Lucretia Part 41

"If necessary."

"And that young man, who goes by his name, brought up by Mr. Fielden?"

"Well, sir?"

"Is he not the son of Mr. Braddell?"

The stranger was silent, and, shading his face with his hand, seemed buried in thought. He then rose, took up his candle, and said quietly,--

"Sir, I wish you good-evening. I have letters to write in my own room. I will consider by to-morrow, if you stay till then, whether we can really aid each other further, or whether we should pursue our researches separately." With these words he closed the door; and Mr. Grabman remained baffled and bewildered.

However, he too had a letter to write; so, calling for pen, ink, and paper, and a pint of brandy, he indited his complaints and his news to Varney.

"Jason, (he began) are you playing me false? Have you set another man on the track with a view to bilk me of my promised fee? Explain, or I throw up the business."

Herewith, Mr. Grabman gave a minute description of the stranger, and related pretty accurately what had pa.s.sed between that gentleman and himself. He then added the progress of his own inquiries, and renewed, as peremptorily as he dared, his demand for candour and plain dealing.

Now, it so happened that in stumbling upstairs to bed, Mr. Grabman pa.s.sed the room in which his mysterious fellow-seeker was lodged, and as is the usage in hotels, a pair of boots stood outside the door, to be cleaned betimes in the morning. Though somewhat drunk, Grabman still preserved the rays of his habitual astuteness. A clever and a natural idea shot across his brain, illuminating the fumes of the brandy; he stooped, and while one hand on the wall steadied his footing, with the other he fished up a boot, and peering within, saw legibly written: "John Ardworth, Esq., Gray's Inn." At that sight he felt what a philosopher feels at the sudden elucidation of a troublesome problem.

Downstairs again tottered Grabman, re-opened his letter, and wrote,--

"P.S.--I have wronged you, Jason, by my suspicions; never mind,--jubilate! This interloper who made me so jealous, who think you it is? Why, young Ardworth himself,--that is, the lad who goes by such name. Now, is it not clear? Of course no one else has such interest in learning his birth as the lost child himself,--here he is! If old Ardworth lives (as he says), old Ardworth has set him to work on his own business. But then, that Fielden,--rather a puzzler that! Yet--no. Now I understand,--old Ardworth gave the boy to Mrs. Joplin, and took it away from her again when he went to the parson's. Now, certainly, it may be quite necessary to prove,--first, that the boy he took from Mr.

Braddell's he gave to Mrs. Joplin; secondly, that the boy he left with Mr. Fielden was the same that he took again from that woman: therefore, the necessity of finding out Mother Joplin, an essential witness. Q. E.

D., Master Jason!"

It was not till the sun had been some hours risen that Mr. Grabman imitated that luminary's example. When he did so, he found, somewhat to his chagrin, that John Ardworth had long been gone. In fact, whatever the motive that had led the latter on the search, he had succeeded in gleaning from Grabman all that that person could communicate, and their interview had inspired him with such disgust of the attorney, and so small an opinion of the value of his co-operation (in which last belief, perhaps, he was mistaken), that he had resolved to continue his inquiries alone, and had already, in his early morning's walk through the village, ascertained that the man with whom Mrs. Joplin had quitted the place had some time after been sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the county jail. Possibly the prison authorities might know something to lead to his discovery, and through him the news of his paramour might be gained.

CHAPTER XX. MORE OF MRS. JOPLIN.

One day, at the hour of noon, the court boasting the tall residence of Mr. Grabman was startled from the quiet usually reigning there at broad daylight by the appearance of two men, evidently no inhabitants of the place. The squalid, ill-favoured denizens lounging before the doors stared hard, and at the fuller view of one of the men, most of them retreated hastily within. Then, in those houses, you might have heard a murmur of consternation and alarm. The ferret was in the burrow,--a Bow-Street officer in the court! The two men paused, looked round, and stopping before the dingy towerlike house, selected the bell which appealed to the inmates of the ground-floor, to the left. At that summons Bill the cracksman imprudently presented a full view of his countenance through his barred window; he drew it back with astonis.h.i.+ng celerity, but not in time to escape the eye of the Bow-Street runner.

"Open the door, Bill,--there's nothing to fear; I have no summons against you, 'pon honour. You know I never deceive. Why should I? Open the door, I say."

No answer.

The officer tapped with his cane at the foul window.

"Bill, there's a gentleman who comes to you for information, and he will pay for it handsomely."

Bill again appeared at the cas.e.m.e.nt, and peeped forth very cautiously through the bars.

"Bless my vitals, Mr. R----, and it is you, is it? What were you saying about paying handsomely?"

"That your evidence is wanted,--not against a pal, man. It will hurt no one, and put at least five guineas in your pocket."

"Ten guineas," said the Bow-Street officer's companion. "You be's a man of honour, Mr. R----!" said Bill, emphatically; "and I scorns to doubt you, so here goes."

With that he withdrew from the window, and in another minute or so the door was opened, and Bill, with a superb bow, asked his visitors into his room.

In the interval, leisure had been given to the cracksman to remove all trace of the wonted educational employment of his hopeful children. The urchins were seated on the floor playing at push-pin; and the Bow-Street officer benignly patted a pair of curly heads as he pa.s.sed them, drew a chair to the table, and wiping his forehead, sat down, quite at home.

Bill then deliberately seated himself, and unb.u.t.toning his waistcoat, permitted the b.u.t.t-ends of a brace of pistols to be seen by his guests.

Mr. R----'s companion seemed very unmoved by this significant action.

He bent one inquiring, steady look on the cracksman, which, as Bill afterwards said, went through him "like a gimlet through a penny," and taking out a purse, through the network of which the sovereigns gleamed pleasantly, placed it on the table and said,--

"This purse is yours if you will tell me what has become of a woman named Joplin, with whom you left the village of ----, in Lancas.h.i.+re, in the year 18--."

"And," put in Mr. R----, "the gentleman wants to know, with no view of harming the woman. It will be to her own advantage to inform us where she is."

"'Pon honour again?" said Bill.

"'Pon honour!"

"Well, then, I has a heart in my buzzom, and if so be I can do a good turn to the 'oman wot I has loved and kep' company with, why not?"

"Why not, indeed?" said Mr. R----. "And as we want to learn, not only what has become of Mrs. Joplin, but what she did with the child she carried off from ----, begin at the beginning and tell us all you know."

Bill mused. "How much is there in the pus?"

"Eighteen sovereigns."

"Make it twenty--you nod--twenty then? A bargain! Now I'll go on right ahead. You see as how, some months arter we--that is, Peggy Joplin and self--left ----, I was put in quod in Lancaster jail; so I lost sight of the blowen. When I got out and came to Lunnun, it was a matter of seven year afore, all of a sudding, I came bang up agin her,--at the corner of Common Garden. 'Why, Bill!' says she. 'Why, Peggy!' says I; and we bussed each other like winky. 'Shall us come together agin?' says she.

'Why, no,' says I; 'I has a wife wots a good 'un, and gets her bread by setting up as a widder with seven small childern. By the by, Peg, what's a come of your brat?' for as you says, sir, Peg had a child put out to her to nurse. Lor', how she cuffed it! 'The brat!' says she, laughing like mad, 'oh, I got rid o' that when you were in jail, Bill.' 'As how?'

says I. 'Why, there was a woman begging agin St. Poll's churchyard; so I purtended to see a friend at a distance: "'Old the babby a moment," says I, puffing and panting, "while I ketches my friend yonder." So she 'olds the brat, and I never sees it agin; and there's an ind of the bother!'

'But won't they ever ax for the child,--them as giv' it you?' 'Oh, no,'

says Peg, 'they left it too long for that, and all the tin was agone; and one mouth is hard enough to feed in these days,--let by other folks'

bantlings.' 'Well,' says I, 'where do you hang out? I'll pop in, in a friendly way.' So she tells me,--som'ere in Lambeth,--I forgets hexactly; and many's the good piece of work we ha' done togither."

"And where is she now?" asked Mr. R----'s companion.

"I doesn't know purcisely, but I can com' at her. You see, when my poor wife died, four year com' Chris'mas, and left me with as fine a famuly, though I says it, as h-old King Georgy himself walked afore, with his gold-'eaded cane, on the terris at Vindsor,--all heights and all h-ages to the babby in arms (for the little 'un there warn't above a year old, and had been a brought up upon spoon-meat, with a dash o' blueruin to make him slim and ginteel); as for the bigger 'uns wot you don't see, they be doin' well in forin parts, Mr. R----!"

Mr. R. smiled significantly.

Bill resumed. "Where was I? Oh, when my wife died, I wanted sum 'un to take care of the childern, so I takes Peg into the 'ous. But Lor'! how she larrupped 'em,--she has a cruel heart, has n't she, Bob? Bob is a 'cute child, Mr. R----. Just as I was a thinking of turning her out neck an' crop, a gemman what lodges aloft, wot be a laryer, and wot had just saved my nick, Mr. R----, by proving a h-alibi, said, 'That's a tidy body, your Peg!' (for you see he was often a wisiting here, an'

h-indeed, sin' then, he has taken our third floor, No. 9); 'I've been a speakin' to her, and I find she has been a nuss to the sick. I has a frind wots a h-uncle that's ill: can you spare her, Bill, to attind him?' That I can,' says I; 'anything to obleedge.' So Peg packs off, bag and baggidge."

"And what was the sick gentleman's name?" asked Mr. R----'s companion.

"It was one Mr. Warney,--a painter, wot lived at Clap'am. Since thin I've lost sight of Peg; for we had 'igh words about the childern, and she was a spiteful 'oman. But you can larn where she be at Mr. Warney's, if so be he's still above ground."

"And did this woman still go by the name of Joplin?"

Bill grinned: "She warn't such a spooney as that,--that name was in your black books too much, Mr. R----, for a 'spectable nuss for sick bodies; no, she was then called Martha Skeggs, what was her own mother's name afore marriage. Anything more, gemman?"

"I am satisfied," said the younger visitor, rising; "there is the purse, and Mr. R---- will bring you ten sovereigns in addition. Good-day to you."

Bill, with superabundant bows and flourishes, showed his visitors out, and then, in high glee, he began to romp with his children; and the whole family circle was in a state of uproarious enjoyment when the door flew open, and in entered Grabman, his brief-bag in hand, dust-soiled and unshaven.