Martin Chuzzlewit
for himself!’
‘You had better save one or two among them the trouble then and be for
them as well as YOURself,’ replied his nephew. ‘Look here at me! Can you
see the man of your family who has more talent in his little finger than
all the rest in their united brains, dressed as a police officer without
being ashamed? I took up with this trade on purpose to shame you. I
didn’t think I should have to make a capture in the family, though.’
‘If your debauchery, and that of your chosen friends, has really brought
you to this level,’ returned the old man, ‘keep it. You are living
honestly, I hope, and that’s something.’
‘Don’t be hard upon my chosen friends,’ returned Slyme, ‘for they were
sometimes your chosen friends too. Don’t say you never employed my
friend Tigg, for I know better. We quarrelled upon it.’
‘I hired the fellow,’ retorted Mr Chuzzlewit, ‘and I paid him.’
‘It’s well you paid him,’ said his nephew, ‘for it would be too late to
do so now. He has given his receipt in full; or had it forced from him
rather.’
The old man looked at him as if he were curious to know what he meant,
but scorned to prolong the conversation.
‘I have always expected that he and I would be brought together again in
the course of business,’ said Slyme, taking a fresh handful of nuts from
his pocket; ‘but I thought he would be wanted for some swindling job; it
never entered my head that I should hold a warrant for the apprehension
of his murderer.’
‘HIS murderer!’ cried Mr Chuzzlewit, looking from one to another.
‘His or Mr Montague’s,’ said Nadgett. ‘They are the same, I am told.
I accuse him yonder of the murder of Mr Montague, who was found last
night, killed, in a wood. You will ask me why I accuse him as you have
already asked me how I know so much. I’ll tell you. It can’t remain a
secret long.’
The ruling passion of the man expressed itself even then, in the tone of
regret in which he deplored the approaching publicity of what he knew.
‘I told you I had watched him,’ he proceeded. ‘I was instructed to do
so by Mr Montague, in whose employment I have been for some time. We had
our suspicions of him; and you know what they pointed at, for you have
been discussing it since we have been waiting here, outside the room. If
you care to hear, now it’s all over, in what our suspicions began, I’ll
tell you plainly: in a quarrel (it first came to our ears through a hint
of his own) between him and another office in which his father’s life
was insured, and which had so much doubt and distrust upon the subject,
that he compounded with them, and took half the money; and was glad to
do it. Bit by bit, I ferreted out more circumstances against him, and
not a few. It required a little patience, but it’s my calling. I found
the nurse--here she is to confirm me; I found the doctor, I found
the undertaker, I found the undertaker’s man. I found out how the old
gentleman there, Mr Chuffey, had behaved at the funeral; and I found out
what this man,’ touching Lewsome on the arm, ‘had talked about in his
fever. I found out how he conducted himself before his father’s death,
and how since and how at the time; and writing it all down, and putting
it carefully together, made case enough for Mr Montague to tax him
with the crime, which (as he himself believed until to-night) he had
committed. I was by when this was done. You see him now. He is only
worse than he was then.’
Oh, miserable, miserable fool! oh, insupportable, excruciating torture!
To find alive and active--a party to it all--the brain and right-hand
of the secret he had thought to crush! In whom, though he had walled the
murdered man up, by enchantment in a rock, the story would have lived
and walked abroad! He tried to stop his ears with his fettered arms,
that he might shut out the rest.
As he crouched upon the floor, they drew away from him as if a
pestilence were in his breath. They fell off, one by one, from that part
of the room, leaving him alone upon the ground. Even those who had him
in their keeping shunned him, and (with the exception of Slyme, who was
still occupied with his nuts) kept apart.
‘From that garret-window opposite,’ said Nadgett, pointing across the
narrow street, ‘I have watched this house and him for days and nights.
From that garret-window opposite I saw him return home, alone, from a
journey on which he had set out with Mr Montague. That was my token that
Mr Montague’s end was gained; and I might rest easy on my watch, though
I was not to leave it until he dismissed me. But, standing at the door
opposite, after dark that same night, I saw a countryman steal out of
this house, by a side-door in the court, who had never entered it.
I knew his walk, and that it was himself, disguised. I followed him
immediately. I lost him on the western road, still travelling westward.’
Jonas looked up at him for an instant, and muttered an oath.
‘I could not comprehend what this meant,’ said Nadgett; ‘but, having
seen so much, I resolved to see it out, and through. And I did.
Learning, on inquiry at his house from his wife, that he was supposed
to be sleeping in the room from which I had seen him go out, and that he
had given strict orders not to be disturbed, I knew that he was
coming back; and for his coming back I watched. I kept my watch in
the street--in doorways, and such places--all that night; at the same
window, all next day; and when night came on again, in the street once
more. For I knew he would come back, as he had gone out, when this part
of the town was empty. He did. Early in the morning, the same countryman
came creeping, creeping, creeping home.’
‘Look sharp!’ interposed Slyme, who had now finished his nuts. ‘This is
quite irregular, Mr Nadgett.’
‘I kept at the window all day,’ said Nadgett, without heeding him.
‘I think I never closed my eyes. At night, I saw him come out with a
bundle. I followed him again. He went down the steps at London Bridge,
and sunk it in the river. I now began to entertain some serious fears,
and made a communication to the Police, which caused that bundle to
be--’
‘To be fished up,’ interrupted Slyme. ‘Be alive, Mr Nadgett.’
‘It contained the dress I had seen him wear,’ said Nadgett; ‘stained
with clay, and spotted with blood. Information of the murder was
received in town last night. The wearer of that dress is already
known to have been seen near the place; to have been lurking in that
neighbourhood; and to have alighted from a coach coming from that part
of the country, at a time exactly tallying with the very minute when
I saw him returning home. The warrant has been out, and these officers
have been with me, some hours. We chose our time; and seeing you come
in, and seeing this person at the window--’
‘Beckoned to him,’ said Mark, taking up the thread of the narrative, on
hearing this allusion to himself, ‘to open the door; which he did with a
deal of pleasure.’
‘That’s all at present,’ said Nadgett, putting up his great pocketbook,
which from mere habit he had produced when he began his revelation, and
had kept in his hand all the time; ‘but there is plenty more to come.
You asked me for the facts, so far I have related them, and need not
detain these gentlemen any longer. Are you ready, Mr Slyme?’
‘And something more,’ replied that worthy, rising. ‘If you walk round to
the office, we shall be there as soon as you. Tom! Get a coach!’
The officer to whom he spoke departed for that purpose. Old Martin
lingered for a few moments, as if he would have addressed some words
to Jonas; but looking round, and seeing him still seated on the floor,
rocking himself in a savage manner to and fro, took Chuffey’s arm, and
slowly followed Nadgett out. John Westlock and Mark Tapley accompanied
them. Mrs Gamp had tottered out first, for the better display of her
feelings, in a kind of walking swoon; for Mrs Gamp performed swoons of
different sorts, upon a moderate notice, as Mr Mould did Funerals.
‘Ha!’ muttered Slyme, looking after them. ‘Upon my soul! As insensible
of being disgraced by having such a nephew as myself, in such a
situation, as he was of my being an honour and a credit to the family!
That’s the return I get for having humbled my spirit--such a spirit as
mine--to earn a livelihood, is it?’
He got up from his chair, and kicked it away indignantly.
‘And such a livelihood too! When there are hundreds of men, not fit to
hold a candle to me, rolling in carriages and living on their fortunes.
Upon my soul it’s a nice world!’
His eyes encountered Jonas, who looked earnestly towards him, and moved
his lips as if he were whispering.
‘Eh?’ said Slyme.
Jonas glanced at the attendant whose back was towards him, and made a
clumsy motion with his bound hands towards the door.
‘Humph!’ said Slyme, thoughtfully. ‘I couldn’t hope to disgrace him into
anything when you have shot so far ahead of me though. I forgot that.’
Jonas repeated the same look and gesture.
‘Jack!’ said Slyme.
‘Hallo!’ returned his man.
‘Go down to the door, ready for the coach. Call out when it comes. I’d
rather have you there. Now then,’ he added, turning hastily to Jonas,
when the man was gone. ‘What’s the matter?’
Jonas essayed to rise.
‘Stop a bit,’ said Slyme. ‘It’s not so easy when your wrists are tight
together. Now then! Up! What is it?’
‘Put your hand in my pocket. Here! The breast pocket, on the left!’ said
Jonas.
He did so; and drew out a purse.
‘There’s a hundred pound in it,’ said Jonas, whose words were almost
unintelligible; as his face, in its pallor and agony, was scarcely
human.
Slyme looked at him; gave it into his hands; and shook his head.
‘I can’t. I daren’t. I couldn’t if I dared. Those fellows below--’
‘Escape’s impossible,’ said Jonas. ‘I know it. One hundred pound for
only five minutes in the next room!’
‘What to do?’ he asked.
The face of his prisoner as he advanced to whisper in his ear, made him
recoil involuntarily. But he stopped and listened to him. The words were
few, but his own face changed as he heard them.
‘I have it about me,’ said Jonas, putting his hands to his throat, as
though whatever he referred to were hidden in his neckerchief. ‘How
should you know of it? How could you know? A hundred pound for only five
minutes in the next room! The time’s passing. Speak!’
‘It would be more--more creditable to the family,’ observed Slyme, with
trembling lips. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me half so much. Less would have
served your purpose. You might have kept it to yourself.’
‘A hundred pound for only five minutes in the next room! Speak!’ cried
Jonas, desperately.
He took the purse. Jonas, with a wild unsteady step, retreated to the
door in the glass partition.
‘Stop!’ cried Slyme, catching at his skirts. ‘I don’t know about this.
Yet it must end so at last. Are you guilty?’
‘Yes!’ said Jonas.
‘Are the proofs as they were told just now?’
‘Yes!’ said Jonas.
‘Will you--will you engage to say a--a Prayer, now, or something of that
sort?’ faltered Slyme.
Jonas broke from him without replying, and closed the door between them.
Slyme listened at the keyhole. After that, he crept away on tiptoe, as
far off as he could; and looked awfully towards the place. He was roused
by the arrival of the coach, and their letting down the steps.
‘He’s getting a few things together,’ he said, leaning out of window,
and speaking to the two men below, who stood in the full light of a
street-lamp. ‘Keep your eye upon the back, one of you, for form’s sake.’
One of the men withdrew into the court. The other, seating himself self
on the steps of the coach, remained in conversation with Slyme at the
window who perhaps had risen to be his superior, in virtue of his old
propensity (one so much lauded by the murdered man) of being always