A Little World

There were no stony walls here though – only a few slight boards between the gazers and the mystery whose solution they were so eager to read.

“Here! stop him, will you!” cried the sergeant. “Have you any brains at all, Smith?”

P.C. Smith raised his hand to his head, as if to feel whether those thought-producers – brains – were really there; but he contented himself with a vicious scratch, as he once more took hold of D. Wragg, that gentleman having made another attempt to limp away.

“Don’t you make no mistake,” half-whimpered the dealer, rubbing his hands together, bending down as if in pain, and limping about to the extent of his tether – to wit, his own arm and that of the policeman. “I’ll be squared for this; just you see if I ain’t.”

“Very well – very well,” exclaimed the sergeant, with something of excitement in his tones; “only don’t make quite so much noise about it. Now then,” he cried, as he unlocked the fastening, and threw open the rickety door, whose rusty hinges creaked dismally, while the door itself was stopped, when little more than ajar, by the warped framework, which forced one corner upon the floor.

“Now I hope you’re happy,” said D. Wragg.

“Not yet – not yet,” said the sergeant, “but we mean to get there soon. Now then, pass him here, Smith. That’s right. Now Mr Wragg, you go first, and we’ll follow.”

Again, there was the dealer’s strong resemblance to the ragged terrier brought out; for the sergeant treated him precisely as a keeper would a dog that he was about to place in some fox’s hole, D. Wragg being thrust forward into the room – going, though, most unwillingly, and had he suddenly broken out into a sharp wailing bark, no one would have felt much surprised.

The sergeant laid his hands upon D. Wragg’s shoulders as he forced him in, peering over the said shoulders into the dingy place ahead, and then he drew back for a few moments.

“Here, Smith, you take my place,” he said; and the constable went next, while his leader crossed the low landing to where, arm-in-arm, stood Clayton and Sir Francis. “Just a moment, please, sir,” he said to Clayton, in a low voice; and then aloud to the others present, “Stand back there, will you: I go next!”

“What do you want to say?” said Clayton, glancing uneasily at the sergeant’s stern face, as the latter turned his eyes for a moment to where they had left Sir Francis.

“Only, sir,” said the sergeant, in a whisper, “that if I was in your place, I should think it my duty at any cost to get him away.”

The young man shook his head, for he knew that the sergeant counselled an impossibility.

“Well, sir, I thought it my duty to advise,” said the sergeant.

“Quite right – quite right,” said Clayton, hastily; “but he would not stir an inch. Now, pray end this horrible suspense.”

Clayton looked round once more to see that the women were not within hearing, and then, with Sir Francis and the other constable, he passed into the low, dingy, sloping-ceiled room.

There had once evidently been a partition, but this had been removed, and the attics turned into one long place, so that the whole of the top floor could be seen through at a glance, with its lumber of old cages, bundles of dried herbs, baskets of feathers, and broken furniture – chairs lame of one leg, halt and rickety tables, and an old wash-stand.

In three different corners, chained to staples in the wall, and each with its straw bed, were as many wretched captives, wasting their days in their lofty prison. But these were only three dogs, kept there for reasons best known to the occupant of the house.

“Nothing here,” was the mental remark of the sergeant, as he made his light play about the place, its rays falling strangely upon each of the dogs in turn, and eliciting howls that were doleful in the extreme.

That light, though, was allowed to rest longest upon the fourth corner of the room, where there were three well-filled sacks and a large flat basket.

“Look outside the window; there’s a parapet out there in the front. One of you had better crawl along a little each way, and see if you can make anything out,” said the sergeant, who directly after turned to another of his men. “Here, you!” he exclaimed, “climb up there,” and he pointed to a half-closed trapdoor in the ceiling.

His orders were obeyed, the bystanders watching eagerly the progress of events, till the man who had somewhat nervously forced his way through the trap came back covered with whitewash and cobwebs, which he brushed impatiently from his uniform.

“Well?” said the sergeant, as the man descended by means of the broken wash-stand and chair, which had been used for escalading purposes.

“No one been up there this side o’ six months ago, I’ll swear,” said the man; “the cobwebs would have told you that if you’d liked to look.”

The sergeant turned sharply upon his muttering subordinate, but his attention was taken off by the return of the man who had been sent outside to examine the gutter.

“Well?” said the sergeant again, as this man climbed back.

“Well, I ain’t seen nothing,” said the latter, dragging one leg after him into the room. “Quiet, will you?” he cried to a dog which bayed at him furiously. “You can go along out there for best part of a mile if you like, dodging in and out, for it seems to be a reg’lar rat’s run from winder to winder. There’s some nice games carried on, I’ll be bound, and any manner of thing might be done here or there, and hidden from place to place without us being a bit the wiser.”

“How many men would it take to make a good search?” said the sergeant.

“Hundred,” said his subordinate, gruffly, “would be nowhere. You’d want a man at every door, and at every attic window; and when you tried to stop ’em, they’d slip out somewhere else.”

The sergeant stood for a moment thinking, and then he made a step towards the sacks, looking curiously at the dog-fancier.

“Shouldn’t wonder if there was a tale hanging to every one of those dogs,” he said, grimly. “But what’s in these sacks?”

“Now look ye here – look ye here!” exclaimed D. Wragg, assuming not to have heard the last remark; “don’t you make no mistake. You’ve searched all from top to bottom now, gents, so let’s have an end of all this game.”

“Stand aside, will you,” cried the sergeant, roughly; and forcing D. Wragg back, he strode up to the sacks, threw them down one after the other, and felt through them.

“Pooh! corks!” he exclaimed, contemptuously, after a few moments’ examination. “Don’t know what you want with corks up here though, master. What’s in the basket? Tied down, eh?”

“Now look here, don’t you make no mistake – don’t now – I purtest agen it all.”

With a fierce rush, D. Wragg threw himself upon the great basket, clinging frantically thereto, and struggling viciously, and kicking with his club boot at the men who tried to drag him away.

A sharp scuffle ensued, for the dealer clung tightly to the great flat hamper, and it was not till after quite a battle that D. Wragg was dragged from his hold, to stand panting, hot, and glaring of eye, gazing from one to the other.

“Now do, sir – do take my advice,” said the sergeant, once more drawing Harry Clayton aside. “I tell you frankly, I don’t like the look of things; and only think of the old gentleman, sir, if anything should prove to be wrong. You’d better take him away – you had indeed.”

He left Clayton, and, as if seeking to make delays, went and spoke to the constables, and then threatened to handcuff the dealer if he did not quietly submit.

“I don’t care,” said D. Wragg; “you may handcuff me, and leg-cuff me, and put a collar round my neck if you like; but I ain’t agoin’ to stand still and see my place pulled all to pieces for nothing at all. Don’t you make – ”

“There! hold your tongue!” cried the sergeant; and he turned round to gaze at Harry Clayton, who had slowly crossed to where Sir Francis was standing, pondering the while upon the detective’s meaning looks and words.

He laid his hand upon the old man’s arm, but Sir Francis, on hearing his words, although he shudderingly turned from where lay the basket, sternly refused to go, and moved Harry aside as he grew more earnest and pressing.

Sergeant Falkner shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about the obstinacy of old folks. Then he turned away, and, as a groan burst from D. Wragg, and he struggled with his captors, the basket was approached, the string that tied down the lid was cut; the said lid, set quite free, was dashed open, and then the sergeant stood gazing excitedly down into the straw which covered something with which the great wicker case was filled.

“Here! hold a lanthorn here, somebody,” cried the sergeant; and one of the men who were holding D. Wragg darted eagerly forward, making the rays of his bull’s-eye fall full upon the straw, when, after parting it a little, the lid was dashed down again, and the sergeant sat upon it, wiping his hot forehead.

“Pooh! what a fool I am!” he ejaculated the next instant; “but really for a while I thought – . Well, Mr Wragg, I think we’ve done up here for the present; but ’pon my soul, if I had a lot of stolen hams in my attic, I don’t think I should tell the police quite so plainly as you did that every one of them belonged to some one else.”

End of Volume Two

Volume Three – Chapter One.

Disappointment

Five minutes after, his brain in a whirl from the reaction that had taken place, when – wound up to expect some great horror – he had found nothing but that which was trifling and absurd, Sir Francis Redgrave was seated in the Frenchman’s room; for he had turned sick and faint, and brandy had been procured for him, Patty eagerly bringing forward glass and water, for Janet seemed completely unnerved, and had sunk down on a low seat with her face in her hands, as if stunned.

“You look young, and good, and pure-minded,” said the old man, feebly, as he looked fixedly in Patty’s fair young face, as she gazed sympathisingly in his countenance. “Listen to me, my child – for you are quite a child to me. Perhaps you know I am seeking my boy, my only child. I can see through it now. In his folly he was attracted here by you. I don’t reproach you; I say nothing harsh, only pray you humbly, as his father, to tell me where they have placed him. Is he dead? Has he been inveigled into some den for the sake of his money? Only tell me – only let me be at peace, and I will bless you. Do you know? Do not be afraid to answer. You shall be protected, even if it were for life, should it prove necessary. The man below has sworn that my son entered this house, and did not come out again.”

“Yes – Jack Screwby,” said the sergeant, interposing, and nodding his head as he spoke.

“Tell me then, my child,” continued Sir Francis, “and I will bless you, pray for you, offer up an old man’s prayers for your happiness – only set me free from this horrible suspense. Tell me even if he is dead.”

Patty sobbed as she gazed in the old man’s face, and then with an effort she exclaimed —

“It’s all false, every word. That man is a bad, cruel fellow, and the enemy of my friends here. What he has said is not true, I am certain of it.”

“You are in league with these people,” said the old man, turning from her.

“No – no – no! What I said is true – quite true,” sobbed Patty.

But the old man refused to hear her, and turned to speak to Janet; but she shrank from him, cowering in a corner with a childlike display of fear, and only glancing at him from time to time, as if horror-stricken.

“You see,” said Sir Francis, “she knows all, and dare not approach to tell it. That there is some fearful mystery here, I feel more and more convinced; but, doubtless, in God’s good time all will be brought to light.”

He rose as he spoke, and approached Janet, who shrank from him more and more, waving her hand to keep him off her, and each moment growing more frightened and hysterical.

“Come, my friends,” said Sir Francis, drawing back with a bitter sigh, as he saw the uselessness of pressing inquiry in Janet’s case, “let us go. Constable, you will sift this matter to the very bottom.”

The sergeant nodded shortly, and Sir Francis turned towards the door; but Patty flew to him, and caught one of his hands.

“Oh, sir!” she cried, “can you not believe me? Indeed, indeed, I have spoken the truth. Your son did come many times, I know; but I hate him,” she cried, naïvely. “I would not, though, nor would any one here, hurt a hair of his head. We could not help his coming; and if he were here on that Tuesday night, I did not see him when I came. I am sorry – indeed I am; and I pity you from the bottom of my heart, for we have our feelings even as you rich people have.”

“But not feeling enough to ease a poor old man’s heart,” said Sir Francis, coldly, as thrusting her back, he took another step towards the door.

“He does not believe me – he does not believe me!” sobbed Patty, clasping her hands together, and then, excitedly, she exclaimed – “Does no one believe what I say?”

“I do, Miss Pellet, from my soul,” exclaimed a deep voice, and, stepping forward, Harry Clayton caught her clasped hands in his, as the young girl joyfully met his gaze.

But this was but for a moment; the next instant had hardly passed before her eyes fell, she hastily drew back her hands, and, with a heavy sigh, she shrank back to where Janet cowered in her chair, and stayed there until, one by one, the others went out, leaving the two friends the sole occupants of the room.

“Are they all gone?” whispered Janet at last, from where she had hidden her face in Patty’s breast.

“Yes; all – all,” said the agitated girl.

“I could not bear to look at the suffering old man,” said Janet, huskily. “It seemed to me as if he would be able to read in my face all that I felt, and so I acted like a frightened child, and he must have looked upon me as almost an idiot. But it is very horrible, Patty; and I seem to see the poor boy always before my eyes, with his white forehead all dabbled in blood, and his face pale and ghostlike. I dream of him so every night, and I know I feel as if something dreadful had happened. But what does it all mean?”

“Oh, hush – oh, hush!” said Patty; while Mrs Winks, who had just returned, buried her face in her apron, and seating herself upon the floor, as more lowly than a chair, she rocked herself to and fro, in the true sympathy she felt for the distressed girls.

“Why did they come here at all?” cried Janet, fiercely. “We were happy in our poor way before that; and now they have made us wretched for life. But Patty, Patty, this sight – this horrid vision – which I always have before me;” and as she spoke, she looked straight before her with hot and straining eyes. “What does it mean? I feel sometimes that I cannot bear it.”

Patty tried hard to soothe her companion; but her efforts seemed to be absolutely in vain, so wild and excited had Janet grown. At times her hearers shuddered as they listened to her exclamations, Mrs Winks even going so far as to glance over her shoulder to make sure that nothing of the kind described was really present.

Then for a time the poor girl calmed down, and Patty began to hope that her soothing words had taken effect; but soon there came a repetition, and Janet raised her head to stare straight before her, as she exclaimed: —

“It seems, at times, as if I could not bear it – as if it would send me mad; for he is in pain, I know – I feel. He is wounded – perhaps dead; and oh, Patty,” she whispered, her face, her voice softening as she leaned her forehead upon her companion’s shoulder, “I love him so – so dearly.”

Kissing her tenderly, smoothing her hair fondly the while, Patty tried to whisper comfort to the fluttering aching heart, beating so wildly within that deformed breast.

But all seemed in vain; the troubled spirit refused to be comforted, for it knew its desolation, and that even if Lionel Redgrave were found to be living and well, there was no hope, no rest for her.

“Try not to cry so much, dear,” said Patty, simply. “It will make your head ache.”

“Better the head than the heart, Patty,” cried Janet, passionately. “Oh, I wish I was dead – I wish I was dead!”

“Hush, hush, dear! how can you?” whispered Patty. “Try, do try to keep it back.”

“Yes, yes,” said Janet, with a sigh that was more like a groan. “I will be patient, I will try and bear it, and you will try and pray with me, Patty, that he may be safe and well, and restored to the good old man, his father. Oh! how I longed to be near him – to go on my knees by his side; and when he asked me to come, it was almost more than I could bear. Something seemed to be drawing me to him, and again something was dragging me back. Patty, how do people feel when they go mad? Is it anything like what I have been suffering these last few days?”

“Did you not promise me that you would be calm?” whispered Patty, soothingly.

“Yes, yes, I know I did, and I am trying; but you will pray too, Patty dear, will you not?”

“Yes,” answered Patty, as she clung close to the poor suffering girl. “I will pray too.”

“But he believed you, Patty,” Janet exclaimed, suddenly; “and came to your side then, like a lover should. I was in trouble, but all the same I could see his proud look. He loves you – he loves you!”

“Oh! hush, Janet, hush!” cried Patty, wearily. “Am I not unhappy enough? It can never – never be! And besides,” she added, proudly, as her pale cheeks flamed up, “does he not love somebody else?”

“Here’s somebody a-comin’,” cried Mrs Winks, suddenly starting into life from the bundle of collapsed clothes that seemed to be heaped the minute before upon the floor. “Most likely it’s Mr Pellet come to fetch you, my dear; and oh! what faces we three have got! – all swelled up with cryin’ so as was never seen. What’s goin’ to come of us all? for, dear me, if it ain’t for all the world like a scene in a play, with the lovers all going crosswise and the others crooked; and I declare once if I didn’t think as the curtain was going to come down in a minute, and I should have to fetch my basket. But there! do wipe your eyes, my dears – there’s somebody a-comin’; and it’s glad I shall be when it comes to the last act, and everybody’s made happy ever after – except Jack Screwby, as is the bad villin of the whole piece. Come, dry your eyes, do.”

Mrs Winks gave her own optics a most tremendous scrub with her apron as she spoke, drying them certainly, but at the same time making them far more red. Then she made an elephantine kind of movement towards the door, holding it to with one hand, signalling with the other to her young companions to remove the remaining traces of tears, and nodding and frowning till there was a gentle tap, and a voice said from the outside —

“May we come in?”

“Ah!” exclaimed the stout dame, smiling, “I’m glad you’ve come home, Mr Canau,” as, on her opening the door, the Frenchman entered the room, closely followed by Jared Pellet, who raised his eyebrows as he saw the traces of the tears the girls had shed.

“I only wish you’d been here, Mr Canau, I do!” exclaimed Mrs Winks; “for it’s dreadful, people coming and going on as they do and half fainting away for brandy.”

Jared looked serious as he heard the narrative of what had taken place, and then he glanced uneasily from one to the other, ending by sighing as he thought of how much trouble there was in the world; and soon after Patty and he were hurrying through the streets, with the poor-box uppermost in Jared’s thoughts, so that he had not a word for his child.

Volume Three – Chapter Two.

Confidential

D. Wragg seemed to think that, in spite of his words, the mistake might be on his side if he made any complaints about the treatment he had received from the police. Once or twice he bristled up, and seemed to be making ready for a grand eruption; but second thoughts always came in time to calm him down, and those second thoughts, as a rule, related to the three dogs in the attic, the sacks of new corks, and the large flat hamper of Westphalia hams, respecting the possession of which goods he would not have liked to be too closely questioned.

That the police still had an eye upon his place he was sure; for he had many little quiet hints to that effect from friends outside, who knew a policeman in plain-clothes quite as well as if he were in uniform, and who, in consequence, were rather given to laughing at the popular notion that plain-clothes officers were able to mix here and there unknown with any society they might choose. But as the police seemed disposed to confine their attentions to a little quiet surveillance, and in other respects left him quite at peace, D. Wragg did not conceive that it would be advisable to beard the lions of the public order in their dens; so he winked to himself, watched anxiously every bystander who struck him as being at all like a policeman in mufti, and contented himself with talking largely to his confidential friends, though how far he was placing confidence in them remains to be proved.

“Look here, you know,” he said to Monsieur Canau one morning, when they had met on that neutral ground the passage, and adjourn ed to the shop, where they stood looking at one another in a curious distrustful fashion, – “look here, you know; we’re old friends, and you’ve lodged with me goodness knows how many years. I don’t mind speaking out before you. But don’t you make no mistake; there ain’t nothing kept back by me. As to them dorgs, how could I help about the dorgs when friends comes to me and says, ‘My dorg ain’t quite the thing to-day; I think I’ll get you to give him a dust o’ your distemper powder.’ And another one says, ‘I wish you’d take my dorg for a bit, and see if you think it’s mange as is a-comin’ on;’ while directly after comes another with a skye wiry, and says as he isn’t satisfied with the sit of his dorg’s ears, nor the way he sets up his tail. Well, in course I has to see to these things for ’em, my place being a sorter orspittle; and that’s how them dorgs come to be up-stairs; and the way they’ve come on since I’ve had ’em is something wonderful.”

Monsieur Canau nodded, and began to roll up a cigarette with clever manipulating fingers, keeping his eyes half closed the while, and smiling in a strange reserved way, that might have meant amusement, contempt, or merely sociability.

D. Wragg saw it, and became directly more impressive in his manner.

“Look here, you know,” he continued, earnestly; “I don’t mind speaking out before you. Don’t you make no mistake; we’re old friends, and this is how it is. Don’t you see, it’s all a plant as that there Jack Screwby got up because I as good as kicked him out – a vagabond! Wanted to come sneaking here after – but there!” he jerked out, throwing himself into quite a convulsion of spasmodic kicks, and scattering imaginary turnip-seed by the handful; – “I won’t talk about that no more. Only look here, you know; you’re my lodger, and I like my lodgers to look up to their landlord with respect; so don’t you make no mistake, and go for to think as them corks ain’t all square, because they air – square as square.”

Canau nodded, and lit his cigarette.

“Look here, you know,” continued D. Wragg; “it’s like this here – A man comes to you and he says, ‘I want two score o’ blue rocks’ – pigeons, you know, for trap-shooting, a thing as you furriners can’t understand, though you may come to some day. Well, he says, ‘I want two score o’ blue rocks, and I ain’t got no money, but I’ve got corks;’ and corks, you know, is money, if there ain’t no money, same as, when there warn’t no money, people used to swop. Well, then, we settles it in that way – wally for wally – he has blue rocks, and I has corks; and he’ll sell his blue rocks for money to the swells, and I shall sell my corks for money to a chap I knows as makes ginger-pop. And now, what’s the matter? No one can’t say after that as them corks ain’t square, can they?”

“But there was the ham,” said Canau, apparently disposed to cavil.

“Don’t you make no mistake about that. That there ham’s sweet enough; nothing couldn’t be squarer. We like ham, we do; and Mother Winks is mortal partial to a rasher. That’s why I laid in a stock.”

“Um!” said Canau, exhaling a thin cloud of smoke; “and about – about the young man?”

“Well,” said D. Wragg, looking sidewise out of his little eyes, “perhaps I worn’t quite square over that; for you see the young chap was all on the stare about little Pellet; and as he seemed ready to buy half the shop if she was likely to be here, I did think we might as well make a few pounds extry; for times is werry hard, you know, Mr Canau, and expenses is werry great: things runs up ’orrid.”