Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

Booms was not exactly the sort of man to be elated by the mission which Miss Shuckleford had thrust upon him. He passed a restless night in turning the matter over in his mind and wondering how he could break the news gently to his friend.

For he was fond of Horace, and in his saturnine way felt deeply for him in his trouble. And on this account he wished Jemima had chosen any other confidant to discharge the unpleasant task.

He hung about outside Mrs Cruden’s house for an hour early that morning, in the hope of being able to entrap Miss Crisp and get her to take the duty off his hands. But Miss Crisp had been sitting up all night with the patient and did not appear.

He knocked at the door and asked the servant-girl how Mrs Cruden was. She was a little better, but very weak and not able to speak to anybody.

“Any news from Liverpool?” inquired Booms. This had become a daily question among those who inquired at Number 6, Dull Street.

“No, no news,” said the girl, with a guilty blush. She knew the reason why. Reginald’s last letter, written just before his arrest, was at that moment in her pocket.

“Has Mr Horace started to the office?”

“No; he’s a-going to wait and see the doctor, and he says I was to ask you to tell the gentleman so.”

“Can I see him?”

“No; he’s asleep just now,” said the girl.

So Booms had to go down alone to the Rocket, as far as ever from getting the burden of Jemima’s secret off his mind.

He had a good mind to pass it on to Waterford, and might have done so, had not that young gentleman been engaged all the morning on special duty, which kept him in Mr Granville’s room.

Booms grew more and more dispirited and nervous. Every footstep that came to the door made him tremble, for fear it should be the signal for the unhappy disclosure. He tried hard to persuade himself it would be kinder after all to say nothing about it. What good could it do now?

Booms, as the reader knows, had not a very large mind. But what there was of it was honest, and it told him, try how he would, there was no getting out of a promise. So he busied himself with concocting imaginary phrases and letters, by way of experiment as to the neatest way of breaking his bad news.

Still he dreaded his friend’s arrival more and more; and when at last a brisk footstep halted at the door, he started and turned pale like a guilty thing, and wished Jemima at the bottom of the sea!

But the footstep was not Horace’s. Whoever the arrival was, he tapped at the door before entering, and then, without waiting for a reply, walked in.

It was a youth of about seventeen or eighteen, with a bright honest face and cheery smile.

“Is Horace Cruden here?” he inquired eagerly.

“Oh no,” said Booms, in his most doleful accents.

“Isn’t this where he works?”

“It is indeed.”

“Well, then, is anything wrong? Is he ill?”

“No. He is not ill,” said Booms, emphasising the pronoun.

“Is Reginald ill, then, or their mother?”

A ray of hope crossed Booms’s mind. This stranger was evidently a friend of the family. He called the boys by their Christian names, and knew their mother. Would he take charge of the dismal secret?

“His mother is ill,” said he. “Do you know them?”

“Rather. I was Horace’s chum at Wilderham, you know, and used to spend my holidays regularly at Garden Vale. Is she very ill?”

“Very,” said Booms; “and the worst of it is, Reginald is not at home.”

“Where is he. Horrors told me he had gone to the country.”

Booms would tell him. For the visitor called his friend Horrors, a pet name none but his own family were ever known to use.

“They don’t know where he is. But I do,” said Booms, with a tragic gesture.

“Where? where? What’s wrong, I say? Tell me, there’s a good fellow.”

“He’s in prison,” said Booms, throwing himself back in his chair, and panting with the effort the disclosure had cost him.

“In prison! and Horace doesn’t know it! What do you mean? Tell me all you know.”

Booms did tell him, and very little it was. All he knew was from Jemima’s secondhand report, and the magnitude of the news had quite prevented him from inquiring as to particulars.

“When did you hear this?” said Harker; for the reader will have guessed by this time that the visitor was no other than Horace’s old Wilderham ally.

“Yesterday.”

“And he doesn’t know yet?”

“How could I tell him? Of course I’m to get all the blame. I expected it.”

“Who’s blaming you?” said Harker, whom the news had suddenly brought on terms of familiarity with his friend’s friend. “When will he be here?”

“Very soon, I suppose.”

“And then you’ll tell him?”

“You will, please,” said Booms, quite eagerly for him.

“Somebody must, poor fellow!” said Harker. “We don’t know what we may be losing by the delay.”

“Of course it’s my fault for not waking him up in the middle of the night and telling him,” said Booms dismally.

“Is there anything about it in the papers?” said Harker, taking up a Times.

“I’ve seen nothing.”

“You say it was a day or two ago. Have you got the Times for the last few days?”

“Yes; it’s there.”

Harker hastily turned over the file, and eagerly searched the police and country intelligence. In a minute or two he looked up and said,—

“Had Cruden senior changed his name?”

“How do I know?” said Booms, with a bewildered look.

“I mean, had he dropped his surname? Look here.”

And he showed Booms the paragraph which appeared in the London papers the morning after Reginald’s arrest.

“That looks very much as if it was meant for Cruden,” said Harker—“all except the name. If it is, that was Tuesday he was remanded, and to-day is the day he is to be brought up again. Oh, why didn’t we know this before?”

“Yes. I knew I was to blame. I knew it all along,” said Booms, taking every expression of regret as a personal castigation.

“It will be all over before any one can do a thing,” said Harker, getting up and pacing the room in his agitation. “Why doesn’t Horace come?”

As if in answer to the appeal, Horace at that moment opened the door.

“Why, Harker, old man!” he exclaimed with delight in his face and voice as he sprang towards his friend.

“Horrors, my poor dear boy,” said Harker, “don’t be glad to see me. I’ve bad news, and there’s no time to break it gently. It’s about Reginald. He’s in trouble—in prison. I’ll come with you to Liverpool this morning; there is a train in twenty minutes.”

Horace said nothing. He turned deadly pale and gazed for a moment half scared, half appealing, at his friend. Booms remembered something he had to do in another room, and went to the door.

“Do you mind getting a hansom?” said Harker.

The words roused Horace from his stupor.

“Mother,” he gasped, “she’s ill.”

“We shall be home again to-night most likely,” said Harker.

“I must tell Granville,” said Horace.

“Your chief. Well, be quick, the cab will be here directly.”

Horace went to the inner room and in a minute returned, his face still white but with a burning spot on either cheek.

“All right?” inquired Harker.

Horace nodded, and followed him to the door.

In a quarter of an hour they were at Euston in the booking office.

“I have no money,” said Horace.

“I have, plenty for us both. Go and get some papers, especially Liverpool ones, at the book-stall while I get the tickets.”

It was a long memorable journey. The papers were soon exhausted. They contained little or no additional news respecting the obscure suspect in Liverpool, and beyond that they had no interest for either traveller.

“We shall get down at three,” said Harker; “there’s a chance of being in time.”

“In time for what? what can we do?”

“Try and get another remand, if only for a couple of days. I can’t believe it of Reg. There must be some mistake.”

“Of course there must,” said Horace, with a touch of scorn in his voice, “but how are we to prove it?”

“It’s no use trying just now. All we can do is to get a remand.”

The train seemed to drag forward with cruel slowness, and the precious moments sped by with no less cruel haste. It was five minutes past three when they found themselves on the platform of Liverpool station.

“It’s touch and go if we’re in time, old boy,” said Harker, as they took their seats in a hansom and ordered the man to drive hard for the police-court; “but you mustn’t give up hope even if we’re late. We’ll pull poor old Reg through somehow.”

His cheery words and the brotherly grip on his arm were like life and hope to Horace.

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “What would I have done if you hadn’t turned up like an angel of help, Harker, old man?”

As they neared the police-court the cabman pulled up to allow a police van to turn in the road. The two friends shuddered. It was like an evil omen to daunt them.

Was he in that van—so near them, yet so hopelessly beyond their reach?

“For goodness’ sake drive on!” shouted Harker to the cabman.

It seemed ages before the lumbering obstruction had completed its revolution and drawn to one side sufficiently to allow them to pass.

In another minute the cab dashed to the door of the court.

It was open, and the knot of idlers on the pavement showed them that some case of interest was at that moment going on.

They made their way to the policeman who stood on duty.

“Court’s full—stand back, please. Can’t go in,” said that official.

“What case is it?”

“Stand back, please—can’t go in,” repeated the stolid functionary.

“Please tell us—”

“Stand back there!” once more shouted the sentinel, growing rather more peremptory.

It was clearly no use mincing matters. At this very moment Reginald might be standing defenceless within, with his last chance of liberty slipping from under his feet.

Harker drew a shilling from his pocket and slipped it into the hand of the law.

“Tell us the name of the case, there’s a good fellow,” said he coaxingly.

“Bilcher—wife murder. Stand back, please—court’s full.”

Bilcher! Wife murder! It was for this the crowd had gathered, it was for the result of this that that knot of idlers were waiting so patiently outside.

Bilcher was the hero of this day’s gathering. Who was likely to care a rush about such a lesser light as a secretary charged with a commonplace fraud.

“Has the case of Cruden come on yet?” asked Horace anxiously.

The policeman answered him with a vacant stare.

“No,” said Harker, “the name would be Reginald, you know. I say,” added he to the policeman, “when does Reginald’s case come on?”

“Stand back there—Reginald—he was the last but one before this—don’t crowd, please.”

“We’re too late, then. What was—what did he get?”

Now the policeman considered he had answered quite enough for his shilling. If he went on, people would think he was an easy fish to catch. So he affected deafness, and looking straight past his eager questioners again repeated his stentorian request to the public generally.

“Oh, pray tell us what he got,” said Harker, in