Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

I dare say you'll open your eyes uncommon wide when I tell you that my business is worth nigh upon sixteen pound a week to me, taking good with bad; and though you mayn't be aware of it, ma'am, having, no doubt, given your mind exclusive to Berlin wool, and such like, sixteen pound a week is eight hundred a year."

Mr. Larkspur, though not much given to surprise, was somewhat astonished to perceive that his lady-visitor did not open her eyes any wider on receiving this intelligence.

"If you have earned eight hundred a year by your profession," she returned, quietly, "I will give you twenty pounds a week for your exclusive services, and that will be a thousand and forty pounds a year."

This time, Andrew Larkspur was still more surprised, though he was so completely master of himself as to conceal the smallest evidence of his astonishment.

Here was a woman who had not devoted her mind to Berlin wool-work, and whose arithmetic was irreproachable!

"Humph!" he muttered, too cautious to betray any appearance of eagerness to accept an advantageous offer. "A thousand a year is very well in its way; but how long is it to last? If I turn my back upon this business here, it'll all tumble to pieces, and then, where shall I be when you have done with me?"

"I will engage you for one year, certain."

"That won't do, ma'am; you must make it three years, certain."

"Very well; I am willing to do that," answered Honoria. "I shall, in all probability, require your services for three years."

Mr. Larkspur regretted that he had not asked for an engagement of six years.

"Do you agree to those terms?" asked Honoria.

"Yes," answered the detective, with well-assumed indifference; "I suppose I may as well accept those terms, though I dare say I might make more money by leaving myself free to give my attention to anything that might turn up. And now, how am I to be paid? You see, you're quite a stranger to me."

"I am aware of that, and I do not ask you to trust me," replied Honoria. "I will pay you eighty pounds a month."

"Eighty pounds a month of four weeks," interposed the cautious Larkspur; "eighty pounds for the lunar month. That makes a difference, you know, and it's just as well to be particular."

"Certainly!" answered Lady Eversleigh, with a half-contemptuous smile. "You shall not be cheated. You shall receive your payment monthly, in advance; and if you require security for the future, I can refer you to my bankers. My name is Mrs. Eden--Harriet Eden, and I bank with Messrs. Coutts."

The detective rubbed his hands with a air of gratification.

"Nothing could be more straightforward and business-like," he said. "And when shall you require my services, Mrs. Eden?"

"Immediately. There is an apartment vacant in the house in which I lodge. I should wish you to occupy that apartment, as you would thus be always at hand when I had any communication to make to you. Would that be possible?"

"Well, yes, ma'am, it would certainly be possible," replied Mr. Larkspur, after the usual pause for reflection; "but I'm afraid I should be obliged to make that an extra."

"You shall be paid whatever you require."

"Thank you, ma'am. You see, when a person of my age has been accustomed to live in one place for a long time, it goes against him to change his habits. However, to oblige you, I'll get together my little traps, and shift my quarter to the lodging you speak of."

"Good. The house in question is No. 90, Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road."

Mr. Larkspur was surprised to find that a lady who could afford to offer him more than a thousand a year, was nevertheless contented to live in such a middle-class situation as Percy Street.

"Can you go to the new lodging to-morrow?" asked Honoria.

"Well, no, ma'am; you must give me a week, if you please. I must wind up some of the affairs I have been working upon, you see, and hand over my clients to other people; and I must set my books in order. I've a few very profitable affairs in hand, I assure you. There's one which might have turned out a great prize, if I had been only able to carry it through. But those sort of things all depend on time, you see, ma'am. They're very slow. I have been about this one, off and on, for over three years; and very little has come of it yet."

The detective was turning over one of his books mechanically as he said this. It was a large ledger, filled with entries, in a queer, cramped handwriting, dotted about, here and there, with mysterious marks in red and blue ink. Mr. Larkspur stopped suddenly, as he turned the leaves, his attention arrested by one particular page.

"Here it is," he said; "the very business I was speaking of. Five hundred pounds for the discovery of the murderer, or murderers, of Valentine Jernam, captain and owner of the 'Pizarro', whose body was found in the river, below Wapping, on the third of April, 1836. That's a very queer business, that is, and I've never had leisure to get very deep into the rights and wrongs of it yet."

Mr. Larkspur looked up presently, and saw that his visitor's face had grown white to the very lips.

"You knew Captain Jernam?" he said.

"No--yes, I knew him slightly; and the idea of his murder is very shocking to me," answered Honoria, struggling with her agitation. "Do you expect to discover the secret of that dreadful crime?"

"Well, I don't know about that," said Andrew Larkspur, with the careless and business-like tone of a man to whom a murder is an incident of trade. "You see, when these things have gone by for a long time, without anything being found out about them, the secret generally comes out by accident, if it ever comes out at all. There are cases in which the secret never does come out; but there are not many such cases. There's a deal in accident; and a man of my profession must be always on the look-out for accident, or he'll lose a great many chances. You see those red marks stuck here and there, among all that writing in blue ink. Those red marks are set against the facts that seem pretty clear and straightforward; the blue marks are set against facts that seem dark. You see, there's more blue marks than red. That means that it's a dark case."

Honoria Eversleigh bent over the old man's shoulder, and read a few fragmentary lines, here and there, in the page beneath her.

"_Seen at the 'Jolly Tar', Ratcliff Highway, a low public-house frequented by sailors. Seen with two men, Dennis Wayman, landlord of the 'Jolly Tar,' and a man called Milson, or Milsom. The man Milson, or Milsom, has since disappeared. Is believed to have been transported, but is not to be heard of abroad._"

A little below these entries was another, which seemed to Honoria Eversleigh to be inscribed in letters of fire:--

"Valentine Jernam was known to have fallen in love with a girl who sang at the 'Jolly Tar' public-house, and it is supposed that he was lured to his death by the agency of this girl. She is described as about seventeen years of age, very handsome, dark eyes, dark hair--"

Mr. Larkspur closed the volume before Lady Eversleigh could read further. She returned to her seat, still terribly pale, and with a sickening pain at her heart.

All the shame and anguish of her early life, the unspeakable horror of her girlhood, had been brought vividly back to her by the perusal of the memoranda in the detective's ledger.

"I mean to try my luck yet at getting at the bottom of the mystery," said Andrew Larkspur. "Five hundred pounds reward is worth working for. I--I've a notion that I shall lay my hands upon Valentine Jernam's murderer sooner or later."

"Who offers the reward?" asked Honoria.

"Government offers one hundred of it; George Jernam four hundred more."

"Who is George Jernam?"

"The captain's younger brother--a merchant-captain himself--the owner of several vessels, and, I believe, a rich man. He came here, accompanied by a queer-looking fellow, called Joyce Harker--a kind of clerk, I believe--who was very much attached to the murdered man."

"Yes--yes, I know," murmured Honoria.

She had been so terribly agitated by the mention of Valentine Jernam's name, that her presence of mind had entirely abandoned her.

"You knew that humpbacked clerk!" exclaimed Mr. Larkspur.

"I have heard of him," she faltered.

There was a pause, during which Lady Eversleigh recovered in some degree from the painful emotion caused by memories so unexpectedly evoked.

"I may as well give you some preliminary instructions to-day," she said, re-assuming her business-like tone, "and I will write you a cheque for the first month of your service."

Mr. Larkspur lost no time in providing his visitor with pen and ink. She took a cheque-book from her pocket, and filled in a cheque for eighty pounds in Andrew Larkspur's favour.

The cheque was signed "Harriet Eden."

"When you present that, you will be able to ascertain that your future payments will be secure," she said.

She handed the cheque to Mr. Larkspur, who looked at it with an air of assumed indifference, and slipped it carelessly into his waistcoat pocket.

"And now, ma'am," he said, "I am ready to receive your instructions."

"In the first place," said Honoria, "I must beg that you will on no occasion attempt to pry into my motives, whatever I may require of you."

"That, ma'am, is understood. I have nothing to do with the motives of my employers, and I care nothing about them."

"I am glad to hear that," replied Honoria. "The business in which I require your aid is a very strange one; and the time may come when you will be half-inclined to believe me mad. But, whatever I do, however mysterious my actions may be, think always that a deeply rooted purpose lies beneath them; and that every thought of my brain--every trivial act of my life, will shape itself to one end."

"I ask no questions, ma'am."

"And you will serve me faithfully--blindly?"

"Yes, ma'am; both faithfully and blindly."

"I think I may trust you," replied Honoria, very earnestly "And now I will speak freely. There are two men upon whose lives I desire to place a spy. I want to know every act of their lives, every word they speak, every secret of their hearts--I wish to be an unseen witness of their lonely hours, an impalpable guest at every gathering in which they mingle. I want to be near them always in spirit, if not in bodily presence. I want to track them step by step, let their ways be never so dark and winding. This is the purpose of my life; but I am a woman-- powerless to act freely--bound and fettered as women only are fettered. Do you begin to understand now what I require of you."

"I think I do."

"Mr. Larkspur," continued Honoria, with energy. "I want you to be my second self. I want you to be the shadow of these two men. Wherever they go, you must follow--in some shape or other you must haunt them, by night and day. It is, of course, a difficult task which I demand of you. You