old man. So hard up that I have called for that bob
you owe me for directing you to Little Queer Street the other night.’

The doctor started.

‘Good gracious, man! you don’t mean to say that was you?’

‘It was. Here’s the card you gave me. I’ve given you three days credit
as it is.’ Marston drew the card from his pocket and give it to Birnie.
‘That’s how I knew where to find you. Deuced funny how things come
about, isn’t it?’

Marston laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh, and the doctor didn’t respond
to it.

He looked very uncomfortable, and hesitated for a moment; then,
assuming an air of nonchalance, he said, with an affectation of
cheeriness:

‘Well, old fellow, I’m glad to see you. Will you come in and have a
chat?’

‘Just what I should like,’ answered Marston; ‘especially if there’s
anything to eat with the chat.’

‘Certainly, my dear boy. Come along.’

The doctor pushed his gate open and walked in, followed by Marston. As
they entered the house the servant came running to the doctor to tell
him of the pertinacious shabby gentleman’s visit. The look of disgust
on her face when she saw the shabby gentleman in the hall, was intense.
She tossed her head, muttered, ‘Well, I’m sure!’ and rushed downstairs
to the kitchen to protect the spoons and forks.

‘And so you’ve come back again, Ned?’ said Dr. Birnie, as, a few
minutes later, he sat in his library with the shabby gentleman.

‘Yes, I have. But pleasure before business, please.’

Mr. Marston was enjoying some cold meat and pickles, which the servant
had been ordered to bring him up, much to her disgust.

When he had finished he leaned back in the chair and fetched a deep
breath.

‘By Jove, Birnie,’ he said, ‘that’s the first good meal I’ve made for a
month!’

‘Can I order a little more for you?’

‘No, my boy; I won’t spoil my dinner.’

Mr. Marston had evidently made up his mind that he was not going short
of good meals again in a hurry.

Birnie eyed him nervously, and waited for him to grow communicative. He
wasn’t comfortable. He was playing a game without knowing his
opponent’s cards, and that was a style of play which had never suited
Oliver Birnie. He had not long to wait.

Do you know, it’s ten years since I left England,’ said Marston
presently. ‘By Jove! there must have been some changes in our little
party since then.’

‘Indeed there have.’

‘I come back and I find you a doctor, with a carriage and pair, a nice
quiet villa, and a thundering cheeky slavy; I heard abroad that Gurth
had got a windfall and was a regular tiptop swell now, and I’ll bet old
Heckett  hasn’t been behindhand in making hay. I’m the only one of the
lot that’s down on my luck. I’ve been the scapegoat—that’s what I’ve
been—and I assure you, my dear boy, I’ve grown tired of the character.
I’ve come back to change places with one of you, and I’m not particular
which.’

Birnie shot a keen, searching glance at his visitor.

‘Look here, Ned, before we go any further, suppose we clear the ground
a little. I suppose, from your being here and walking about openly,
it’s quite safe for you to have come back?’

‘Quite.’

‘Well, then, why did you go away so suddenly?’

‘Not for what you think, Nolly, my boy. That’s where you’ve all been
wrong, I guess. When that little affair was on and I bolted suddenly,
you put two and two together and fancied I’d broken the law. Now the
boot was on the other trotter. The law broke me.’

‘How?’

‘You know that my father had gone to America to prosecute the big
lawsuit which was to make us all millionaires, and put me straight for
ever?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he lost the day, and I went out at once to him.’

‘Good heavens, Marston! Don’t say that your mysterious departure was
due to filial affection!’

‘No, I don’t. You wouldn’t believe me if I did. I went out to stop the
old man making a fool of himself, and carry the case further still. I
wanted something saved out of the fire for myself.’

‘Did you succeed?’

‘No. Got there to find the old man dead, and every blessed halfpenny of
his property gone in the law-costs.’

‘You’ll excuse me, old fellow, if I suggest that there must have been
another motive behind.’

‘All right; if there was, find it out. It wasn’t the bill business.’

‘I always thought it was.’

‘You were wrong, then. Every acceptance old Isaacs discounted for me
was genuine—as genuine as this one.’

Mr. Marston drew gently from his waistcoat-pocket a dirty and creased
piece of paper, and held it out for Dr. Birnie to read.

It was Birnie’s acceptance for £500.

The doctor looked at it, read it, as Marston held it out before him.

‘You didn’t discount that, then?’ he said quietly. ‘I wondered it had
never been presented.’

‘Isaacs wouldn’t take it. He said it wasn’t worth the stamp it was
written on.’

‘It wasn’t,’ said Birnie, with a smile.

‘But it is now,’ replied Marston, folding it up carefully and putting
it into his pocket.

‘You are wrong,’ said the doctor quietly. ‘It was worth nothing then
because I was a penniless adventurer. It is worth nothing now because
it is ten years old, and your claim is barred by the Statute of
Limitations.’

For a moment the two men sat eyeing each other in silence. Marston was
the first to break it.

‘I think you’ll pay it, in spite of the statute.’

‘Well,’ answered the doctor, taking a pipe from the mantelshelf and
filling it, ‘I may, or I may not. That depends on you. I suppose you’ve
something better to offer me than this worthless piece of paper for
£500?’

‘Perhaps I have.’

‘Take a pipe from the rack,’ said the doctor. ‘Here’s some tobacco.
Tobacco is a wonderful sedative, and we want to talk this matter over
calmly.’

Marston lit his pipe and settled himself down in an arm-chair. He was
quite ready for a combat, if combat it was to be.

‘Let us review the situation, Ned,’ said the doctor. ‘Some years ago
you left this country suddenly. At that time we were all down on our
luck. You had run through your money leading a fast life, so had I, so
had Gurth Egerton. We were all gamblers and loose fish, and our
principal haunt was Josh Heckett’s betting-office and gambling den in
Soho. There was only one rich man among us, and we turned rooks to make
him our pigeon. That was Ralph Egerton, Gurth’s cousin. He was a
drunken, reckless fool, and we thought him an easy prey. He came night
after night to the den, but he didn’t seem to care for play; he lost
with a good grace, and we never could quite make out why he came. One
night there was a furious quarrel there; blows were struck in the
struggle, the table was knocked over, and the light extinguished.
Suddenly Ralph Egerton shrieked out that he was stabbed, and when a
light was struck we found him lying on the floor with a knife in his
breast and the lifeblood pouring out. No one knew who had struck the
blow. He could not say. There were half-a-dozen strangers present, and
they got away directly, fearing to be mixed up in a gambling-house
scandal. The knife was one which had been used to cut the corks of the
champagne-bottles, and had been lying on the table.’

‘Well, I know all about that,’ interrupted Marston.

‘Excuse me; let me review the situation my own way. We were all
terrified, for we knew what would come out if an inquest was held. Old
Heckett was like a madman, and beside himself with terror. Gurth
Egerton was as white as a ghost, and stood trembling like a child. You
and I were the only ones who kept our heads. I was just admitted to the
profession, and I examined the wound, and found that it was a bad one.
We held a council and agreed what to do. I bandaged the wound up
tightly and swathed the body round so that no blood could escape; then
you went and got a four-wheel cab, and we put him in. We carried him
between us, talking to him as if he were a drunken man, to deceive the
cabman. We drove here, to this very villa, which was his house, and
carried him in. I am quite correct in my story so far, am I not?’

‘Quite,’ answered Marston, lazily puffing his pipe. ‘Up to this point
you’ve told me nothing I couldn’t have told you. Go on.’

‘Here your part of the transaction ended,’ continued the doctor, ‘and
the rest was left to me. Ralph Egerton died. I was with him to the
last. I performed the last offices myself, and when the undertaker came
he found only a neatly shrouded body. Everything was done in my
presence, and no one ever had the slightest suspicion of foul play. The
death was duly registered, and my certificate accepted as that of the
medical man who had attended the deceased during his last illness.’

Dr. Birnie went to his writing-table, undid a drawer, and handed a
piece of paper to Marston.

‘Here is a copy of the certificate,’ he said.

Marston read it. It was to the effect that Ralph Egerton had been
attended for so many days by Oliver Birnie, his regular medical
attendant, and had died from a complication of diseases—the diseases
which a life of drinking and dissipation would probably culminate in.

‘All this had occurred before I left England,’ he said, as he handed it
back to the doctor. ‘I don’t see what it has to do with my £500.’

The doctor threw his tobacco-pouch across to him.

‘Have another pipe, and be patient. You’ll see directly. Well, after
Ralph Egerton had been buried, it was found that Gurth was his next
heir, and came into all the property; and a nice little haul it was.
There was a lot of ready money, and some comfortable house property,
and no end of stocks and shares.’

‘I didn’t know that Gurth was the heir when I left,’ said Marston.

‘Of course you didn’t. You might not have gone if you had known, eh?’

‘That’s a matter I won’t discuss now,’ answered Marston. ‘All I know is
that I’m back again, that I haven’t got a mag in the world, and that,
as you and Egerton seem to have done so well, perhaps you’ll come down
handsomely for an old friend.’

‘My dear fellow, that’s just where you make the mistake. I am not a
rich man. I’ve got a little practice, and I have a carriage and pair
for appearance sake, in the hope of working up a better. It isn’t mine.
I hire it when I want it, and use it as an advertisement. This house I
have lived in since Ralph died here. Gurth let it to me cheap on a long
lease. Gurth has behaved very handsomely to me, and, as a matter of
fact, that is the reason I have been able to appear well-to-do on a
practice which really is not lucrative.’

‘I don’t suppose generosity had much to do with it,’ growled Marston.

‘As you will, my boy. It isn’t worth while discussing the motive—the
fact remains. Gurth has done well since you left. I have only done well
through Gurth.’

‘I see what you are driving at,’ said Marston. ‘You mean that if I want
help Gurth is the man I ought to go to. Well, where is he?’

‘At the bottom of the sea,’ answered the doctor, knocking the ashes out
of his pipe.

Ned Marston jumped up in a rage and strode across the room to where
Birnie sat.

‘Look here, Oliver Birnie,’ he cried, clutching his arm, ‘this game
doesn’t suit me. I’m not to be humbugged by your cool as a cucumber
business. I’m back in London, and I’ve got to live. I look for my old
friends, and I can find only one of them—you. You owe me £500, statute
or no statute—are you going to pay it?’

‘My dear fellow, it was only a gambling debt in the first place, and in
the second it’s not recoverable on account of its age.’

‘I only ask you for £500 for this bit of paper. Give me that, and I’ll
make a fair start, and go ahead right enough. I’ve got my wits about
me, and pluck enough for a dozen man. Give me the money, and you won’t
be troubled with me any more.’

‘Sit down and talk sensibly,’ said the doctor quietly, ‘and I’ll see
what I can do for an old comrade in distress.’

The doctor and his visitor were closeted together in earnest
conversation for over an hour. When Marston went out through the garden
gate, Rebecca looked after him with as much scorn as her features could
assume.

‘He ain’t been here for no good, I’ll wager,’ she said to herself. ‘If
he ain’t got something in his pocket as he didn’t bring in with him my
name ain’t Rebeccer.’

Rebecca was quite right. Mr. Marston had something in his pocket that
he didn’t bring in with him. It was a cheque for £500.

In spite of his non-lucrative practice, Dr. Birnie evidently had a
balance at his banker’s.




CHAPTER VIII.
MR. DUCK’S NEW LODGERS.


It is a week since Mr. and Mrs. George Smith have taken up their
residence beneath the humble rooftree of Mr. Jabez Duck.

‘Quite the gentleman,’ says Miss Duck, when she discusses the new
lodgers with her brother.

‘And quite the lady,’ adds Mr. Duck, upon whom Bess’s bright country
face has made a great impression.

‘You’re an idiot, Jabez,’ answers Georgina. ‘She may be a lady in
comparison with the _persons_ with whom _you_ are in the habit of
associating—housekeepers, cooks, and such like menials—but Mrs. Smith
is not a real lady. Anybody could see that with half an eye.’

‘Well, my dear, I’ve got four half eyes, and I say distinctly that a
well-bred and well-behaved young woman——’

‘Quite so, Jabez; she is a very nice young woman: but a young woman is
not a young lady.’

Mr. Jabez gave premonitory symptoms of a small joke by increasing in
shininess. A smile spread up to the roots of his hair.

‘A young woman is not a young lady; but a young lady must be a young
woman. Ha, ha!—that’s a paradox.’

‘It may be a paradocks, or a Victoria Docks, or an East India Docks, or
any docks you like,’ said Miss Duck, snappishly; ‘but if Mrs. Smith ‘s
a lady, I’ll eat my head.’

‘Don’t, my dear,’ exclaimed Jabez, with the premonitory shine bursting
forth again. ‘It would be sure to bring on indigestion, and your
temper’s awful when your digestion’s bad.’

‘Jabez, you’re a contemptible idiot. Such frivolous tomfoolery may suit
the menial classes with which you mix; but don’t bring it into this
house, if you please.’

Jabez evidently thought he’d made quite as many small jokes as his
sister could stand for one day; so he finished his breakfast in silence
and departed citywards.

The menial classes were metaphorically hurled at his head now whenever
he and his sister were together; but Jabez was not to be provoked into
picking up the gauntlet; and, in spite of all Georgina’s hints, the
name of Mrs. Turvey never crossed his lips.

Leaving Mr. Jabez to get to the office by himself, let us walk upstairs
to the first floor, and pay a visit to the newly married couple.

We will knock at the door first, for young married couples do not sit
on either side of the room, with all the furniture between them as a
barricade, like many old married couples do.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have just finished breakfast. George is sitting in a
low chair reading the newspaper, and Bess is on a hassock at his feet,
looking up at him and doing a little quiet hero-worship.

Their marriage certificate is a week old. George resided in the
apartments long enough to qualify for a licence, and then Bess came up
to town and they were married quietly, and went back to spend their
honeymoon at Dalston. George has been so good and kind, and Bess has
been so happy, it has been quite like fairyland. Wandering about the
Park hand in hand, lunching at the pastrycooks’, going to Madame
Tussaud’s and to the theatre—it had seemed as if the people who had
never got married on the sly and gone into apartments for the honeymoon
could never have known what real happiness was.

George let a week go by in unalloyed bliss, then he put his hand in his
pocket and counted his change out of the forty pounds he started
married life with; he had but twenty left. Directly he made that
discovery it was decided to take buses instead of cabs, and to go to
the pit instead of the upper boxes, ‘And George dear,’ said Bess, ‘we
must be very careful and economical till you get something to do. I
think we’ll begin to dine at home instead of going out every day.’

‘Yes, dear, I think we’d better,’ said George. ‘I suppose Miss Duck
won’t mind you cooking in the kitchen?’

‘Of course not, dear. Let’s start housekeeping to-day. What shall we
have for dinner?’

George suggested lots of things, but they were all too much for two
people.

Bess was perplexed too. Suddenly a bright idea occurred.

‘Oh, George dear,’ she said, ‘do you think you could eat a nice little
toad-in-the-hole?’

‘A toad-in-the hole, little woman? Splendid! I say, can you really make
one, though?’

‘Yes, indeed I can. Father used to say——’

For a moment her voice quivered and her eyes filled with tears.

Smiling through them as the April sun gleams through the showers she
went on:

‘You must taste my toad-in-the-hole. I’ll make one to-day, and you
shall help me.’

‘I—I don’t think I can, dear,’ answered her husband, pulling his
moustache doubtfully. ‘I’m an awful duffer with my hands, you know.’

‘Don’t be a goose. You shall go and buy the things.’

George had his hat on directly.

Bess gave him her reticule to take on his arm, and then told him to buy
two neck chops and some flour and some eggs.

‘And be sure you see your change is right, you careless boy,’ she
added, laughing.

George Heritage marching down the street with a reticule in his hand
was a sight worth seeing. He felt as proud of his commission as if Her
Majesty had made him a plenipotentiary. He wasn’t quite sure where you
got the flour and the eggs, so he tried the butcher’s for the latter
and the greengrocer’s for the former, but at last he got into the right
shops.

‘I want some flour, please,’ he said to the man behind the counter.

‘How much, sir?’

‘Well, I don’t know quite. About enough to make a toad-in-the-hole for
two.’

The man stared at his customer for a minute, and then suggested perhaps
half a quartern would do.

‘Certainly,’ said George. If the man had said a hundredweight or an
ounce he would have said the same.

When all his commissions were executed—though not without considerable
puzzling over quantities—George marched home in triumph.

He had only broken one egg and let the flour all over the reticle by
poking the chops in so that the sharp point of the bone made a hole in
the bag. Bess lifted the lid, looked into the reticule, and gave a
little scream.

It was annoying to have the chops and a broken egg and the flour all
mixed up together; but still, as it was George’s first journey to
market, he was forgiven.

He had a hug, and was ordered to sit still and not get into mischief
while his wife went downstairs into the kitchen and prepared the
delicate dish.

It was a happy dinner, I can tell you; better than all your Richmond
follies and your London restaurant nonsenses. The toad-in-the-hole was
delicious, and George insisted upon Miss Duck tasting it, and he
informed Miss Duck that he’d been to market, and did Miss Duck ever
taste anything so delicious in her life?

Miss Duck said, ‘La, Mr. Smith, what a funny man you are!’ and then
George made small jokes, smaller than any Jabez had ever been guilty of
in his life; but Miss Duck giggled prodigiously.

George declared privately to Bess that Miss Duck was a very decent old
soul; and as Georgina had been particularly gracious, Bess agreed that
she was. ‘Only it’s lucky for you. George, she’s so old and plain, or I
should be jealous.’

I hope Miss Duck wasn’t listening at the key-hole to hear this remark,
and I sincerely trust she wasn’t looking through it to witness the
manner in which George closed Bess’s wicked little mouth.

That was yesterday. This morning there is no frivolity going on. George
is reading the newspaper in order to find a berth that will suit him.

The disappearance of half his capital has reminded him that he is no
longer a gentleman, but a young man who has a wife to keep and his
living to earn.

When he comes to a likely advertisement, he reads it aloud to Bess, and
they discuss it.

‘How do you think this will do, dear?’ he says, presently:

‘“Wanted, a married man, without encumbrance, to drive a pair, look
after a small garden, help in the house, and fill up his spare time as
amanuensis to a deaf lady. A small salary, but the person will have the
advantage of living in a vegetarian family, where total abstinence and
Church of England principles offer special advantages to a true
Christian.”’

‘How’ll that do?’ asked George, with a smile.

‘Not at all,’ answered Bess, laughing. ‘But George dear, what does
“encumbrance” mean?’

‘You, my pet.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t. What does it mean?’

‘Ask me again in a year or two, my darling,’ answered George, with a
wicked little smile, and then he went on with his paper.

Bess went on wondering what ‘encumbrance’ a married man could have till
George read her another advertisement.

‘Advertiser would be glad to hear of a gentleman by birth, not more
than thirty, who would introduce advertiser’s homemade brandy to the
upper classes. A liberal commission given. A real gentleman might do
well.’

‘Oh, George,’ said Bess, ‘don’t go after that, dear. I don’t want you
to go walking about with brandy-bottles sticking out of your pockets.’

‘And fancy introducing it to the upper classes, eh? This sort of
thing:—Allow me to introduce you: Upper Classes—Home-made Brandy.
Home-made Brandy—Upper Classes.’

Bess laughed as George introduced the arm-chair to the sofa with a
stately bow. The arm-chair was the brandy, and the sofa was the upper
classes.

George read on, selecting the funny advertisements for Bess’s
amusement. Suddenly he put the paper down.

‘By Jove, Bess,’ he exclaimed, rubbing his hands, I believe I’ve found
the very thing. Listen to this, little woman.’

George picked the paper up, folded it out carefully, rose and struck a
commanding attitude, then, clearing his voice, he read aloud the
following advertisement:

‘“Wanted immediately, a gentleman for a commercial office. No previous
experience necessary. Hours, ten to four. Salary to commence with, £150
per annum. N.B.—Must be of gentlemanly appearance and address.—Apply,
in first instance by letter, to A. B., Burkett’s Library, Leicester
Square.”’

‘Oh, George,’ exclaimed Bess, when he had finished, ‘do write at once.
It would be just the thing to begin with.’

‘Magnificent!’ answered her husband. ‘Hours ten to four, no previous
knowledge, and £3 a week. Why, my dear, it would be a splendid
beginning.’

‘So it would,’ said Bess; ‘and I’m sure, dear, you’re just what they
want.’

George grinned.

‘I say, little woman’ (the conceited fellow was looking in the glass
all the while), ‘the applicant must be of gentlemanly appearance.
Perhaps my appearance will be against me.’

‘You vain boy; you want me to flatter you,’ said Bess, looking at him
lovingly, ‘and I shan’t. You’ll do very well indeed, sir, and you know
it.’

George was quite certain he should do.

Bess routed out some writing-paper, and then she went down to Miss Duck
and borrowed a pen and ink, and then she and George sat down and spoilt
a dozen sheets of paper, and at last between them they produced the
following:

‘Mr. George Smith presents his compliments to Mr. A. B., and he would
be very pleased to accept his offer. He is four-and-twenty, active, and
anxious to get on. If Mr. A. B. wishes for an interview, he will call
at any time Mr. A. B. chooses to appoint. Mr. George Smith thinks it
well to enclose his _carte_ for Mr. A. B. to see. Will Mr. A. B. kindly
answer per return.’

When the important note was folded and in the envelope, and the address
had been carefully copied from the paper, Bess and George both went
together to put it in the post. Bess peeped down the letter-box to see
if it had gone safely in, and then George peeped, and then they both
walked away full of hope, and feeling sure that the photograph would
settle the matter at once.

‘If A. B. were a lady it would,’ said George.

Then Bess said he was a nasty vain thing, and he thought all the girls
were in love with him.

To which George replied that it didn’t much matter if they were, as he
was only in love with one girl, and she was the dearest little girl in
the world, and God bless her little heart, etc., etc., which style of
conversation being probably quite familiar to the reader, there is no
necessity to make further extracts from it.

It was very wicked of Bess to do what she did that night, I dare say,
but you see she had not been brought up very well. She knelt down and
prayed to God to bless her dear husband, who had sacrificed so much for
her, and she asked Him to let them live happily together all their
lives; and, oh, if God would only let George get this situation and
make Mr. A. B. love him, she would be, oh, so thankful. Her heart was
full of gratitude to God for giving her George’s love, and that night
it poured out and spread itself over everything she loved and knew. And
as she was dropping off to sleep, George distinctly heard her say,—

‘God bless Mr. A. B.’

And he wasn’t a bit jealous.




CHAPTER IX.
CONCERNING GERTIE HECKETT, A KIND LADY, A GOOD DOG, AND A WICKED BIRD.


Mr. Josh Heckett was about again, and Gertie and the animals were
having a bad time of it.

The temporary retirement from business which had been necessitated by
Mr. Heckett’s injuries—how those injuries were acquired he had not yet
condescended to explain to any one—had not given that calm to his mind
which retirement from business is supposed to give. Towards the close
of his illness, and just before he was allowed to go out, a vigorous
playfulness had set in, which was very badly appreciated by the
inhabitants, biped and quadruped. Mr. Heckett had playfully hurled his
pillows at the rabbit-hutches, and had taken to pelt the dogs with such
handy trifles as the candlestick, a plate, a cup, a pair of snuffers,
or a boot.

The dogs growled and put their tails between their legs, crouched in
corners and behind anything that yielded a temporary barricade.

Gertie and Lion usually retired when these fits set in. Not that he
threw things at either of _them_—he knew better than that. But he swore
fearfully, and that frightened Gertie worse than the boots and the
pillows; so she would motion to her dear old Lion, and they would creep
out quietly and leave grandfather to it.

It had been a whim of Heckett’s when he was brought home with a cracked
skull from one of his midnight wanderings to have his bed brought in
among the animals. ‘They’d be company,’ he said. ‘He didn’t want to lie
alone, with no end of horrible things dancing across his brain.’
Gertie’s little room was upstairs. She had slept there ever since she
could remember. They had two other rooms—one on the same floor as
Gertie’s, and one behind the animals’ room, where Heckett slept when he
was well.

The house was three floors high, so that Heckett occupied two, and the
ground floor, with an open shop, was let to a gentleman in the old
clothes line, who shut it up at night, and went to another shop of his
higher up the street, where he lived.

When Gertie and Lion, were gone away, Heckett would lie and curse to
his heart’s content, and he had a companion who used to curse in
chorus.

There was a parrot among this strange collection who swore like a
trooper, and who, since he had come to live with Heckett, had
considerably improved his vocabulary. It was grotesque but supremely
awful to listen to the grey-haired reprobate shrieking and blaspheming
and the parrot mocking him. Sometimes Heckett would lose his temper and
swear at the bird, then the bird would swear back at him, and a cursing
match, not to be equalled in the Dials, would take place. Heckett would
get so mad while he lay there helpless, that he would threaten the bird
with summary vengeance. The bird caught up his threats at last, and
occasionally Mr. Heckett’s visitors would be startled to hear a voice
from somewhere in the corner suddenly shriek out,—‘Bless you, I’ll have
your blood!’ or ‘Bless your beautiful eyes, you screeching devil, I’ll
wring your beautiful neck!’

The adjectives are slightly altered, but the sense of the parrot’s mild
observations remains unimpaired.

As Heckett grew better, the wordy warfare between himself and the
parrot increased in vigour, till a person, listening outside, would
have believed that two horribly depraved wretches were about to
commence a murderous struggle.

What with grandfather’s language and the parrot’s language, poor Gertie
got more uncomfortable every day. The child had one of those sensitive
natures which are quick to appreciate the difference between right and
wrong.

Left alone almost from babyhood with the animals and the birds, she had
grown to love them and look upon them as her playmates. Into their ears
she poured her troubles. It was her task to feed them all, and give
them their water, and never was handmaiden more faithful to her duties.

It shocked her terribly that the parrot should swear. Grandfather she
expected it from, but that this wicked, depraved bird should come to
pollute the atmosphere was too bad.

She used to put her hands over Lion’s ears, so that he shouldn’t
understand. She blushed sometimes when she was alone with her pets to
think that Lion should be in the room with her when such language was
going on.

How Gertie came to be so clean and pure, and to have so much modesty
and good sense, amid such surroundings, was a mystery to everybody but
Gertie herself and one other person.

That person was a lady who came in the day time, often when the old man
was out. She came first with the police to look for a stolen dog, and
Gertie’s sweet face and gentle manner struck her.

She was a woman of the world, and guessed that any open offer of
sympathy would be resented by the child’s guardian. So she found out
when Gertie was alone, and came to see her. She was a good customer,
for she bought canaries, and white mice, and guinea-pigs; but really
she came to see Gertie and to rescue her from the contamination around.

Miss Adrian, Gertie’s protectress, found out what times her _protégée_
was most likely to be alone, and she made various excuses to visit her,
and taught her to read and write unknown to the grandfather.

She taught the child more than this. She gradually imparted to her the
outlines of the beautiful Christian faith, and under her fostering care
the little wild, uncultivated bud blossomed into a sweet and delicate
flower.

Seeing his granddaughter in a clean face, and finding her always tidy
and civil, and loth to go into the street and play with the other
children, old Heckett had been surprised at first, but he had put it
down to the contrariness of the female nature, and had not troubled
himself to inquire further into the matter. Once when he was asked how
it was Gertie was always so clean and tidy and good, he had growled out
something about breed, and had hinted darkly that Gertie’s father must
have been a gentleman.

This observation points to the fact that Gertie’s birth was shrouded in
some slight mystery. What that mystery was the reader will learn in due
course. She was old Heckett’s granddaughter; of that there was not the
slightest doubt.

It was a strange sight to see Gertie at her lessons among the animals.
These hours were the happiest of the poor child’s life. When the day
came round for Miss Adrian’s visit, Gertie would wait anxiously for
grandfather’s departure. Then she would go and stand at the door and
look up the street, and Lion would stand beside her.

If Miss Adrian saw the dog and the child together she knew that she
might come in. If Gertie was alone she would pass by, just speaking a
few words to the child as she went along.

Gertie spoke of Miss Adrian to Lion as ‘the beautiful lady,’ and
Gertie’s description would hardly have been disputed by any one who
knew what real beauty was. Ruth Adrian, at the age of twenty-eight, was
as young looking as many a girl of eighteen. If it ever comes into
fashion to print actual coloured photographs of an author’s characters
in his story, it will save the male writer much vexation of spirit.
Ladies can tell you at a glance the colour of everybody’s hair and
eyes, the modelling of the chin, the expression of the lips, and the
character of the nose. The present writer, if asked suddenly, when away
from his domestic circle, the colour of his nearest female relative’s
eyes, would have to telegraph home for the information. To such a one
the minute personal description of his characters is indeed a task, but
he is bound to attempt it. What would the ladies say if he left them in
doubt as to the colour of his hero’s eyes? What would the gentlemen say
if he failed properly to describe the beautiful features of sweet Ruth
Adrian?

Picture, then, a tall young lady, with soft grey eyes, fair cheeks, in
which the delicate white and pink had never been marred by the
pernicious adjuncts of the modern belle’s dressing-table; a small,
almost baby mouth, that seemed specially designed to spread a perpetual
smile over the face; brown hair, neatly and smoothly arranged over a
forehead almost too high for a woman’s; and a nose which a Greek
sculptor might have borrowed for his Diana.

Here you have what the auctioneers would call a catalogue of the
features of Ruth Adrian. Picture her thus and you will behold a marble
statue; to see her as she was, a sweet and noble English woman, the
beautiful spirit that was hers must animate the lifeless clay. Let
truth and love shine out from the soft grey eyes, over the fair cheeks
spread the glow of health and the smile of innocence, listen to the
gentle words of sympathy with all God’s creatures that fall so softly
from the well-shaped lips; let the inner beauty of her noble, loving
nature shine through and illuminate the whole, as the soft light of the
lamp in my lady’s boudoir glows through the daintily decorated shade
that covers it, and brings the hidden beauties into tender relief;
think of Rath Adrian, not as a beautiful doll, but as a noble woman,
and then you will see her as she was.

The one great trouble of her life had chastened her beauty, and left
upon her features that gentle look of melancholy which poets love to
give their heroines.

Ruth had loved and lost. The man who won her girlish heart had been
unworthy of her. She believed him to be an honourable English
gentleman; she discovered him to be an adventurer and a scamp.

The moment the fatal truth was revealed to her, the quiet heroism of
her character asserted itself. She renounced him, not with scorn or
indignation, but with loving words and gentle pity. She bade him
farewell, and buried her unhappy love in the innermost chamber of her
heart. She bowed beneath the blow, and prayed God for strength to bear
it. He went his way, and she went hers, and from that moment the poor
and suffering took the vacant place in her heart.

She didn’t break her heart, but, like a brave woman, resolved to devote
the life that should have been lived for a man to her suffering
fellow-creatures. She had a hearty sympathy with the poor and
oppressed, with dumb animals and little children, and she went about
doing good quietly and effectively.

Ruth Adrian was free from the cant which mars the efforts of so many
well-meaning people. If she could save a soul she was delighted, but
she always tried to save the body first. The penny-packet-of
-tea-dust-once-a-month, and tracts-once-a-week system of mission work
she despised. She did not bribe people to be hypocrites, neither did
she have holy names in her mouth in season and out of season. She went
with the precepts of the loving Lord in her heart instead of on her
lips, and so she conquered where the professional missionary, male and
female, failed utterly.

She had taken a deep interest in Gertie from the first, and, as the
beauties of the child’s nature blossomed in the sunshine of her care,
she grew to love the little outcast with almost maternal love.

She had a great fight with her conscience over keeping their connexion
a secret from the grandfather; but she found out for a certainty that
she would be forbidden the house, and so for Gertie’s sake she played
the Jesuit, and convinced herself that the end justified the means.

Gertie’s books were hidden up in her bed-room, where Heckett never
went. Only Lion knew about them. She was beginning to write a little
now, and she had a slate on which she wrote letters to Lion and to Miss
Adrian and did little sums.

It was a strange sight to see Ruth and her _protégée_ at lessons. The
foxhound and the spaniel and the bulldog always wagged their tails when
Ruth came in, and then sat down on their haunches and stared at the
proceedings.

Lion was privileged. He was one of the class. But then he was such a
superior dog to all the others. They were always being sold and going
away and being replaced by other dogs before they had learned proper
behaviour. But Lion was part of the establishment. Heckett kept him to
guard the premises, perhaps.

When Ruth had gone, Gertie would sit with her arm round Lion’s neck and
say her lessons over to him, and explain things that perhaps might not
be quite clear to him.

Lion said nothing, but he evidently thought a good deal. Unfortunately,
there was a member of the menagerie who behaved very indifferently.
That was the parrot.

The parrot’s interruptions were shameful and scandalous. When Miss
Adrian was there he had to be quieted with lumps of sugar. He rarely
swore before her. Gertie was very thankful for that. The parrot only
swore as a rule at grandfather. But Polly interrupted lessons; in fact,
she took part in them.

When Miss Ruth, by constant repetition, had impressed upon Gertie that
England was an island, surrounded by water, the parrot said ‘Humbug,’
and persisted in saying ‘Humbug.’

Gertie apologised for Polly’s rudeness, and hoped her mistress would
look over it, and Ruth laughed merrily and told her it was Polly’s bad
bringing up.

Then, again, when Gertie repeated the multiplication table, and said,
‘Twice one is two,’ Polly would shriek out ‘Gammon.’

‘Humbug’ and ‘gammon’ were the mildest words in Polly’s vocabulary.
Doubtless she selected them for the occasion in deference to Miss
Adrian.

When her mistress was gone Gertie would lecture Polly severely.

‘Polly,’ she said, one day, with tears in her eyes, ‘unless you repent
you’ll go to the bad place. You must have a new heart, Polly. Oh,
Polly, why are you so wicked?’

‘Humbug,’ shrieked Polly, with a chuckle.

‘But you _are_ wicked, Polly; and nothing that’s wicked can be happy.
Miss Adrian says so.’

‘Gammon,’ shrieked Polly.

Gertie gave Polly up in despair, and turned to Lion for comfort. He at
least was good, and did not swear and use bad words.

‘Look at Lion, Polly, what an example he sets you,’ exclaimed Gertie
one day in despair. ‘Lion’s a——’

‘Humbug,’ interrupted the Satanic bird.

‘He’s not a humbug, Polly,’ cried the child, stamping her little foot.
‘He’s a dear, kind, loving dog. But we forgive you, because we must
forgive our enemies. Miss Adrian says so.’

‘Gammon, said the bird; and then suddenly it leapt about the cage,
shrieking and swearing so fiercely that Gertie seized Lion by the
collar and led him out of the room, offering up a little prayer as she
went that Polly might see the error of her ways before she died and was
utterly lost.

During Heckett’s illness the lessons had been abandoned, but from time
to time Gertie had exchanged greetings with her kind teacher at the
door.

When the old man got well enough to be about, he began to go out as
usual, and Gertie was delighted to think she could renew her studies
and the happy times with Miss Adrian.

One visit, which was paid a few days after Heckett’s renewal of his old
habits, was fraught with consequences so serious to all concerned that
it will require a chapter to itself.




CHAPTER X.
IN WHICH GRIGG AND LIMPET EXPLAIN.


Time?’ asked Grigg.

‘Eleven,’ said Limpet, looking at his watch.

Grigg was tall and thin. Limpet was short and fat. Admirable lawyers
and admirable men; they made admirable partners. Solicitors to dozens
of wealthy families, tin boxes, lettered in white, lined the walls of
every room. Envious neighbours said that Grigg started in the
profession with six dozen of the said boxes, bought cheap at a sale,
and that the capital which Limpet brought into the business was a gross
more.

Of course, this was merely malice. Doubtless each one of those tin
boxes was crammed with deeds relating to millions and millions and
millions of money. The statement that Grigg kept his old hats in the
one labelled ‘His Grace the Duke of Cheshire,’ and that Limpet junior
used the one labelled ‘The Candlestick Makers’ Company’ to keep the
back files of a sporting paper from injury, is on a par with the other
malicious assertions above referred to.

Limpet junior doesn’t trouble the firm much. He used to come down
occasionally about eleven, put the kettle on in his private office, and
as soon as the water was warm enough he would wash his hands and go
home again. One day he opened a letter marked ‘Immediate,’ and put it
into his pocket in order not to forget it. He wore the same coat again
when he went to Boulogne, about six months afterwards, and he found the
letter when he wanted a bit of paper to write an I O U for £50 on, for
a gentleman who had been good enough to play cards with him at the
Establishment. He posted it home with praiseworthy promptitude. Grigg
and Limpet were sued for negligence in not attending to that letter,
and it cost them £200 to stay the proceedings. After that the partners
agreed that the less Limpet junior attended to business, the more
likely he was to be worth the salary he drew.

Grigg and Limpet are sitting opposite each other to-day in room B. All
the rooms are lettered, and this has a great effect upon clients. Faney
a business so extensive that the very rooms have to be lettered for
fear they should get mixed!

‘Time?’ says Grigg, looking up again.

‘Ten past,’ answers Limpet. ‘Time they were here,’

Limpet always says more than Grigg.

A clerk comes in.

‘Dr. Birnie, if you please, sir.’

‘Room C,’ says Grigg.

Presently another clerk comes in.

‘Mrs. Turvey, please, and a little girl.’

‘Room D,’ says Limpet.

A third clerk enters.

‘Mr. John Symonds.’

‘Room F,’ says Grigg.

The clerks having retired to do their bidding, the partners sit still
for a few minutes.

‘Time?’ says Grigg.

‘Twenty-past,’ says Limpet. ‘I think that will do.’

Clients calling on Grigg and Limpet are always kept waiting from ten
minutes to a quarter of an hour. Lawyers with such an enormous business
are never disengaged at a moment’s notice.

Grigg goes to the side of the room where several speaking-tubes are
arranged. These are lettered A, B, C, D, E, and F Malice says they all
communicate with the same office; but what will not malice say?

‘Show all parties to the Egerton case in,’ says Grigg, speaking up the
tube.

Presently the three clerks appear, bringing in the doctor, Mrs. Turvey
and Topsy, and Mr. Symonds, who, judging from his appearance, is a
seafaring man.

Grigg and Limpet bow and motion the visitors to the seats. Grigg bows
to the ladies, Limpet to the gentlemen.

‘Mr. Limpet,’ says Grigg, ‘explain matters.’

‘Ahem, ’says Limpet, ‘we have thought it better, Mr. Grigg and myself,
to ask you to attend here to-day together _in re_ Egerton. I should say
in the matter of our client, Mr. Gurth Egerton—our late client, I fear
I should say. Before taking any steps, we have thought—Mr. Grigg and
myself have thought—that it would be better to hear the evidence in
this matter, in order that we—in order that Mr. Grigg and myself might,
if possible, arrive at some definite conclusion. Ahem, ahem.’

‘Will,’ said Grigg.

‘Exactly. Thank you. The will. The will of the—I fear I must say late?’

‘Say late,’ put in Grigg.

‘Exactly; we will say late, as Mr. Grigg suggests. It is better. It is
a sad description, but I fear a truthful one.’

Mr. Limpet looked at Mr. Grigg to see if any emotion was advisable.

‘No relatives,’ muttered Grigg.

‘Exactly. There are fortunately no relatives of the deceased here, so
that we can discuss this matter calmly, without yielding to that very
natural emotion which in cases of this sort, ahem—is, ahem—is, ahem——’

‘Usual,’ suggested Grigg.

‘Exactly, which is usual. The will, as you are aware, was left in our
possession when the, I fear I must say deceased, gentleman set out to
travel abroad for the—ahem—for the——’

‘Benefit of his health,’ said Grigg.

‘Exactly, the benefit of his health. Alas! his health was not
benefited, for I fear that he is now—that he is now——’

‘Bottom of the deep blue sea,’ suggested Grigg.

‘Exactly. As Mr. Grigg poetically puts it, at the bottom of the deep
blue sea. Of course, in cases of this sort there is always a difficulty
to prove death. There is always a doubt.’

‘Beggin’ your pardon, cap’en,’ interrupted the seafaring man, ‘but I’m
qualified to speak to that there point. There ain’t any doubt about it
at all. Them as goes to the bottom of the sea where the _Boney’s Paw_
went down is gone to Davy Jones right enough.’

‘Exactly. Mr.—Mr. Symonds, thank you. But that is not the point. You
see—excuse the little humour—we can’t call Mr. Jones as a witness. Ha,
ha!’

‘Ha, ha!’ groaned Grigg. Grigg’s laugh was exactly the same as his
groan.

‘There is a doubt in law, I say; but that, of course, we shall be able
to get over. We shall prove the loss of the vessel; we shall ascertain
that Mr. Egerton was on board; that he was left on board; that he is
not among the survivors, who can all be accounted for; and that, as a
matter of fact, he is, as Mr. Grigg very sympathetically and, I may
say, very poetically observed, at the bottom of the deep blue sea—in
other words, that he is dead. You, Mr. Symonds, I believe, were the
last man to leave the vessel when the boats put off? ‘I were, cap’en.’

‘And you left Mr. Egerton on board?’

‘There was a passenger o’ that name, and I left him aboard.’

‘Both boats were picked up, I believe, by a passing vessel on the
second day?’

‘They was,’ answered Mr Symonds.

‘And you are quite certain the passenger known as Mr. Egerton was not
on board either of the boats?’

‘Sartin.’

‘I think, Dr. Birnie, that is satisfactory?’ said Limpet, turning to
the gentleman addressed.

‘Quite,’ said the doctor, with a bow.

‘Dr. Birnie, I should say, that all present may understand the
position, is left sole executor of our—I fear I must say, in fact, I
will say—our late client’s will. He therefore is interested in proving
the death of our late client. Mrs. Turvey—ahem!

‘Perhaps, Mr. Grigg, you——’

‘Certainly,’ said Grigg. Grigg always talked to the ladies. ‘Mrs.
Turvey. Madam, under the provisions of the will, you receive a legacy
of five hundred pounds. Old servant. Very proper, and all the rest of
it. Go on, Mr. Limpet.’

‘Exactly. Mrs. Turvey, therefore you also are interested in proving the
death of our late client.’

Mrs. Turvey said ‘Thank you,’ and dropped a curtsey, and wondered
whether she ought to shake hands with Grigg and Limpet or not.

‘Now,’ continued Mr. Limpet, ‘everything would be satisfactory, but for
the extraordinary statement of—Mr. Grigg, perhaps you——’

‘Certainly,’ said Grigg. ‘You see, madam, you and your daughter——’

‘Niece,’ said Mrs. Turvey, rising and curtseying.

‘Same thing. You and your niece saw a ghost. Law doesn’t acknowledge
ghosts. Either you saw Mr. Egerton, not at the bottom of the deep blue
sea, but at his own front door, which is a different place altogether.
Very, Eh? You did, you know, or you didn’t. Eh? Which?’

Mrs. Turvey rose and curtseyed to the assembly.

‘Which, if it’s the last words I ever speak, gentlemen, I see Mr.
Egerton’s ghost that night a-standing at the door, all white and
looking dreadful. My niece see it first, and she screams and I comes
up, and I shudders now to think of it. I’ll take my happydavid of it,
sir, as I’m a Christian woman; and so’ll Topsy: won’t you, dear?’

‘Yes,’ said Topsy, rather scared at being appealed to. Whether the
‘happydavid’ she was required to take was a powder or a sweetmeat,
Topsy didn’t know; but in the presence of Grigg and Limpet she would
have said ‘Yes’ to anything.

‘My good lady,’ said Grigg, ‘we don’t doubt you; but the law will.
Excuse me—mere form of words—you weren’t drunk?’

‘Lor’, no, sir; I don’t do it,’ said Mrs. Turvey, bridling up.

‘Of course not. Well, then, if sober, you saw a man, not a ghost.
Little daughter—beg pardon, niece—saw a man. Both sober; both saw same
thing. What was it? Who was it? Eh?’

‘I attended this lady,’ put in Dr. Birnie, ‘and I found her suffering
from a shock to the nervous system. I am sure she saw something. It
couldn’t have been a ghost, and I really don’t see how it could have
been the lamented Mr. Egerton.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Grigg; ‘couldn’t have been. Sea don’t give up its
dead. Eh, what is it, child?’

Topsy was fidgeting on her chair and whispering to her aunt.

‘Speak out, child,’ said Grigg.

‘Speak out, little one,’ said Limpet; ‘the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth—so help—beg pardon—of course not. Speak the
truth, child; what is it?’

‘Please, sir,’ stammered Topsy, very red and shamefaced, ‘perhaps it
were the Judgment-day.’

Grigg looked at Limpet, and Limpet looked at Grigg.

As a lady, Topsy fell to Grigg’s share.

‘Judgment-day, eh? Ridiculous—queer notion, eh? What d’ye mean, child?’

‘Please, sir, it says in the Bible that the sea will give up its dead
at the Judgment-day.’

‘Ah!—of course—good girl. Always remember Bible—queer notion. But it
isn’t the Judgment-day yet—at least, I hope not—eh, Mr. Limpet?’

Mr. Limpet shook his head gravely. Topsy, who wondered if she had said
something very wrong, hid her face behind her aunt’s back.

‘The question is,’ resumed Limpet, ‘who was the man Mrs. Turvey and the
child saw? That’s it, I think, Dr. Birnie?’

Dr. Birnie nodded.

‘It was my master, Mr. Gurth Egerton’s ghost as I see,’ exclaimed Mrs.
Turvey emphatically; ‘and nothing will turn me from that.’

Mr. Limpet turned to Mr. Symonds.

‘We have your statement and your address, I think, Mr. Symonds?’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered the seafaring gentleman, ‘my address when ashore;
but I ain’t often there. I’m mostly a little beyond the four-mile
radius.’

Mr. Limpet smiled condescendingly.

‘Then for the present we can spare you, Mr. Symonds. The firm will see
you compensated for any trouble you may be put to.’

‘Thank you, cap’en and gen’l’men, one and all,’ said Mr. Symonds; ‘and
good-morning, ladies—yours most obedient.’

Mr. Symonds made a leg, swung his hat in the nautical manner and rolled
out of the room.

‘Mrs. Turvey, for the present I hope you will remain in charge of the
house now we have found a woman to be with you.’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Mrs. Turvey; ‘I don’t mind now I’ve company; and I
never was afeard of human beings; but ghosts I was not brought up to,
and never shall be.’

‘Certainly not, my dear madam,’ said Limpet. ‘We will send to you again
when necessary. Good-morning.’

Mrs. Turvey rose to go. She curtseyed, and led Topsy to the door.

‘Good-day, child,’ said Mr. Grigg. ‘Day of Judgment—queer notion for a
child—always remember Bible.’

When Mrs Turvey and Topsy had departed, Messrs. Grigg and Limpet had a
long and earnest conversation with Dr. Birnie, the result of which was
the drawing up of an advertisement, to be inserted in the _Times_,
requesting the present address of Mr. George Englehardt, the rescued
passenger of the _Bon Espoir_. He might be able to prove even to the
law that Gurth Egerton was dead, and his property at liberty to be
dealt with.

And when his employers were busy in room B, Mr. Jabez slipped out of
the office, and, meeting Mrs. Turvey at the door, escorted her home to
what he informed her he now looked upon as a haunted house.

‘The sort of house, Susan,’ he said, ‘which I had in my mind’s eye,
Horatio, when I wrote a few lines promiscuously, beginning:



And over all there hung a sense of fear

That e’en the boldest might well have daunted;

And apparitions made it very clear

The place was haunted,’—




which mutilation of Hood, being dramatically recited in High Holborn,
caused the passers-by to stare, and Mrs. Turvey to clutch hold of
Jabez’s arm tightly, if not lovingly.




CHAPTER XI.
A VERY NICE OLD GENTLEMAN.


Two days had elapsed since a letter was despatched to Mr. A. B.,
informing him that Mr. George Smith was willing to accept his proffered
situation, and no reply had been received.

George declared that Bess’s nose was beginning to get quite flat at the
tip from being constantly pressed against the window-glass while she
watched for the postman.

He was a most disagreeable postman. He went next door and opposite, and
this side and that; he rattat-tatted at every door but Mr. Duck’s.

George got to know the time for the deliveries after the first day, and
he would go down and wait at the front-door and watch the postman as he
came down the street. When he got close up George felt quite hot; but
as time after time he passed by without the faintest indication of
having anything for the Ducks’ letter-box, a feeling of terrible
disappointment crept over the young man’s heart.

He had made so sure he should have an answer, and so had Bess.

On the morning of the third day, when they were sitting at breakfast,
lo and behold the long-expected rat-tat came, and there was a click in
the letter-box, and the postman’s boots were heard descending the
steps—not by themselves, of course, the postman was in them. Bess and
George jumped up, nearly knocking the table over, and Bess tore
downstairs.

Yes, there was a letter in the box. Nervously Bess put her hand in and
drew it out, and then, half-hopefully, half-fearfully, glanced at the
direction.

She could have sat down in the hall and cried with disappointment.

It was only a deep black-bordered letter for ‘The Occupier.’ Of course,
that was for the Ducks. While she was looking at it Miss Duck came out,
and Bess handed it to her.

‘Lor’, a black border!’ exclaimed Georgina. ‘I wonder who’s dead.’

Miss Duck opened the letter with a nervous hand, and then flung it down
in disgust. It was an undertaker’s circular, offering to bury the
occupier and family on strictly moderate terms.

Bess went slowly upstairs, and found George pacing the room.

He knew by his wife’s face there was nothing for him, so he sighed and
sat down to finish his breakfast.

‘Bess,’ he said presently, looking into the bottom of his cup as if he
thought there might be a letter there, ‘I shall go and look A, B. up.’

Bess was standing by him, with her hand on his shoulder.

‘Oh, George, look, there is a letter!’ she cried suddenly.

‘Where?’ said George, looking inquiringly about him.

‘In the cup, dear; look, four black dots at the bottom of the cup—that
means a letter. It always comes true.’

George laughed.

‘You didn’t see a coffin in the fire, or a thief in the candle last
night, did you, dear?’ he said. ‘What a silly goose you are to believe
in omens!’

But, as it happened, the teacup _was_ a prophet, and Bess was quite
triumphant over it, for by the twelve o’clock post there came a letter
from A. B., requesting Mr. George Smith to call on him that afternoon
at an address in the City.

When George had read the letter twice over, and Bess had read it three
times, they had a wild polka round the room, much to the astonishment
of Miss Duck below, who had fears for the ceiling.

At the appointed time George, letter in hand, presented himself at the
address given, and was a little taken aback to find it was a
public-house. While he was hesitating and wondering whether A. B. was
the man in his shirtsleeves behind the bar, and, if so, what he could
want with a gentlemanly person at £150 a year, an elderly gentleman,
with beautiful long white hair and a flowing beard, touched him on the
arm.

‘Are you Mr. George Smith?’ said the nice old gentleman, in a kind,
soft voice.

‘Yes, I am,’ said George. ‘Are you Mr. A. B.?’

‘Yes.’

George wanted to seize the old gentleman’s hand and shake it there and
then. He was delighted to find A. B. such a venerable and very pleasant
person.

‘You’ll excuse my meeting you here,’ said A. B., ‘but the fact is I
wasn’t sure my offices would be ready, and as I had business in this
neighbourhood I thought this would do. I shall be very glad to accept
you. The terms I think you know—£150 a year, paid weekly. The hours are
light—ten till four; the duties also are light. I think we shall get on
very nicely. You will come to-morrow at ten to the address on this
piece of paper, and commence work at once.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ exclaimed George, ready to hug the dear fatherly old
fellow. ‘I will be there.’

George took the piece of paper, and put it carefully in his pocket. The
old gentleman invited him to have a glass of sherry, shook hands, with
him and went out, and George rushed back to Bess, bursting with the
good news.

They had such a tea that evening on the strength of it. George ate
muffins and sallylunns, and talked and made jokes, and ate all at the
same time, and nearly choked himself through the tea going the wrong
way; and Bess was so excited that George declared he must take her to
the play to keep her quiet.

It was one of the happiest evenings of their short married life. The
play was beautiful, and they sat in the pit, squeezed up close
together, and George fell in love with the leading lady, and Bess
punched him for it, and declared that the villain of the piece had made
a great impression on her.

And then they went and had some supper—real chops, at a real
supper-room—and it was twelve o’clock before they got home. George
whistled ‘Cheer, boys, cheer’ all the way through the street, and would
have whistled all the way upstairs, had not a loud snore proclaimed the
fact that sleep was upon the tired eyelids of the inmates. So George
took off his boots and pretended to be a burglar, and Bess was obliged
to giggle out loud when he tumbled over the coal-scuttle on the landing
and said half a naughty word.

The next morning, punctually at ten o’clock, George arrived at the
address given him, and ascended to the third floor, as he had been
directed. There on a door he found a paper pasted with ‘Smith & Co.’
upon it, in a bold round hand.

He knocked, and the familiar voice of A. B. bade him enter.

‘Good-morning, Mr. Smith,’ said that gentleman. ‘Glad to see you so
punctual.’

George took off his overcoat and put it on a chair in the corner. Then
he looked round. It wasn’t much of an office, certainly, and had
evidently been taken ready furnished. There was a table and two old
chairs, a desk that had been a good deal used, and a couple of office
stools.

‘This is only a branch office of our firm,’ said Mr. Brooks, for such
was his name, he informed George. ‘We have offices all over London.’

Mr. Brooks waved his hands to the four points of the compass.

‘I see,’ said George.

‘Now, your duty will be to meet me here at ten, and execute the various
commissions that lie within this radius.’

George didn’t quite understand, but he said, ‘Certainly, sir,’ and sat
himself down on a stool.

‘The correspondence this morning is not heavy, and there are no
commissions, so you can open this ledger. Do you know how to open a
ledger?’

‘Certainly,’ said George. How could the old gentleman think him such a
fool as not to know how to open a book!

George took the ledger and opened it. The old gentleman smiled.

‘You can write a name at the top of each page.’

‘What name?’

‘What name?—well—ah! Look here, take the City Directory lying on the
desk, and write the top name of each page.’

George thought it singular that the firm should do business with the
top name on each page of a directory, but he knew how ignorant he was
of business matters, and thought he’d better say nothing, or he might
be found out.

While he was writing a gentleman came in to see Mr. Brooks.

He looked at George and then at the old gentleman.

‘Mr. Smith,’ said Mr. Brooks, ‘kindly go as far as Cannon Street
Station, and inquire at the parcel office if there is a box for Smith &
Co., from Dublin.’

George went on his errand, and the old gentleman and his visitor were
left alone.

‘Well,’ said the visitor, ‘will he do?’

‘Prime,’ answered the old gentleman. ‘Green as grass. Phew, these
things make me jolly hot.’

It was certainly a very extraordinary thing to do, but the aged
representative of Smith & Co. did with the above observation take off
his long flowing white beard and his long white hair and put them on
the desk, together with the gold spectacles, and he was a different man
altogether.

He had knocked quite thirty years from his age, and he didn’t look half
so nice and pleasant without the gold spectacles.

‘When shall you try him?’ asked the visitor.

‘As soon as there’s a good chance,’ answered Mr. Brooks.

Mr. Brooks and the visitor had a short conversation, and then the
visitor left. And Mr. Brooks put on his hair and beard, and amused
himself by practising handwriting on a piece of paper.

It was singular that he kept on writing the same name, and it wasn’t
his own.

When George returned he informed Mr. Brooks that there was nothing for
Smith & Co., from Dublin, and Mr. Brooks said, ‘Oh, all right,’ and
didn’t seem at all surprised.

At four o’clock George’s work was done for the day, and he went home.

Bess ran down to meet him at the door. She had been watching from the
windows, and had seen him coming along the street.

She had an idea that he would be quite worn out with hard work, and had
had half a mind to go and fetch him. City work, she knew, was very
hard. She had read in the newspapers about clerks committing suicide,
and merchants going mad through overwork. She was quite surprised to
see George come up the steps two at a time, and when he caught her in
his arms, and gave her a good hug that nearly squeezed the breath out
of her body, she was more astonished still.

When they got upstairs, and George had flung himself into his favourite
chair, Bess poured in a broadside of questions.

‘Did he like it? Was A. B. nice? What did he have to do? Was the office
comfortable?’

George, in reply, gave a full, true, and particular account of his
day’s work.

‘It’s nothing at all,’ he said. ‘I’d no idea how easy it was to earn
money in the City. I’m a jolly lucky fellow, little woman, and I’m glad
I’m able to earn my own living. You see, I shall have plenty of spare
time to do something else, and perhaps, if Smith & Co. like me, I shall
get promoted, and drop in for a good thing. Why, I have heard that a
thousand a year is nothing of a salary in the City. Fancy me earning a
thousand a year! By Jove, what would the governor say to that?’

Bess was lost in calculating how much a thousand a year would be a
week, and how much she should be able to spend in housekeeping.

Presently she started up.

‘Oh, dear me—I’d quite forgotten,’ she exclaimed, and, darting
downstairs, returned with a basinful of something that steamed
furiously, and a big spoon.

‘There,’ she said, putting it down in front of her husband; ‘now you
must have it all. You mustn’t leave a drop.’

‘Why, what the dickens is this, my dear?’ said George, staring at the
basin in astonishment.

‘Beef-tea—I made it myself. You must have it to keep your strength up
now you work so hard, dear.’

George roared with laughter. The idea of his wanting beef-tea to give
him strength to sit on a stool and write names out of a directory in a
big book!

But he scalded his throat with a few spoonfuls of the steaming liquid,
just to please his wife.

That evening George took Bess out to dinner. Had he not earned ten
whole shillings, the first money he had ever earned in his life? Of
course he had. Then he had a perfect right to spend fifteen shillings
and sixpence at once.

The young couple had a cab home that evening. George had earned ten
shillings, and surely he could afford half-a-crown for a cab out of it.

And before they retired to rest that evening Mr. and Mrs. Smith had
taken a charming little villa near town, and George had bought a little
pony and a basket-carriage for Bess to drive about in, and they had a
delightful garden, beautifully kept, and a little conservatory; and
George had condescended to make it up with his father, and had sent him
an invitation to come and dine with him at his villa.

But this was not done out of the ten shillings. Oh, dear, no. George
and Bess were not so foolish as that.

This was all arranged in advance out of the thousand a year which
George was going to get by-and-by.




CHAPTER XII.
GOES INTO A LITTLE FAMILY HISTORY.


Gertie and Lion were in the middle of their lessons, and the parrot, as
usual, was behaving in a most reprehensible manner. English history it
treated with absolute contempt, geography it whistled away to the
winds, and the ridicule it cast upon the first principles of social
morality was deserving of the most severe censure.

‘It is wicked to tell an untruth,’ said Miss Adrian.

Lion and Gertie quite agreed with Miss Adrian that it was; but the
parrot said, ‘Humbug!’

‘And it’s wicked to use bad words, Miss Adrian, isn’t it?’ said Gertie,
with a withering glance at the objectionable bird.

‘It is, dear,’ answered Miss Adrian, with a smile; ‘but Polly has
picked up bad words from hearing other people use them, and this shows
us that when we do and say wicked things, we are injuring others as
well as ourselves.’

Gertie quite saw that. She felt that her grandfather was responsible to
a great extent for the depraved condition of Polly’s mind.

‘Oh, Miss Adrian,’ she said, ‘if grandfather could only hear you and
have a few lessons, I’m sure he would be good. I think he doesn’t know
it’s wicked.’

Miss Adrian sighed. She was woman of the world enough to have gathered,
from Gertie’s innocent confessions, what manner of man this old
dog-fancier was. She had divined, far more than the child herself knew,
and had long ago felt convinced that this little flower had been reared
in a den of thieves.

For a weak woman like herself to attempt the regeneration of this burly
reprobate she felt would be foolish, and could lead to no good result.
The chances were that she would be forbidden the place, and then Gertie
would be without a friend.

Her only hope was that in time Gertie might be able to have some
influence herself, and might, in the hands of Providence, become a
means of leading the old man into a different path.

Miss Adrian had passed from moral topics, and was hearing Gertie her
spelling lesson. Gertie generally spelt the things they could see from
the window and the animals in the room. It gave interest to a dry
subject.

She had got beyond dogs, and cats, and rats, and animals of one
syllable, and now she was in animals of two syllables.

‘Spell parrot,’ said Miss Adrian.

Polly hopped about and gave a shriek. It evidently knew it was going to
be spelt, and objected strongly.

‘P-a-r,’ said Gertie.

‘Rot,’ shrieked the bird, and the vulgarism came so _à propos_ that
Miss Adrian looked at the bird half-fearfully. There was undoubtedly
something uncanny about this diabolical parrot.

Just as there was a moment of dead silence after Polly’s disgraceful
interruption, a footstep was heard on the stairs, and the next moment
Polly burst out into a torrent of oaths.

Gertie, flushed scarlet with shame, and Miss Adrian changed colour.

The step had startled her, and she felt a sudden terror. It might be
Heckett coming upstairs, and she felt that a trying interview was
before her.

The parrot had recognized the step first. It was Heckett sure enough,
but not Heckett alone. The old dog-fancier came marching into the room,
followed by a gentleman Gertie had never seen before.

It was so unusual for her grandfather to come home before the afternoon
when he went out, that until she saw his face Gertie hardly believed it
could be he.

Her cheeks were still crimson with the blushes Polly had raised, but
she had been reared in an atmosphere of deception, and quick as thought
she picked up a canary-cage and began to extol the beauties of the
occupant to Miss Adrian.

‘I think you’ll like this one, ma’am,’ she said. ‘It’s a capital
singer.’ Then, turning to her grandfather, she said, innocently, ‘This
lady wants a canary, grandfather; this is as good a one as we have,
isn’t it?

‘Yes,’ growled the old man; ‘the gal knows her business, ma’am,’

He eyed Ruth as suspiciously as if she had been a female detective.

Ruth was looking over the canaries in the corner as Heckett and his
companion entered, but when the old man spoke to her she turned round.
Then, for the first time, the stranger and she stood face to face.

The gentleman was the first to speak.

‘Good heavens, Ruth, what brings you here? he cried, starting forward
as though to take her hand, then stopping short and dropping his head.

‘Edward—I beg your pardon, Mr. Marston!’ stammered Ruth, blushing
crimson and trembling violently. Gertie and her grandfather looked on
in astonishment.

In a moment Miss Adrian had collected herself.

‘I will call again, my child, about the canary,’ she said to Gertie;
then, lowering her veil, she bowed coldly to Marston and walked rapidly
out of the room.

Marston watched her till the door had closed behind her. He seemed
inclined to follow, but he only took a step forward, and then, with an
oath, came back again and flung himself down on an empty box.

‘This is a rum go, governor,’ said Heckett, after a pause; what does it
mean?

‘Do you know that lady?’ asked Marston, answering his question with
another.

‘Never see her afore. Is she a reg’lar cus., Gertie, or only a chance?

‘She comes now and then,’ stammered Gertie, hardly knowing what to say.

Marston looked at the child, and then gave a glance at the door.

Heckett interpreted its meaning in a moment.

‘Gertie,’ he said, gruffly, ‘get out and have a blow. I shall be at
home for an hour.’

Gertie put on her little hat and went out for a ‘blow,’ though what
sort of a blow, except one on the head, is obtainable in Drury Lane it
is difficult to conjecture.

She guessed her grandfather wanted to get rid of her while he talked to
the gentleman, and so she took the hint at once.

‘Now then, governor,’ said Heckett, making himself comfortable on a
rabbit-hutch, and kicking the foxhound and the spaniel out of the way,
‘perhaps you’ll give us the straight tip about this here affair. Who’s
the donner?’

‘The _lady_,’ replied Marston, with a meaning emphasis on the word, ‘is
a friend of mine; that’s enough for you. I knew her when I was a very
different man to what I am now.’

‘I see—old pals—sweetheart, eh?’

‘Never you mind what we were,’ answered Marston, gruffly; ‘we didn’t
come here to talk about sweethearts. What about this business?’

‘Well, if you think this is the best place to meet, I don’t mind. How
many will there be on the job?’

‘The fewer the better,’ answered Marston; ‘but I don’t see we can do
with less than five. There’ll be you and myself, Seth Preene, and
Turvey the guard, and Brooks.’

‘How much will it be, do you think?’

‘About £20,000. We shall wait till it’s quite that. We must make a good
haul, for the chance will never come again.’

‘It’s worth being in,’ growled Heckett, filling his pipe; ‘but it’s a
blessed risky affair. What are the shares?’

‘Half me, and the rest between the four of you.’

‘That ain’t fair, I’m dashed if it is,’ said Heckett.

‘Yes, it is. I shall have to scheme the whole thing. You’ll only have
to do the rough work. You needn’t be in it, though, if the terms don’t
suit.’

‘That’s right, Edward Marston, Esq., turn up rusty with an old pal,’
growled Heckett.

‘I’m not rusty, Josh, but I risk more than all of you over this affair,
and I’m the only man that can carry it out. Haven’t I found out where
you were, and come to put a good thing in your way, just because you
are an old pal? All the others have agreed to the terms, why should you
grumble?’

‘I ain’t grumbling, bless you. I’ll take it. Give us your fist.’

Marston held out his hand, and Heckett gripped it.

‘Then, that’s settled,’ said Marston. ‘Directly the keys are ready we
can arrange everything.’

‘By-the-bye,’ said Marston, as he was turning to go, ‘what about that
girl? Where’s her mother? I suppose she’s Gertie’s child, isn’t she?’

‘Gertie’s dead!’ said the old man, quietly.

‘Gertie dead? I didn’t know that.’

‘She died directly after the Egerton affair—died here. Ah, I never
could make it out,’ added Heckett, smoking his pipe fiercely.

‘But she wasn’t married, was she? We never knew that she was.’

‘I can’t tell you, Marston. I often thinks it over and wonders what the
real truth of the affair was. Perhaps you might help me. You’re a
scholard and pretty cute. You’ve read them ere stories in the
‘lustrated papers as gals read, ain’t you?’

‘I have read some of them years ago,’ answered Marston. ‘Well, the
story of that child as you see here just now’s one on ‘em ready wrote.
She’s my Gertie’s young un right enough, for she were born here. You
knew my Gertie? She was as handsome a wench as you could see in a day’s
march, and a reg’lar lady in her ways, warn’t she?’

‘She was,’ said Marston; ‘it was always a mystery how she could be your
daughter.’

‘She took arter her mother,’ answered Heckett; ‘and Gertie, the child
as you see, takes arter her. Well, you know as when I had the betting
office in Soho, and young swells used to come, and we rigged up a
roulette table in the back room? You remember them days?’

‘No one better, worse luck.’

‘You was one of the swells as come here, you and Birnie and Gurth
Egerton and his cousin Ralph, and you all used to chaff my gal and
pretend to make love to her, and all that sort of bosh.’

‘But she always kept us at a distance; she was as savage as a little
tiger if any of us spoke too freely to her.’

‘I know it, and that’s why I trusted her among you, for you were as
fast a lot of young rascals as could be found in London at that time,
and there wasn’t one of you as had a mag to fly with, except what you
got out of Ralph, for you was all dead broke.’

‘You knew it?’

‘Yes, I knew it, and I didn’t pertend to be a gentleman.

Everybody knew what I was; it was my business to live on greenhorns and
fools. You was amatoors. You pertended to be gentlemen, and you brought
a pal here and made him drunk night after night, and robbed him.’

‘You had your share.’

‘I don’t say I didn’t. Well, what happened? One night, at the old drum,
there was a big row, the lights were knocked over, and in the darkness
some one stabbed Ralph Egerton. Who, nobody knows, except the man as
did it. He was taken away and he died at his own place soon after, and
was buried, and nobody knew anything about it, thank God! but them as
was mixed up in it.’

‘Birnie managed that affair deuced well,’ said Marston.

‘Yes, he did; and sometimes I think as he had a reason for taking so
much trouble. But that ain’t here nor there. He seed everything right
and proper, and kept us all out of an awkward row. Ralph’s dead and
buried, and Gurth had all his money, and a pretty pot of it there was,
though you had all been robbing him and living on him for months.
Ralph’s will left him everything, though it was rum it should, for they
was never very great friends, was they?’

‘No,’ said Marston. ‘Go on.’

Marston was interested. Heckett’s words had set him thinking. He was
beginning to have a faint clue to something which had always been a
mystery to him.

‘Well, the next morning I was in the room trying to tidy up a bit and
get things straight, when in comes Gertie, my gal. She looked ill and
worried. It was early, and I didn’t think she’d be down—she slept in
the upstairs room—or I should have locked the door.

‘“Father,” she sez, “was there a row last night?”

‘“Not partic’lar, my gal,” I sez, a-tryin’ to chuck the cloth over
something on the floor.

‘“I thought I heard quarrelling and blows,” she sez. “I hope you didn’t
let them blackguards rob Mr. Egerton again last night?”

‘“I can’t help what the fools as comes here does,” I sez. “This here
ain’t a Sunday school, my gal, where they comes to sing hymns and say
their catechiz.”

‘“I know that, wus luck,” she sez, a lookin’ at me straight in the
face. “This here’s a den o’ thieves, father—that’s what it is; and it’s
people like us as brings murder about.”

‘I didn’t feel comfortable when she began to talk like that, so I sez
to her:

‘“You go and get the brekfus ready, my gal, that’s what you’ve got to
do.”

‘“I shan’t,” she sez. “Look here, father,”—Lor’, I can see her
a-standing there now, poor dear, her eyes a-flashin’ and her bussim
heavin’ with passion—“you shan’t lead this horrible life no longer,”
she sez. “I’m sick on it. I’ll warn Ralph Egerton this very day. He
don’t come here no more.”

‘“You’re a saucy jade,” I sez; “you go and mind your own business.”

‘’With that, being confused like, I picks up the cloth, and the next
minute she had me by the arm a-grippin’ me till I hollared out.

‘“Father,” she sez, “what’s that? There’s _blood_ upon the floor.
Father, there’s murder been done here this night.”

‘With that she drops into a chair and begins to moan and rock herself
to and fro, and presently she has what they calls a fit of the
‘sterics, for she begins to larf and cry and shout out. Then she rushes
out of the room quite mad like, a-yellin’ “Murder.” Well, I got in a
funk then, for I see as it would be all up if she didn’t hold her row,
so I bolts after her and seizes her.

‘“Leave go!” she shrieks. “Murder! Help! Murder!”

‘“Quiet, you devil!” I shouted, gripping her by the throat, for I was
half mad myself then. “Do you want to hang the lot of us?”’

‘She fought and bit and struggled, and, strong as I am, I had all my
work to hold her. At last she broke loose, and made for the stairs, and
then——’

The old dog-fancier drew out a big red handkerchief and mopped his
brow, for the perspiration stood upon it in great beads.

‘And then—God forgive me!—mad with rage, I struck her a violent blow on
the head, and she fell to the ground.

‘I was sorry arter, and I’d a cut my ‘and off, but what was I to do?
She’d ha’ had the whole neighbourhood about our ears in another minute.

‘She lay quite still where she fell, a-moaning and a-groaning, and I
kneels down beside her, and I calls her by name, and asks her to get
up, and tells her as I didn’t mean to do it, for, so help me God,
Marston, that there gal was the only human thing as I ever cared for.
She never got up, so I lifted her and carried her up, and put her on
the bed upstairs.

‘She lay there day after day, eatin’ a bit now and then, and a-moaning
and a-talking out loud about things as had happened years ago, and I
see as her brain was gorn queer. I daredn’t leave her a minnit hardly,
so I shuts the place for a bit. Birnie come to see her, for I sent a
message to him. He told me he’d a come before only he had to see to
Ralph Egerton. Then he told me what he’d done, and how it was all
square, and nobody need never be the wiser. Gurth Egerton he come to
ask after her, and he seemed quite interested in how she was a-goin’ on
and asked me what she talked about, and all manner o’ rum questions.

‘Well, she lied like that for a couple o’ months, and Birnie told me as
she was quite out of her mind, and certainly she did talk that wild it
was enough to give you the shivers to hear her.

‘“Is there any cause for this here?” I sez to Birnie, for I didn’t
think as the crack on the head could have done it.

‘“Yes,” he says; “she’s evidently been in great trouble, and that
little affair in the back room settled her outright,” and then he tells
me something as regular takes my breath away.

‘I didn’t believe it at first, but I found he was right arter all; for
one night I had to send for him in a hurry, and the next morning my
poor girl was dead, and that young un as you see in the room jest now
was a-crying by the side of her.’

‘And you mean to say you have no idea who Gertie’s father was?’

‘Not the ghost o’ one. She raved about everything except that. The
murder was the principal thing she stuck to. “They’re murdering Ralph!”
she’d cry out; “Save yourself, Ralph!” but never a word about a
sweetheart, and she died without telling us; and from that day to this
I’ve never found out who it was as ruined my poor gal like a villain.’

The frame of the burly old ruffian shook as he brought his fist down on
a box by his side.

‘By G——!’ he said, ‘if I could find that out, I swing for him now.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ said Marston quietly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your story’s new to me, Josh,’ said Marston, quietly, ‘and I didn’t
know poor Gertie was dead, for I left England soon after that affair,
as you know.’

‘Yes, you left in a hurry, though nobody ever knew why.’

‘That was my business,’ answered Marston, with the air of a man who
declined to be questioned; ‘but I left in total ignorance of anything
but the attack on Ralph.’

‘Some of us thought that was why you did leave.’

‘I had nothing to do with it,’ said Marston; ‘but I can tell you what
you evidently don’t know—your daughter had a sweetheart. One of the men
who came here came only to see her. He met her here first, and
afterwards they used to go about together in the day-time. One of the
men who used your house night after night was Gertie’s lover.’

‘Tell me his name,’ cried Heckett, springing to his feet, with a face
livid with rage. ‘Tell me his name, and by Heaven I’ll kill him like a
dog.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Marston. ‘Sit down.’ He pushed the old man back
on to the box. ‘Now listen. The man who loved your girl, who met her
day after day, and who only came to your den of thieves for her sake,
was——’ Marston paused.

‘Quick!’ gasped Heckett; ‘tell it me quick! His name—his name?’

‘Ralph Egerton!’ said Marston.

The old man’s clenched fist dropped to his side.

At that moment Gertie came in from her walk, Heckett called her to him
and looked earnestly in her face.

‘By Jove, Marston!’ he exclaimed, ‘I believe you’re right.’




CHAPTER XIII.
THE MASTER OF EDEN VILLA.


There is a quiet little turning out of the Camden Road, where the whim
of an architect has planted some hybrid arrangements in brick and
woodwork which it would puzzle the unskilled in architectural
nomenclature properly to describe.

They might be chalets if they were less like _cottages ornés_; they
might be _cottages ornés_ if they were less like bungalows; and they
might be bungalows if there were not so much of the suburban villa
about them. It is possible that the architect in preparing the plans
saw, like a distinguished statesman, that there were three courses open
to him, and, being a man who had some slight difficulty in making up
his mind, determined to effect a compromise, and erect buildings which
should embrace chalet, bungalow, and _cottage orné_, and also betray a
suggestion of the suburban villa.

The houses are pretty enough in their way, are nicely set back in
picturesque little gardens, and just the kind of places which a house
agent can describe as ‘charming bijou residences.’

It is not often that one of them displays an agent’s board, for they
are quickly snapped up by persons who wish to live in a pretty house
and still have the benefit of a good shopping neighbourhood, and
whatever advantages may accrue from a ‘close proximity to rail, ’bus,
and tram.’

Eden Villa, however, had been to let for at least three weeks, when one
fine day the milkman noticed the board was down and white curtains were
up. The milkman, also observing straw in front of the gate and in the
roadway, concluded at once that a new tenant had been found and had
moved in.

Whereupon the milkman left his card, which set forth that he kept
separate cows for children and invalids, and that families were waited
on daily. The baker and the butcher and the grocer followed on the
heels of the milkman, and very soon the young lady with cherry-coloured
ribbons in her cap, who answered the successive peals at the bell, got
out of temper, and informed all whom it might concern that ‘there
wasn’t no family there, and that what they wanted they’d come and
fetch.’

What else could cherry-ribbons say? How was she to decide, alone and
unaided, between the rival claims of seven milkmen, six butchers, eight
grocers, and ten bakers, whose cards made a nice little pack upon the
kitchen dresser?

Six hours had not elapsed after those white curtains went up before the
rates called with a rate already made, and the water applied for two
quarters unpaid by last tenant, and the representative of the local
directory requested the full christian and surname of the new tenant.

‘Master’s name’s Mr. Edward Marston, and he’s a hactor,’ said
cherry-ribbons, flurried and excited with her continuous journeyings to
the door. ‘That’s all I know, and he ain’t at home now, so you can’t
see him.’

With which exhaustive information cherry-ribbons banged the door to,
and bounced angrily into her easy chair, to enjoy her cup of tea and
once more to take up the thread of that marvellous serial, ‘A Servant
To-day and a Duchess To-morrow,’ which was running with brilliant
success from week to week through the pages of the _Housemaids of Merry
England_, a journal of fiction and fashion.

It was, however, from this scant information that the nobility, gentry,
and tradespeople of Camden Road and its vicinity gradually became aware
that Eden Villa was now the residence of Mr. Edward Marston, an
actor—probably a provincial actor, for his name was unknown to Camden
Town in connexion with the London boards.

Not being a baker or a milkman intent upon securing a new customer, but
simply a veracious chronicler, intent upon making the story of certain
people’s lives as clear as possible to the reader, I am quite
independent of cherry-ribbons; so, without disturbing her, I will open
the front door with my latch-key and usher you straight into the
presence of the new tenant.

The white curtains have been up three days when we pay our visit in the
early morning.

This is the breakfast-room on the ground floor. You will observe that
the French windows open on to the lawn. The gentleman toying with his
toast and sipping his tea leisurely you met one rainy night in the
early part of this story.

He is a very different looking person now. His clothes are faultlessly
cut, his hair is neatly arranged, his moustache is nicely trimmed, and
his beard and whiskers have been shaved off. The strange, wild look is
gone, and you see only a good-looking, well-built gentleman of
five-and-thirty, who has nothing much to trouble him, unless a nice
house be a trouble (it is, sometimes, I’m afraid), and who should
certainly, if appearances go for anything, mix in good society and have
a balance at his banker’s.

That he is an actor we know from cherry-ribbons, and that accounts for
there being in a little room upstairs a complete actor’s
wardrobe—dresses, wigs, beards, and moustaches, and all the materials
for ‘making up.’

But before he blossomed into a member of that profession which to-day
takes high rank among the arts, and passes followers into the saloons
of the wealthy and the great, and gives them an income for which all
but the most favoured in other professions may sigh in vain, but which
once only entitled its disciple to take rank as a rogue and a vagabond,
what was he?

An author must necessarily play the part of chorus while the action of
his drama requires that he and not his characters should speak. It is
not a pretty tune to which the chorus of Edward Marston’s life can be
delivered.

Edward Marston’s father gave his son a good education, and he gave him
little else. He was a gentleman at the outset of his career, was
Marston _père_, and an adventurer at the close. He dissipated a fortune
in reckless extravagance, broke his wife’s heart by careless cruelty
and systematic neglect, and, having brought up his son in an atmosphere
of plenty, ran away from his creditors just as that son was twenty-one,
and left him to shift for himself and make what he could by his brains
and out of the acquaintances which he had made in his butterfly days.

Given a fair start, compelled from the outset to work for his living,
young Marston might have settled down into a respectable citizen. But
the whole surroundings of his life had unfitted him for the steady and
laborious pursuit of wealth. He had expensive habits and tastes, a love
of luxury which he was accustomed to gratify without thought of the
cost, and he had never been brought within the range of those high
moral influences which force the inclinations under some kind of
control.

His home life had been unhappy. With an ailing and broken-spirited
mother—a woman too weak-minded to do anything but what she did, pine
away and die—with a father who openly violated the first principles of
social morality, young Marston early learned to be what the world calls
‘a smart fellow.’

He had no sisters. Had even this influence been brought to bear upon
him he might have grown up differently. The men who have had sisters
are generally the best. The constant presence of womanhood in a house
acts as a charm. Boys who grow up among boys are always inferior to
their fellows in manners, in tact, and, as far as the world knows, in
their standard of morality. It is difficult to overrate the beneficial
influence which sisters exercise over their brothers in an English
household.

Edward Marston, deprived of everything which could appeal to his better
self, drifted into a swift current of evil. His associates were young
men of wealth and position, and he imitated their tastes at any cost.
When his father went away to America he found himself utterly stranded,
with nothing but his vices. He lived on them. He got mixed up with a
fast set of young men, and in pursuit of pleasure made doubtful
friendships. It was easy to foretell the end.

He had no money; he had therefore to get it from those who had. Such
men are met in the largest quantities on racecourses in billiard-rooms,
and gambling-saloons. These places were the haunts of young Marston,
and fate flung him into close companionship with well-dressed rogues
and well-dressed fools.

Among his ‘set’ were Oliver Birnie, a good-natured devil-may-care
medical student, clever enough, but fond of more dissipation than he
could  get out of the two hundred a year his father, a small country
practitioner, allowed him, and Gurth Egerton, a young man much after
his own heart, whose only living relative was a wealthy cousin, a man
of five-and-thirty.

This latter was Ralph Egerton, a man who might have been anything he
chose, but who, inheriting a large fortune, plunged into dissipation
and drank to the verge of madness. In his sober moments he was a good
fellow; drunk he was a quarrelsome rowdy, and an easy prey to the young
sharks who swarmed about him. Gurth and he were pretty constant
companions, but they quarrelled fearfully. Gurth resented Ralph’s
wealth, yet he lived on him. Gurth brought him to the dens, and Marston
helped to pluck him.

They let Ralph fancy himself a little king of Bohemia; they ate his
dinners and drank his wine, and when he was drunk enough they took him
to gambling hells and cheated him.

A favourite haunt with them all was Josh Heckett’s. Heckett did many
queer things for a living. Among others he kept a betting office in
Soho, and had a little room where a select few of his customers played
roulette or any game they chose.

It was in this room that the event happened with which the reader is
already well acquainted. It was just after that that young Marston
disappeared from the scene and went to America—to his father, he
said—but whatever was his real motive, it was known only to himself.

Leading the life he did, he had yet found time to fall in love with a
beautiful girl who had returned his affection.

The Adrians had been neighbours in his father’s best days, and Edward
and Ruth had been boy and girl sweethearts. No harm was known of the
Marstons then. They lived in a good house, kept servants, and
ostensibly were gentle people. Edward visited at the house, Mr. and
Mrs. Adrian liked him, and it was tacitly understood that the young
people were in love.

The one pure passion of Edward Marston’s life was his love for Ruth
Adrian. If anything could have sobered and steadied him it would have
been her influence. Unhappily, at the very time that influence was most
needed, an event happened which severed their lives for ever.

The elder Marston ran away from his creditors, some very ‘peculiar
financial transactions came to light, and when Mr. Adrian, awakened to
the danger of the situation, made inquiries, he found that the son was
leading an evil life, and was the constant companion of gentlemanly
blacklegs.

The next time Edward called at the Adrians’ he was forbidden the house,
Ruth wrote him a noble, womanly letter, returned his presents, and
declared that it broke her heart to give him up, but that her duty to
herself and to those dearest to her demanded it. She should never love
anyone else and never forget him. She would pray God that he might yet
lead a better life, and some day call a pure and honest woman wife. The
girl’s tears fell fast and thick as she wrote. She thought she was
doing her duty. Reared in a school of morality deeply tinged with
religious fervour, Ruth saw no other way out of the difficulty. It
seemed to her almost a sin to have loved a bad man. The love she could
not crush, but the man she would look upon no more.

This breaking down of the last barrier between himself and utter
recklessness happened immediately after Ralph Egerton’s murder—for
murder all concerned firmly believed it to be. Ruth Adrian was the last
link that bound him to respectability. That link snapped and he was
free—free to float out into the ocean of wickedness, and sink or swim
as luck determined.

He went to America and led a life of adventure. He utilized his talents
in a big field, but an overrun one. The ‘smart man’ is a type of
American society, and a redundant type. Marston may have prospered at
one period, but he must have come to an evil time at last, for certain
it is that he returned to England almost penniless, and on the night he
met Birnie outside the Blue Pigeons he was actually without a copper.

That meeting was the turning point in his career. It placed a little
capital at his disposal, and capital is the one thing needed to make a
fair start in anything in this country.

Marston had learned much in America, and he saw a way to utilize his
experience.

High-art crime has been developed rapidly in these latter days. Edward
Marston was one of its pioneers. He brought to the ‘business’ in which
he embarked education, skill, ingenuity, and a knowledge of the world.

As he sits this morning in his newly furnished villa in the Camden Road
his plans are formed, his capital is invested, he is at the head of an
obedient and well-organized staff, and he is about to embark on the
perilous and daring enterprise. His capital is the £500 Birnie had
repaid him. He is under an obligation to no one for that. To his staff
we shall in due time be introduced, and through the varying stages of
his brilliant enterprise we shall accompany him.

He has finished his breakfast. He rings the bell, and cherry-ribbons
enters and clears away. He has so much to see to and so much to think
of this morning, that he will not want to be interrupted, and it is
perfectly certain that he will have a strong objection to being
overlooked.

Under these circumstances, having satisfied our curiosity as to his
antecedents and present position, it will perhaps be as well if we take
our departure and creep out of Eden Villa as quietly as we entered it.




CHAPTER XIV.
JABEZ SEES THE GHOST.


It was Miss Duck’s birthday—which birthday let us not be ungallant
enough to inquire. Georgina herself confessed to thirty-three, but
Jabez had heard her confess to quite that amount of years on many
previous anniversaries when there had been no company present; he
wisely held his tongue, and concluded that Georgina had been adding up
with the trifling omission of a ten.

It was quite a festive occasion this evening at the little house at
Dalston. Miss Jackson from over the way was invited, and so was her
young brother; Bess and George were of the party, and Jabez came home
an hour earlier in order to assist Georgina in doing the honours.

Tea was over and cleared away, and in its place there stood upon the
table a plate of biscuits, a decanter of port, a decanter of sherry,
and a plate of oranges cut into quarters.

Miss Jackson, between sundry fits of weeping, had confided to Bess that
birthdays always made her miserable; and Miss Jackson’s brother,
supremely uncomfortable in a collar that would keep coming unbuttoned,
sat on the edge of a chair and blushed crimson every time anyone looked
at him.

Miss Jackson’s brother was a nervous youth of nineteen, who wrote
sonnets to Venus and odes to Diana of the most impassioned order, but
could not look a mortal female in the face without going the colour of
a boiled lobster.

After tea he wriggled on the edge of his chair, and divided his time
between rebuttoning his collar and pretending to be deeply interested
in the pattern of the carpet.

‘Georgina dear,’ said Miss Jackson, during a pause in the conversation,
‘how sad it is to think that in the midst of this festivity’—Miss
Jackson glanced at the cut oranges and sweet biscuits—‘we are really
celebrating the close of another year of your dear life.’

‘Lor, Carry, don’t!’ said Georgina. ‘You give one the creeps.’

‘Alas!’ sighed Carry, ‘we are all one year nearer the grave than we
were a year ago.’

Her eyes filled with tears, and she mopped them with her
pocket-handkerchief.

‘That’s one way of looking at it, certainly,’ exclaimed Jabez, filling
the glasses and handing them round. ‘Have a glass of port?’

‘Thank you,’ said Miss Jackson; and clutching a glass she dropped a
tear into it, and tossed it off.

Miss Jackson’s brother also took a glass with a trembling hand, and got
it to his lips after spilling half of it down his white waistcoat, and
turning the colour of the liquid itself in his agony, ‘Now let’s be
jolly,’ exclamed Jabez, shining benignantly on everybody. ‘Here’s
Georgina’s jolly good health, and a many of ‘em.’

Bess and George duly honoured the sentiment, and Georgina bowed
gracefully to everybody, including Miss Jackson’s brother, who observed
the salutation just as he was drinking, and, swallowing his wine in a
hurry in order to bow politely, let it all go the wrong way, and choked
and coughed for a good five minutes, crowning his misfortunes, in the
confusion which seized him in consequence, by wiping his brow with the
antimacassar instead of his pocket-handkerchief.

Gradually the little company settled into groups. Miss Jackson, Bess,
and Miss Duck plunged into trivialities about Mrs. Jones’s baby next
door, Mrs. Brown’s bad husband, the price of provisions, and the state
of the weather; Miss Jackson’s brother made a group by himself in a far
corner with an album, over which he bent with the earnestness of a
student, and looked at the portraits upside down for a quarter of an
hour without knowing it; and Jabez and George started a little
conversation which we are ungallant enough to imagine will be of more
interest to the reader than Miss Jackson’s jeremiads, Bess’s mechanical
‘Yeses’ and ‘Noes,’ or Miss Duck’s choice morsels of local gossip.

‘And so you really like your new place. Well, I’m glad of that,’ said
Mr. Duck. ‘Good places ain’t easy found in the City.’

‘Mine’s a capital place, I assure you,’ answered George. ‘There’s
really very little to do.’

‘Let’s see, Smith & Co. is the firm, isn’t it? What are they?’ asked
Jabez, presently.

‘I don’t know, exactly.’

‘Where are their offices?’

‘Well,’ said George, ‘they have so many.’

‘Many offices! What do you mean?’

‘Why, you see, I’m not attached to any office. One week I go to their
office in Fenchurch Street, and perhaps the next I’m at Little Britain.
This week I’m on at the office in the Borough.’

‘Do you have many customers come in?’

‘No. Now and then a gentleman comes to see the manager—that’s all.’

‘It’s a queer situation, anyway,’ said Jabez. ‘I wonder what they can
be?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered George; ‘but the manager is a most respectable
old gentleman, and very kind, and I get my money to the minute.’

Jabez registered a mental note to make some inquiries about the firm of
Smith & Co., who had so many offices. And then the conversation turned
upon Mr. Jabez’s own line of business.

‘We see some rum affairs in the law,’ he said, after giving George an
idea of the grandeur of his firm. ‘We’ve a case now that’s a romance in
itself.’

‘A romance!’ exclaimed Miss Jackson. ‘Oh, I dote on romances, they end
so sadly. I had my romance once.’

Again the big round eyes filled with tears, and Miss Jackson was about
to give way, when Georgina called her a goose, and Jabez went on with
his narrative to a larger audience, for the local gossip was exhausted.

‘There is a bit of sadness about this romance, it’s true,’ said Mr.
Duck, ‘because there’s a death in it.’ Miss Jackson got her
handkerchief ready.

‘It’s the Egerton case I mean. You’ve seen the advertisement in the
newspapers asking for proof of Mr. Gurth Egerton’s death? Well, my firm
put that in. We’re solicitors to the gent. There’s no doubt he was
drowned in the _Bon Espoir_. But the most curious part of it is the
housekeeper, Mrs. Turvey’—Georgina turned up her nose here, and Miss
Jackson sighed a sigh of sympathy with her friend’s trouble. ‘The
housekeeper, Mrs. Turvey, and her little girl distinctly saw an exact
counterpart of Gurth Egerton at his own front door some time after the
news of the wreck reached England.’

‘A ghost!’ shrieked Miss Jackson; ‘don’t say it was a ghost.’

‘Well, I don’t know what else it could have been unless it was the
drowned man himself; and if it was him, why should he open his front
door and go away again? Why shouldn’t he have said, “Mrs. Turvey, light
the fire in my bed-room and air my nightshirt.”’

Miss Jackson hid her face, and Georgina exclaimed, ‘Jabez!’ Miss
Jackson’s brother buried his head in the album.

‘I beg your pardon, ladies,’ said Mr. Duck, ‘for alluding to details,
but in the law we are particular about details. Well, instead of
behaving as a live man would, he doesn’t come in, and nothing more is
heard of him. His friend, Dr. Birnie, is executor to his will, and
inherits a good lump of his property; but Birnie can’t touch a penny
till we can prove the death of the man who came to his own front door
after he was drowned.’

‘But,’ exclaimed George, ‘surely if he was drowned you can prove it.’

‘Not easily, except by supposition. Some people left the ship before
she sank. They all swear the passenger known as Egerton was not in
either of the boats. They were all picked up and are accounted
for—every soul in the boats.’

‘Then Mr. Egerton must be dead,’ said Miss Georgina.

Mr. Duck smiled.

‘Of course he is, my dear, but not in the eyes of the law.

In a railway accident, or burned in a theatre, or blown up by an
explosion of gas, we might have found a button or a coat-tail or
something to swear by. You see in the present unsatisfactory state of
the case there are people to whom money is left who can’t touch it.’

Miss Georgina shot an arrow.

‘There’s Mrs. Turvey, the housekeeper, has five hundred pounds, for
instance.’

‘Yes, my dear, that estimable lady has, or rather will have, five
hundred pounds.’

‘I dare pay some old fool will be after her directly that gets known,’
said Miss Georgina, with a look at Miss Jackson.

Jabez protended not to hear, but, turning to George, addressed his
conversation specially to him.

It was a stormy evening, and the clouds had been gathering
threateningly in the sky, with an indication of more violent tempest
yet to come.

Just as Jabez was minutely describing the appearance of the ghost as
seen by Mrs. Turvey, a terrific peal of thunder crashed through the
stillness of the night, and vivid flashes of lightning played about the
room.

With a wild shriek Miss Georgina sprang to her feet.

She was the most abject coward in a thunderstorm.

Miss Jackson endeavoured to calm her.

‘Oh, Carry, let me go—let me go,’ she cried; ‘lead me to the
coal-cellar.’

The company endeavoured to soothe her fears. It wasn’t forked
lightning, they assured her. There was no danger.

‘Cover the glasses over, Jabez,’ moaned Georgina, ‘and open the
windows, and set the doors ajar, and see there are no knives about.
Oh!’ Another terrific peal of thunder wrung this last interjection from
Miss Duck. She darted out of the room in a state of collapse, and,
seizing a chair, rushed into the coal-cellar with it, and there awaited
the abatement of the storm.

Jabez explained that his sister was very frightened of lightning, and
he hoped the company would excuse her. She always shut herself in the
coal-cellar during a thunderstorm.

‘Poor thing!’ sighed Miss Jackson. ‘Spending her birthday in the
coal-cellar! Oh, my poor friend!’

Miss Jackson, imagining that a tear ought to be trickling down her
nose, was about to produce her handkerchief and wipe it away, when her
brother created a diversion which cast the cruel situation of Miss Duck
into temporary oblivion.

The windows had been flung open to let a current of air through the
room and give the lightning egress, and Miss Jackson’s brother was
surveying the heavens and mentally composing an ode to Jupiter, when
his attention was attracted by a figure on the opposite side of the
road.

Miss Jackson’s brother had been an attentive listener to the ghost
story and Jabez’s description of the ghost’s features, and great,
therefore, was his honor at beholding, when the lightning lit the
figure up, an exact counterpart of the ghost that appeared to Mrs.
Turvey.

‘Lo-o-o-k there!’ he stammered. ‘Wh-ha-t’s th-that?’

Jabez followed the direction of the youth’s trembling finger, and then,
with a vigorous ‘Well, I’m blest!’ darted into the hall, seized his hat
and rushed across the road.

The figure turned and fled.

Jabez pursued it.

Miss Jackson had rushed down-stairs to whisper through the keyhole of
the coal-cellar that a ghost had come to wish Georgina many happy
returns of the day, and that Jabez was pursuing it.

Georgina came out of the coal-cellar at once.

The ghost might come there.

The storm had abated, and she ventured to join George and Bess and Miss
Jackson’s brother at the open window.

The ghost and Jabez were out of sight.

In about five minutes one of them returned panting and out of breath.
It was Jabez.

He came into the room looking so white that Miss Jackson screamed.

‘Well, what about the ghost?’ said George, quite bravely, smiling at
Bess, upon whom the example of the other ladies seemed likely to have
an effect.

‘I’m done,’ answered Jabez, dropping into a chair, and violently
polishing his shiny head with his pocket-handkerchief till the gas
globes were reflected in it; ‘I’m done. It’s the rummest thing I ever
knew.’

‘But you never knew a ghost before, did you?’ asked George, keeping up
a smile, meant to be reassuring.

‘Ghost be blowed!’ exclaimed Mr. Jabez, jumping up. ‘It’s no ghost.
It’s Gurth Egerton himself.’




CHAPTER XV.
MR. GURTH EGERTON COMES TO LIFE.


Gurth Egerton’s first feeling when saved from the wreck of the _Bon
Espoir_ was one of intense thankfulness that his life had been spared.
But as the fearful danger to which he had been exposed receded, he
began to contemplate the past less and the future considerably more.

The most terrible situations are those which fade most rapidly from the
mind. A man will remember going to the dentist’s to have a tooth drawn
long after he has forgotten a surgical operation in which his life was
at stake. There is nothing so soon forgotten by the ordinary mind as
death. Many men would remember being best man at a wedding far more
distinctly than being chief mourner at a funeral.

So it was with Gurth Egerton.

After the first few days on board the _Diana_, his marvellous escape
seemed a trifling incident in his career, and his whole thinking
capacity was exercised in the solution of this difficulty—what should
he do when he got to England?

The theory that murderers are always haunted by remorse is an absurd
one. Murderers are in many instances very ordinary persons. They wash
their hands, forget their crime, and tread their path in life with firm
footsteps. A murderer may go to the play, entertain his friends at
dinner, eat strawberries and cream, and cry when his favourite dog
dies. ‘Once a murderer always a murderer,’ is not a proverb in any
language. It is most probable that the authors of the undiscovered
crimes of recent years are now considered very respectable members of
society. For all we know they may pay their debts with regularity,
subscribe to school treats, help old ladies over crossings, and live in
houses which are distinguished for the whitest window-curtains and
cleanest doorsteps. They may sleep soundly, digest their food, and
shiver with indignation when a ruffiany labourer is charged with
assaulting his wife. Murders are committed, as a rule, under
exceptional circumstances, and a murderer may look back upon ‘his
little misfortune’ with occasional regret, but it is doubtful if ever
he felt the least desire to give himself up or to exchange his liberty
for a prison cell.

There is, however, a difference in murders. Some people are so anxious
to acquire the title that they voluntarily accuse themselves of crimes
of which they are innocent. Others give themselves up with a romantic
story about their conscience having compelled them to do so. In most of
these instances, if it is a man he has been drinking hard, and if it is
a woman she is hysterical. Self-preservation is the first law of
nature, and, as long as a murderer’s mind is well balanced, he will
bury his crime as deep as possible and forget it as soon as he can.

The idea that murderers are haunted for ever by the memory of their
guilt is as fallacious as the smug proverb that ‘Murder will out.’ For
one murder that comes to light there are ten that remain in eternal
darkness.

It is time, however, to leave murderers in general to their peaceful
enjoyments, and return to Mr. Gurth Egerton, the rescued passenger of
the _Bon Espoir_, and to say somethin» of his antecedents.

His uncle, Ralph’s father, had been a man 

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