Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [epub ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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me a paper, I’ll skim the news of the day while I’m waiting.”
Joyce passed into the little room, where Dennis took him the newspaper
and the rum.
Twelve o’clock struck, and the clerk began to watch and to listen for
the opening of the door, or the sound of a footstep in the passage
outside. The time seemed very long to him, watching and listening. The
minute-hand of the Dutch clock moved slowly on. He turned every now and
then towards the dusky corner where the clock hung, to see what
progress that slow hand had made upon the discoloured dial.
He waited thus for an hour.
“What does it mean?” he thought. “Valentine Jernam so faithfully
promised to be punctual. And then he’s so fond of his brother. He’d
scarcely care to be a minute behindhand, when he has the chance of
seeing Captain George.”
Joyce went into the bar. The landlord was scrutinizing the address of a
letter—a foreign letter.
“Didn’t you say your friend’s name was Jernam?” he asked.
“I did.”
“Then this letter must be for him. It has been lying here for the last
two or three days; but I forgot all about it till just this minute.”
Joyce took the letter. It was addressed to Captain Valentine Jernam, of
the ‘Pizarro’, at the ‘Jolly Tar’, care of the landlord, and it came
from the Cape of Good Hope.
Joyce recognized George Jernam’s writing.
“This means a disappointment,” he thought, as he turned the letter over
and over slowly; “there’ll be no meeting yet awhile. Captain George is
off to the East Indies on some new venture, I dare say. But what can
have become of Captain Valentine? I’ll go down to the ‘Golden Cross,’
and see if he’s there.”
He told Dennis Wayman where he was going, and left a message for his
captain. From Ratcliff Highway to Charing Cross was a long journey for
Joyce; but he had no idea of indulging in any such luxury as a hackney-coach. It was late in the afternoon when he reached the hotel; and
there he was doomed to encounter a new disappointment.
Captain Jernam had been there on the second of the month, and had never
been there since. He had left in the forenoon, after saying that he
should return at night; and in evidence that such had been his
intention, the waiter told Joyce that the captain had left a carpet-bag, containing clean linen and a change of clothes.
“He’s broken his word to me, and he’s got into bad hands,” thought
Harker. “He’s as simple as a child, and he’s got into bad hands. But
how and where? He’d never, surely, go back to the ‘Jolly Tar’, after
what I said to him. And where else can he have gone? I know no more
where to look for him in this great overgrown London than if I was a
new-born baby.”
In his perfect ignorance of his captain’s movements, there was only one
thing that Joyce Harker could do, and that was to go back to the “Jolly
Tar,” with a faint hope of finding Valentine Jernam there.
It was dusk by the time he got back to Ratcliff Highway, and the
flaring gas-lamps were lighted. The bar of the tavern was crowded, and
the tinkling notes of the old piano sounded feebly from the inner room.
Dennis Wayman was serving his customers, and Thomas Milsom was drinking
at the bar. Joyce pushed his way to the landlord.
“Have you seen anything of the captain?” he asked.
“No, he hasn’t been here since you left.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Quite sure.”
“He’s not been here to day; but he’s been here within the week, hasn’t
he? He was here on Tuesday, if I’m not misinformed.”
“Then you are misinformed,” Wayman said, coolly; “for your seafaring
friend hasn’t darkened my doors since the morning you and he left to go
to the coach-office.”
Joyce could say nothing further. He passed through the passage into the
public room, where the so-called concert had begun. Jenny Milsom was
singing to the noisy audience.
The girl was very pale, and her manner and attitude, as she sat by the
piano, were even more listless than usual.
Joyce Harker did not stop long in the concert-room. He went back to the
bar. This time there was no one but Milsom and Wayman in the bar, and
the two seemed to be talking earnestly as Joyce entered.
They left off, and looked up at the sound of the clerk’s footsteps.
“Tired of the music already?” asked Wayman.
“I didn’t come here to hear music,” answered Joyce; “I came to look for
my captain. He had an appointment to meet his brother here to-day at
twelve o’clock, and it isn’t like him to break it. I’m beginning to get
uneasy about him.”
“But why should you be uneasy? The captain is big enough, and old
enough, to take care of himself,” said the landlord, with a laugh.
“Yes; but then you see, mate, there are some men who never know how to
take care of themselves when they get into bad company. There isn’t a
better sailor than Valentine Jernam, or a finer fellow at sea; but I
don’t think, if you searched from one end of this city to the other,
you’d find a greater innocent on shore. I’m afraid of his having fallen
into bad hands, Mr. Wayman, for he had a goodish bit of money about
him; and there’s land-sharks as dangerous as those you meet with on the
sea.”
“So there are, mate,” answered the landlord; “and there’s some queer
characters about this neighbourhood, for the matter of that.”
“I dare say you’re right, Mr. Wayman,” returned Joyce; “and I’ll tell
you what it is. If any harm has come to Valentine Jernam, let those
that have done the harm look out for themselves. Perhaps they don’t
know what it is to hurt a man that’s got a faithful dog at his heels.
Let them hide themselves where they will, and let them be as cunning as
they will, the dog will smell them out, sooner or later, and will tear
them to pieces when he finds them. I’m Captain Jernam’s dog, Mr. Dennis
Wayman; and if I don’t find my master, I’ll hunt till I do find those
that have got him out of the way. I don’t know what’s amiss with me to-night; but I’ve got a feeling come over me that I shall never look in
Valentine Jernam’s honest face again. If I’m right, Lord help the
scoundrels who have plotted against him, for it’ll be the business of
my life to track them down, and bring their crime home to them—and
I’ll do it.”
After having said this, slowly and deliberately, with an appalling
earnestness of voice and manner, Joyce Harker looked from Dennis Wayman
to Black Milsom, and this time the masks they were accustomed to wear
did not serve these scoundrels so well as usual, for in the faces of
both there was a look of fear.
“I am going to search for my captain,” said Joyce. “Good night, mates.”
He left the tavern. The two men looked at each other earnestly as the
door closed upon him.
“A dangerous man,” said Dennis Wayman.
“Bah!” muttered Black Milsom, savagely; “who’s afraid of a hunchback’s
bluster? I dare say he wanted the handling of the money himself.”
All that night Joyce Harker wandered to and fro amidst the haunts of
sailors and merchant captains; but wander where he would, and inquire
of whom he would, he could obtain no tidings of the missing man.
Towards daybreak, he took a couple of hours’ sleep in a tavern at
Shadwell, and with the day his search began again.
Throughout that day the same patient search continued, the same
inquiries were repeated with indomitable perseverance, in every likely
and unlikely place; but everywhere the result was failure.
It was towards dusk that Joyce Harker turned his back upon a tavern in
Rotherhithe, and set his face towards the river bank.
“I have looked long enough for him among the living,” he said; “I must
look for him now amongst the dead.”
Before midnight the search was ended. Amongst the printed bills
flapping on dreary walls in that river-side neighbourhood, Joyce Harker
had discovered the description of a man “found drowned.” The
description fitted Valentine Jernam, and the body had been found within
the last two days.
Joyce went to the police-office where the man was lying. He had no need
to look at the poor dead face—the dark, handsome face, which was so
familiar to him.
“I expected as much,” he said to the official who had admitted him to
see the body; “he had money about him, and he has fallen into the hands
of scoundrels.”
“You don’t think it was an accident?”
“No; he has been murdered, sir. And I think I know the men who did it.”
“You know the men?”
“Yes; but my knowledge won’t help to avenge his death, if I can’t bring
it home to them—and I don’t suppose I can. There’ll be a coroner’s
inquest, won’t there?”
At the inquest, next day, Joyce Harker told his story; but that story
threw very little light on the circumstances of Valentine Jernam’s
death.
The investigation before the coroner set at rest all question as to the
means by which the captain had met his death. A medical examination
demonstrated that he had been murdered by a blow on the back of the
head, inflicted by some sharp heavy instrument. The unfortunate man
must have died before he was thrown into the water.
The verdict of the coroner’s jury was to the effect that Valentine
Jernam had been wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown.
And with this verdict Joyce Harker was obliged to be content. His
suspicions he dared not mention in open court. They were too vague and
shadowy. But he called upon a celebrated Bow Street officer, and
submitted the case to him. It was a case for secret inquiry, for
careful investigation; and Joyce offered a handsome reward out of his
own savings.
While this secret investigation was in progress, Joyce opened the
letter addressed to Valentine by his brother George.
“DEAR VAL,” wrote the sailor: “_I have been tempted to make another
trip to Calcutta with a cargo shipped at Lisbon, and shall not be able
to meet you in London on the 5th of April. It will be ten or twelve
months before I see England again; but when I do come back, I hope to
add something handsome to our joint fortunes. I long to see your honest
face, and grasp your hand again; but the chance of a big prize lures me
out yonder. We are both young, and have all the world before us, so we
can afford to wait a year or two. Bank the money; Joyce will tell you
where, and how to do it; and let me know your plans before you leave
London. A letter addressed to me, care of Riverdale and Co., Calcutta,
will be safe. Good luck to you, dear old boy, now and always, and every
good wish.—From your affectionate brother_,” “GEORGE JERNAM.”
It was Joyce Harker’s melancholy task to tell Valentine Jernam’s
younger brother the story of the seaman’s death. He wrote a long
letter, recording everything that had happened within his knowledge,
from the moment of the ‘Pizarro’ reaching Gravesend to the discovery of
Valentine’s body in the river-side police
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