A Little World Part 48

"Who burked the boy?" fleeing the next moment as if for their very lives, on hearing the sc.r.a.ping of the dealer's chair.

This is merely a sample of the unpleasantness that the little dealer was called upon to bear; for Mr Screwby was exceedingly bitter against the house of Wragg, inasmuch as there had been no discovery made--not even the trace or tiny ravelling of a thread sufficient to commence a clue; and what was more, Sergeant Falkner had strongly negatived the necessity for rewarding him, even in the slightest degree--though, unseen by the police, Clayton had slipped a sovereign into the man's hand.

But what was a sovereign as compared with the golden heap that two hundred would have made? And then what things it would have bought! Mr John Screwby had already gloated over several articles--notably a brown fur cap, dyed catskin, which he coveted hugely; but now the whole of his air-built castle was swept away; and to make matters ten times worse, he had been requested by the sergeant not to show himself anywhere near a certain number in Regent Street any more.

This last was rather a serious command, for it was indeed a special order, although couched in the form of a request. To a gentleman in Mr Screwby's circ.u.mstances, matters might turn out very unpleasantly if he slighted the sergeant's impressive words.

Under these circ.u.mstances, though not caring a jot for the fate of Lionel Redgrave, Mr John Screwby, failing money, determined to have the full measure of his revenge, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, if it were possible, and therefore he joined himself heart and soul to the party whose every effort was directed towards the elucidation of the mystery which had prostrated Sir Francis. For after striving most manfully to fight against bodily weakness, the old baronet lay at his son's chambers in a state upon which the medical men consulted declined to give a decided opinion.

To a bystander Sir Francis seemed weak and perfectly helpless, but a few words relating to information would galvanise him into life once more; and so it was that one afternoon, when a rough, waterside-looking fellow presented himself, Sir Francis immediately ordered him to be shown up.

Volume 3, Chapter IV.

THE NEW CLUE.

"He's been out again, sir," said Mr Stiff to Clayton, as he entered the pa.s.sage.

"What! Sir Francis?"

"Yes, sir. A man came from down Bermondsey way, and said he had some news, and I daren't refuse him. You know, sir, it might be valuable, and it would not do for me to be shutting off the very bit of information that might be worth anything."

"What kind of man was it?" asked Harry.

"Poor Jack sort of fellow, sir, from river stairs; and I told Sir Francis, as he told me to tell him of everybody who called only this morning again, and I showed the man up. Then they went off together in a cab, and he's just come back, sir."

"What madness--in his state!" exclaimed Harry, and he hurried up the stairs to find Sir Francis seated on a low chair, with his face buried in his hands.

Sir Francis looked up as the young man entered, to gaze at him in a confused, dazed way, as if he did not quite comprehend the meaning of his coming.

"Was not this rather foolish of you, Sir Francis?" said Harry, gently.

"Indeed you are in no condition for going out. I see how it is, though, and I feared it when you put in the advertis.e.m.e.nt; the very name of the chambers in Regent Street was enough to bring down a host of reward-seekers. Why did you not take my advice, and refer them to the police?"

"I couldn't, Clayton--I couldn't," groaned Sir Francis. "You do not know what I feel, or you would not speak to me as you do. Poor lad!-- poor lad!"

Harry was silent for a few minutes, and then he spoke again.

"It was, of course, a useless quest, sir?"

"I can't tell--I don't know," said Sir Francis, feebly. "I am confused and troubled in the head, Clayton, and I have been trying hard to recollect what it all was, and what I did; but as soon as I grasp anything, it seems to glide from me again."

"Lie down, sir," said Harry, gently, and he pa.s.sed an arm beneath that of the old man.

"Not yet--not yet--not yet, Clayton. I think I have it now. Yes, that is it--I have it. The man came and said they had found some one by the river-side, and I went half-way with him; and then I suppose I must have fainted, for I can recollect no more, only that I was brought back--or no, I think I must have found my way back by myself. This weakness is a cruel trial just now."

"You must put your strength to the test no more, sir," said Harry, firmly. "Try and believe that I will do all that is possible. Indeed, I will leave no stone unturned."

"I know it, Clayton--I know it!" exclaimed Sir Francis; "and indeed I do try, but this suspense is at times more than I can bear."

At the young man's persuasion, he now went to lie down, giving up in a weary vacant manner the effort to recollect where the man had been about to take him. He tried once to recall the names, till Harry felt a dread of delirium setting in, and it was only by his promising to follow up the clue that had been freshly opened out, that he kept the afflicted father to his couch.

Once more alone, Harry rang for Stiff, who, however, could only repeat what he had before said, and his querist was puzzled as to what should be the next steps taken.

The problem was solved by the waterside man himself, who came, he said, to see if the gentleman was well enough to go now.

"He turned ill in the cab, did he not?" said Clayton.

"Yes, sir; would go in a cab, he would. I don't like 'em--ready to choke yer, they are; but he wouldn't come on a 'bus. 'Fore we'd gone far, he turns as white as his hankychy, and shuts his eyes curus like, and gets all nohow in what he was a saying; but he says, he does, 'Take me back, and come agen.' So I brought him back, and now I've comed agen."

"And now, what is your news?" said Harry. "The gentleman has placed it in my hands."

The man looked curiously at him for a few minutes, and then rubbed the bridge of his nose with a rough hand.

"But you see, sir, this is a matter o' offring rewards for some one as is missing, and I've got a mate in this here job. For, you know, as soon as ever there's a notice up o' that sort, my mate and I begins to look out, so as to try if we can't find what's missing, and get what's offered. Now, I ask your parding, sir, but I should like to know who you may be, and what you've got to do with it at all? S'pose I leads you to it, shall we get the ready?"

"You may deal with me precisely as you did with the gentleman you saw before. You know for yourself that he is too ill to leave the house, and he has deputed me to act for him, as I told you."

"True for you, sir--I did see it; and as you seem to be a gent as is all right, let's go."

A cab was brought, and, not without a glance at his unsavoury companion, Harry followed him into the vehicle.

"Hadn't yer better let me ride outside, sir?" said the man, looking at the stuffed and cushioned interior with an aspect of disgust.

"No," said Harry; "I want to know what more you have to say respecting this affair."

The man gave a tug at an imaginary forelock, and then waited apparently to be questioned, while Harry took in his outward appearance at a glance.

He was rough and dirty enough to have pa.s.sed for the veriest vagabond in existence, but all the same he did not seem as if he belonged to that portion of society that has been dubbed "the dangerous cla.s.ses;" for there was a good open aspect to the brown face, and though the Bardolphian nose told tales of drams taken to keep out the cold river mists, on either side a frank grey eye looked you full in the face; while, greatest test of all, the fellow's palms were hard and h.o.r.n.y, and ended by fingers that had been chipped, bent, bruised, and distorted by hard labour.

"Well, sir," said the man, "I ain't got much to tell you; only that, seeing the reward up, my mate and me thought we might as well have it as any one else, so we set to and--"

"You found him?" exclaimed Harry, eagerly.

"Well, sir, that's for you to say when you sees him. My mate generally sees people about these sorter things, but I come to-day; and a fine job I had to get to know where you lived, for I'd forgot the number; but I found out at last from a gal cleaning the door-step close by. It don't do for us, you know, to go to no police--they humbugs a man about so; and I don't know now whether they ain't been down on my mate, 'cos you see we didn't want to say nothing to them till as how you'd been and seen it."

Harry shuddered at that last word "it;" there was something so repellent, though at the same time expressive, in the one tiny syllable _it_ now, not _him_; and again he shuddered as he thought of the ordeal through which he had to go. He roused himself at last, though, to ask a few questions as the cab drove on, the driver making his way over the river to the Surrey side; and, as soon as they were in the comparative silence of the narrow streets, Harry learned that during the past night his companion had been successful in his search, and that what he had sought lay now in a boat-house far down the Thames in the low-lying district where wharf and dock and rickety stairs, or steam-boat pier, alternate with muddy-pile and drain, with bank after bank of slime, over which the water of the swift tide seemed to glide and play, here and there washing it up into a foul frothy sc.u.m, compounded of the poisonous refuse daily cast into the mighty stream.

It was a long ride, down deplorable looking streets, where wretched tumble-down tenements, with frowsy aspect and dingy, patchy windows, were dominated by lordly warehouses, with great gallows-like cranes at every floor--floors six, seven, and eight stories from the ground--from whose open doors men stood gazing down as coolly as if they were on _terra firma_, though a moment's giddiness must have precipitated them into the street below.

Harry saw all this as they rode slowly on, in spite of the pre-occupation of his thoughts, as he tried to nerve himself for the task to come. Probably his brain was abnormally excited, and the pictures of the panorama pa.s.sing the cab-window seemed to force themselves upon him. Now he was apparently interested in the places where the ship-chandlers hung out their wares; the next minute, the gate of a dock, with its scores of labourers waiting for a job, took his attention; or low public-houses and beer-shops, with their lounging knots of customers, half labourer, half sailor, or lighterman, with the inevitable brazen, high-cheeked, muscular woman. A little farther on, and he would be grazing at a clump of masts rising from behind high walls. Then came comparatively decent dwellings with a vast display of green paint, and to the doors bra.s.s knockers of the most dazzling l.u.s.tre. In nearly every parlour-window he saw was a parrot of grey or gaudy hue swinging or climbing about. In front of more than one house were oyster forts with sham cannon; while others again had flagstaff's rigged up with halyards, vane, and pennant, looking down upon the bruised figure-head of a ship which ornamented the neighbour's garden.

Maritime population with maritime tastes, the houses of trading skippers and mates of small vessels. Sea-chests could be seen in baxrows at every turn, along with the big bolster-like bag that forms the orthodox portmanteau for a sailor's kit. Here and there he pa.s.sed, in full long-sh.o.r.e togs, the dwellers in the sea-savouring houses--pa.s.sing along the pavement with one eye to windward, and the true nautical roll which told of sea-legs brought ash.o.r.e.

On still, with the rattling of the wretched cab and its jangling windows seeming to form a tune which repeated itself ever to his ears. The man, from watching his companion, had taken to drumming the top of the door with his hard fingers, blackened and stained with tar, while from time to time he thrust out his head to give some direction or another to the driver, whose eccentric course seemed as if it would never end.

At last, though, the guide seemed to grow excited, giving his orders more frequently, the cab being slowly driven in and out of rugged, tortuous lanes, from one of which it had to back out, so as to give place to a waggon laden with ships' spars and cables. Narrow ways seemed the rule, and down these the cab went jolting, till the driver drew up short at the end of a wretched alley.

Here the guide dismounted.