Reginald Cruden Part 44

Samuel crossed over. No name was on the chemist's side-door, but it stood ajar, and he pushed it open and peered up the gloomy staircase.

There was a name on the door at the top, so he crept stealthily up the stairs to decipher the word "Medlock" in dim characters on the plate.

"Medlock!" Ho! ho! He was getting warm now. Not only was his man going about with his own name turned inside out, but he had the effrontery to stick up the name of one of his own directors on his door!

Samuel knew Mr Medlock--whom didn't he know? He had been introduced to him by Durfy, and had supped with him once at the Shades. A nice, pleasant-spoken gentleman, who had made some very complimentary little speeches about Samuel in Samuel's own hearing. This was the man whose name Cruden had borrowed for his door-plate, in the hope of further mystifying the public as to his own personality!

Ah! ah! He might mystify the public, but there was one whose initials were S.S. whom it would need a cleverer cheat than Cruden Reginald, Esquire, to mystify!

He listened for a moment at the door, and, hearing no sound, made bold to enter. Had Reginald been in, he was prepared to represent that, being on a chance visit to Liverpool, he had been unable to pa.s.s the door of an old neighbour without giving him a friendly call.

But he was not put to this shift, for the room was empty. "Gone out to his dinner, I suppose," said Sam to himself. "Well, I'll take a good look round while I am here."

Which he proceeded to do, much to his own satisfaction, but very little to his information, for scarcely a torn-up envelope was to be found to reward the spy for his trouble. The only thing that did attract his attention as likely to be remotely useful was a fragment of a pink paper with the letters "gerskin" on it--a relic Love would have recognised as part of the cover of an old favourite, but which to the inquiring mind of the lawyer appeared to be a doc.u.ment worth impounding in the interests of justice.

As n.o.body appeared after the lapse of half an hour, Samuel considered his time was being wasted, and therefore withdrew. He looked into the chemist's shop as he went down, but the chemist was not at home; so he strolled into the greengrocer's next door, and bought an orange, which he proceeded to consume, making himself meanwhile cunningly agreeable to the lady who presided over the establishment.

"Fine Christmas weather," said he, looking up in the middle of a prolonged suck.

"Yes," said the lady.

"Plenty of customers?"

She shrugged her shoulders. Sam might interpret that as he liked.

"I suppose you supply the Corporation next door?" said Sam, digging his countenance once more into the orange.

"Eh?" said the lady.

"The--what's-his-name?--Mr Reginald--I suppose he deals with you?"

"He did, if you want to know."

"I thought so--a friend of mine, you know."

"Oh, is he?" said the lady, finding words at last, and bridling up in a way that astonished her cross-examiner; "then the sooner you go and walk off after him the better!"

"Oh, very well," said Sam. "He's not at home just now, though."

"Oh, ain't he?" said the woman, "that's funny!"

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing--what should I? If you're a friend of his, you'd better take yourself off! That's what I mean."

"All right; no offence, old lady. Perhaps he's come in by this time."

The lady laughed disagreeably. The Corporation had bought coals of her three months ago.

Samuel returned to the office, but it was as deserted as ever. He therefore resolved to try what his blandishments could do with the chemist's boy downstairs in the way of obtaining information.

That young gentleman, as the reader will remember, had been a bosom friend of Love in his day, and was animated to some extent by the spirit of his comrade.

"Hullo, my man!" said Sam, walking into the shop. "Governor's out, then?"

"Yus."

"Got any lollipops in those bottles?"

"Yus."

"Any brandy-b.a.l.l.s?"

"No."

"Any acid-drops?"

"Yus."

"I'll take a penn'orth, then. I suppose you don't know when the gentleman upstairs will be back?"

The boy stopped short in his occupation and stared at Sam.

"What gentleman?" he asked.

"Mr Medlock, is it? or Reginald, or some name like that?"

"Oh yus, I do!" said the boy, with a grin.

"When?"

"Six months all but a day. That's what I reckon."

"Six months! Has he gone away, then?"

"Oh no--he was took off."

"Took off--you don't mean to say he's dead?"

"Oh, ain't you a rum 'un! As if you didn't know he's been beaked."

"Beaked! what's that?"

The boy looked disgusted at the fellow's obtuseness.

"'Ad up in the p'lice-court, of course. What else could I mean?"

Samuel jumped off his stool as if he had been electrified.