Hunted Down: The Detective Stories of Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens [best romantic novels to read TXT] 📗

very soon,’ said the young lady; ‘I know my life is drawing to an end; and when I am gone, I hope he will marry and be happy.  I am sure he has lived single so long, only for my sake, and for my poor, poor sister’s.’

The little hand-carriage had made another great loop on the damp sand, and was coming back again, gradually spinning out a slim figure of eight, half a mile long.

‘Young lady,’ said I, looking around, laying my hand upon her arm, and speaking in a low voice, ‘time presses.  You hear the gentle murmur of that sea?’

She looked at me with the utmost wonder and alarm, saying, ‘Yes!’

‘And you know what a voice is in it when the storm comes?’

‘Yes!’

‘You see how quiet and peaceful it lies before us, and you know what an awful sight of power without pity it might be, this very night!’

‘Yes!’

‘But if you had never heard or seen it, or heard of it in its cruelty, could you believe that it beats every inanimate thing in its way to pieces, without mercy, and destroys life without remorse?’

‘You terrify me, sir, by these questions!’

‘To save you, young lady, to save you!  For God’s sake, collect your strength and collect your firmness!  If you were here alone, and hemmed in by the rising tide on the flow to fifty feet above your head, you could not be in greater danger than the danger you are now to be saved from.’

The figure on the sand was spun out, and straggled off into a crooked little jerk that ended at the cliff very near us.

‘As I am, before Heaven and the Judge of all mankind, your friend, and your dead sister’s friend, I solemnly entreat you, Miss Niner, without one moment’s loss of time, to come to this gentleman with me!’

If the little carriage had been less near to us, I doubt if I could have got her away; but it was so near that we were there before she had recovered the hurry of being urged from the rock.  I did not remain there with her two minutes.  Certainly within five, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her—from the point we had sat on, and to which I had returned—half supported and half carried up some rude steps notched in the cliff, by the figure of an active man.  With that figure beside her, I knew she was safe anywhere.

I sat alone on the rock, awaiting Mr. Slinkton’s return.  The twilight was deepening and the shadows were heavy, when he came round the point, with his hat hanging at his button-hole, smoothing his wet hair with one of his hands, and picking out the old path with the other and a pocket-comb.

‘My niece not here, Mr. Sampson?’ he said, looking about.

‘Miss Niner seemed to feel a chill in the air after the sun was down, and has gone home.’

He looked surprised, as though she were not accustomed to do anything without him; even to originate so slight a proceeding.

‘I persuaded Miss Niner,’ I explained.

‘Ah!’ said he.  ‘She is easily persuaded—for her good.  Thank you, Mr. Sampson; she is better within doors.  The bathing-place was farther than I thought, to say the truth.’

‘Miss Niner is very delicate,’ I observed.

He shook his head and drew a deep sigh.  ‘Very, very, very.  You may recollect my saying so.  The time that has since intervened has not strengthened her.  The gloomy shadow that fell upon her sister so early in life seems, in my anxious eyes, to gather over her, ever darker, ever darker.  Dear Margaret, dear Margaret!  But we must hope.’

The hand-carriage was spinning away before us at a most indecorous pace for an invalid vehicle, and was making most irregular curves upon the sand.  Mr. Slinkton, noticing it after he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said:

‘If I may judge from appearances, your friend will be upset, Mr. Sampson.’

‘It looks probable, certainly,’ said I.

‘The servant must be drunk.’

‘The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk sometimes,’ said I.

‘The major draws very light, Mr. Sampson.’

‘The major does draw light,’ said I.

By this time the carriage, much to my relief, was lost in the darkness.  We walked on for a little, side by side over the sand, in silence.  After a short while he said, in a voice still affected by the emotion that his niece’s state of health had awakened in him,

‘Do you stay here long, Mr. Sampson?’

‘Why, no.  I am going away to-night.’

‘So soon?  But business always holds you in request.  Men like Mr. Sampson are too important to others, to be spared to their own need of relaxation and enjoyment.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said I.  ‘However, I am going back.’

‘To London?’

‘To London.’

‘I shall be there too, soon after you.’

I knew that as well as he did.  But I did not tell him so.  Any more than I told him what defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my pocket, as I walked by his side.  Any more than I told him why I did not walk on the sea side of him with the night closing in.

We left the beach, and our ways diverged.  We exchanged good-night, and had parted indeed, when he said, returning,

‘Mr. Sampson, may I ask?  Poor Meltham, whom we spoke of,—dead yet?’

‘Not when I last heard of him; but too broken a man to live long, and hopelessly lost to his old calling.’

‘Dear, dear, dear!’ said he, with great feeling.  ‘Sad, sad, sad!  The world is a grave!’  And so went his way.

It was not his fault if the world were not a grave; but I did not call that observation after him, any more than I had mentioned those other things just now enumerated.  He went his way, and I went mine with all expedition.  This happened, as I have said, either at the end of September or beginning of October.  The next time I saw him, and the last time, was late in November.

V.

I HAD a very particular engagement to breakfast in the Temple.  It was a bitter north-easterly morning, and the sleet and slush lay inches deep in the streets.  I could get no conveyance, and was soon wet to the knees; but I should have been true to that appointment, though I had to wade to it up to my neck in the same impediments.

The appointment took me to some chambers in the Temple.  They were at the top of a lonely corner house overlooking the river.  The name, Mr. Alfred Beckwith, was painted on the outer door.  On the door opposite, on the same landing, the name Mr. Julius Slinkton.  The doors of both sets of chambers stood open, so that anything said aloud in one set could be heard in the other.

I had never been in those chambers before.  They were dismal, close, unwholesome, and oppressive; the furniture, originally good, and not yet old, was faded and dirty,—the rooms were in great disorder; there was a strong prevailing smell of opium, brandy, and tobacco; the grate and fire-irons were splashed all over with unsightly blotches of rust; and on a sofa by the fire, in the room where breakfast had been prepared, lay the host, Mr. Beckwith, a man with all the appearances of the worst kind of drunkard, very far advanced upon his shameful way to death.

‘Slinkton is not come yet,’ said this creature, staggering up when I went in; ‘I’ll call him.—Halloa!  Julius Cæsar!  Come and drink!’  As he hoarsely roared this out, he beat the poker and tongs together in a mad way, as if that were his usual manner of summoning his associate.

The voice of Mr. Slinkton was heard through the clatter from the opposite side of the staircase, and he came in.  He had not expected the pleasure of meeting me.  I have seen several artful men brought to a stand, but I never saw a man so aghast as he was when his eyes rested on mine.

‘Julius Cæsar,’ cried Beckwith, staggering between us, ‘Mist’ Sampson!  Mist’ Sampson, Julius Cæsar!  Julius, Mist’ Sampson, is the friend of my soul.  Julius keeps me plied with liquor, morning, noon, and night.  Julius is a real benefactor. Julius threw the tea and coffee out of window when I used to have any.  Julius empties all the water-jugs of their contents, and fills ’em with spirits.  Julius winds me up and keeps me going.—Boil the brandy, Julius!’

There was a rusty and furred saucepan in the ashes,—the ashes looked like the accumulation of weeks,—and Beckwith, rolling and staggering between us as if he were going to plunge headlong into the fire, got the saucepan out, and tried to force it into Slinkton’s hand.

‘Boil the brandy, Julius Cæsar!  Come!  Do your usual office.  Boil the brandy!’

He became so fierce in his gesticulations with the saucepan, that I expected to see him lay open Slinkton’s head with it.  I therefore put out my hand to check him.  He reeled back to the sofa, and sat there panting, shaking, and red-eyed, in his rags of dressing-gown, looking at us both.  I noticed then that there was nothing to drink on the table but brandy, and nothing to eat but salted herrings, and a hot, sickly, highly-peppered stew.

‘At all events, Mr. Sampson,’ said Slinkton, offering me the smooth gravel path for the last time, ‘I thank you for interfering between me and this unfortunate man’s violence.  However you came here, Mr. Sampson, or with whatever motive you came here, at least I thank you for that.’

‘Boil the brandy,’ muttered Beckwith.

Without gratifying his desire to know how I came there, I said, quietly, ‘How is your niece, Mr. Slinkton?’

He looked hard at me, and I looked hard at him.

‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Sampson, that my niece has proved treacherous and ungrateful to her best friend.  She left me without a word of notice or explanation.  She was misled, no doubt, by some designing rascal.  Perhaps you may have heard of it.’

‘I did hear that she was misled by a designing rascal.  In fact, I have proof of it.’

‘Are you sure of that?’ said he.

‘Quite.’

‘Boil the brandy,’ muttered Beckwith.  ‘Company to breakfast, Julius Cæsar.  Do your usual office,—provide the usual breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper.  Boil the brandy!’

The eyes of Slinkton looked from him to me, and he said, after a moment’s consideration,

‘Mr. Sampson, you are a man of the world, and so am I.  I will be plain with you.’

‘O no, you won’t,’ said I, shaking my head.

‘I tell you, sir, I will be plain with you.’

‘And I tell you you will not,’ said I.  ‘I know all about you.  You plain with any one?  Nonsense, nonsense!’

‘I plainly tell you, Mr. Sampson,’ he went on, with a manner almost composed, ‘that I understand your object.  You want to save your funds, and escape from your liabilities; these are old tricks of trade with you Office-gentlemen.  But you will not do it, sir; you will not succeed.  You have not an easy adversary to play against, when you play against me.  We shall have to inquire, in due time, when and how Mr. Beckwith fell into his present habits.  With that remark, sir, I put this poor creature, and his incoherent wanderings of speech, aside, and wish you a good morning and a better case next time.’

While he was saying this, Beckwith had filled a half-pint glass with brandy.  At this moment, he threw the brandy at his face, and threw the glass after it.  Slinkton put his hands up, half blinded with the spirit, and cut with the glass across the forehead.  At the sound of the breakage, a fourth person came into the room, closed the door, and stood at it; he was a very quiet but very keen-looking man, with iron-gray hair, and slightly lame.

Slinkton pulled out his handkerchief, assuaged the pain in his smarting eyes, and dabbled the blood on his forehead.  He was a long time about it, and I saw that in the doing of it, a tremendous change came over him, occasioned by the change in Beckwith,—who ceased to pant and tremble, sat upright, and never took his eyes off him.  I never in my life saw a face in which abhorrence and determination were so forcibly painted as in Beckwith’s then.

‘Look at me, you villain,’ said Beckwith, ‘and see me as I really am.  I took these rooms, to make them a trap for you.  I came into them as a drunkard, to bait the trap for you.  You fell into the trap, and you will never leave it alive.  On the morning when you last went to Mr. Sampson’s office, I had seen him first.  Your plot has been known to both of us, all along, and you have been counter-plotted all along.  What?  Having been cajoled into putting that