The trail of the serpent
a man’s voice; and, though the place was a sort of crib such as nobody
but navvies or such-like would be in the habit of going to, this ’ere
was the voice of a gentleman. I can’t say as I ever paid much attention
to grammar myself, though I daresay it’s very pleasant and amusin’ when
you enter into it; but, for all that, I’d knocked about in the world
long enough to know a gent’s way of speakin’ from a navvy’s, as well as
I know’d one tune on the accordion from another tune. It was a nice,
soft-spoken voice too, and quite melodious and pleasant to listen to;
but it was a-sayin’ some of the cruelest and hardest words as ever was
spoke to a woman yet by any creature with the cheek to call hisself a
man. You’re not much good, my friend, says I, with your lardy-dardy
ways and your cold-blooded words, whoever you are. You’re a thin chap,
with light hair and white hands, I know, though I’ve never seen you;
and there’s very little in the way of wickedness that you wouldn’t be
up to on a push. Now, just as I was a-thinkin’ this, he said somethin’
that sent the blood up into my face as hot as fire--‘I expected a
sum of money, and I’ve been disappointed of it,’ he said; and before
the girl he was a-talkin’ to could open her lips, he caught her up
sudden--‘Never you mind how,’ he says, ‘never you mind how.’”
“He expected a sum of money, and he’d been disappointed of it! So had
the man who had murdered this young gent’s uncle.
“Not much in this, perhaps. But why was he so frightened at the
thoughts of her asking him how he expected the money, and how he’d bin
disappointed? There it got fishy. At any rate, says I to myself, I’ll
have a look at you, my friend; so in I walks, very quiet and quite
unbeknownst. He was a-sittin’ with his back to the door, and the young
woman he was a-talkin’ to was standin’ lookin’ out of the winder; so
neither of ’em saw me. He was buildin’ up some cards into a ’ouse, and
had got ’em up very high, when I laid my hand upon his shoulder sudden.
He turned round and looked at me.” Mr. Peters’ hero paused, and looked
round at the little group, who sat watching his fingers with breathless
attention. He had evidently come to a point in his narrative.
“Now, what did I see in his face when he looked at me? Why, the very
same look that I _missed_ in the face of this young gent when
Jinks took him in the mornin’. The very same look that I’d seen in a
many faces, and never know’d it differ, whether it came one way or
another, always bein’ the same look at bottom--the look of a man as is
guilty of what will hang him and thinks that he’s found out. But as you
can’t give looks in as evidence, this wasn’t no good in a practical
way; but I says to myself, if ever there was anything certain in this
world since it was begun, I’ve come across the right un: so I sits down
and takes up a newspaper. I signified to him that I was dumb, and he
took it for granted that I was deaf as well--which was one of those
stupid mistakes your clever chaps sometimes fall into--so he went on
a-talking to the girl.
“Well, it was a old story enough, what him and the girl was talkin’ of;
but every word he said made him out a more cold-blooded villain than
the last.
“Presently he offered her some money--four sovereigns. She served
him as he ought to have been served, and threw them every one slap
in his face. One cut him over the eye; and I was glad of it. ‘You’re
marked, my man,’ thinks I, ‘and nothin’ could be handier agen I want
you.’ He picked up three of the sovereigns, but for all he could do he
couldn’t find the fourth. So he had the cut (which was a jolly deep
un) plastered up, and he went away. She stared at the river uncommon
hard, and then she went away. Now I didn’t much like the look she gave
the river, so as I had about half an hour to spare before the train
started, I followed her. I think she knew it; for presently she turned
short off into a little street, and when I turned into it after her she
wasn’t to be seen right or left.
“Well, I had but half an hour, so I thought it was no use chasin’ this
unfortunate young creature through all the twistings and turnings of
the back slums of Slopperton; so after a few minutes’ consideration, I
walked straight to the station. Hang me if I wasn’t too late for the
train again. I don’t know how it was but I couldn’t keep my mind off
the young woman, nor keep myself from wonderin’ what she was a-goin’ to
do with herself, and what she was a-goin’ to do with that ’ere baby. So
I walks back agen down by the water, and as I’d a good hour and a half
to spare, I walks a good way, thinking of the young man, and the cut on
his forehead. It was nigh upon dark by this time, and foggy into the
bargain. Maybe I’d gone a mile or more, when I comes up to a barge what
lay at anchor quite solitary. It was a collier, and there was a chap on
board, sittin’ in the stern, smokin’, and lookin’ at the water. There
was no one else in sight but him and me; and no sooner does he spy me
comin’ along the bank than he sings out--
“‘Hulloa! Have you met a young woman down that way?’
“His words struck me all of a heap somehow, comin’ so near upon what I
was a-thinkin’ of myself. I shook my head; and he said--
“‘There’s been some unfort’nate young girl down here tryin’ to dround
her baby. I see the little chap in the water, and fished him out with
my boat-hook. I’d seen the girl hangin’ about here, just as it was
a-gettin’ dark, and then I heard the splash when she threw the child
in; but the fog was too thick for me to see anything ashore by that
time.’
“The barge was just alongside the bank, and I stepped on board. Not
bein’ so fortunate as to have a voice, you know, it comes awkward with
strangers, and I was rather put to it to get on with the young man.
And didn’t he sing out loud when he came to understand I was dumb; he
couldn’t have spoke in a higher key if I’d been a forriner.
“He told me he should take the baby round to the Union; all he hoped
he said, was, that the mother wasn’t a-goin’ to do anything bad with
herself.
“I hoped not too; but I remembered that look of hers when she stood at
the window staring out at the river, and I didn’t feel very easy in my
mind about her.
“I took the poor little wet thing up in my arms. The young man had
wrapped it in an old jacket, and it was a-cryin’ piteous, and lookin’,
oh, so scared and miserable.
“Well, it may seem a queer whim, but I’m rather soft-hearted on the
subject of babies, and often had a thought that I should like to try
the power of cultivation in the way of business, and bring a child
up from the very cradle to the police detective line, to see whether
I couldn’t make that ’ere child a ornament to the force. I wasn’t a
marryin’ man, and by no means likely ever to ’av a family of my own; so
when I took up that ’ere baby in my arms, somehow or other the thought
came into my ’ed of adoptin’ him, and bringin’ of him up. So I rolled
him up in my greatcoat, and took him with me to Gardenford.”
“And a wonderful boy he is,” said Richard; “we’ll educate him, Peters,
and make a gentleman of him.”
“Wait a bit,” said the fingers very quickly; “thank you kindly, sir;
but if the police force of this ’ere country was robbed of that ’ere
boy, it would be robbed of a gem as it couldn’t afford to lose.”
“Go on, Peters; tell them the rest of your story.”
“Well, though I felt in my own mind that by one of those strange
chances which does happen in life, maybe as often as they happen in
story-books, I had fallen across the man who had committed the murder,
yet for all that I hadn’t evidence enough to get a hearin’. I got
transferred from Gardenford to Slopperton, and every leisure minute
I had I tried to come across the man I’d marked; but nowhere could I
see him, or hear of any one answering his description. I went to the
churches; for I thought him capable of anything, even to shammin’
pious. I went to the theayter, and I see a young woman accused of
poisonin’ a fam’ly, and proved innocent by a police cove as didn’t
know his business any more than a fly. I went anywhere and everywhere,
but I never see that man; and it was gettin’ uncommon near the trial
of this young gent, and nothin’ done. How was he to be saved? I
thought of it by night and thought of it by day; but work it out I
couldn’t nohow. One day I hears of an old friend of the pris’ner’s
being sup-boned-aed as witness for the crown. This friend I determined
to see; for two ’eds”--Mr. Peters looked round, as though he defied
contradiction--“shall be better than one.”
“And this friend,” said Gus, “was your humble servant; who was only too
glad to find that poor Dick had one sincere friend in the world who
believed in his innocence, besides myself.”
“Well, Mr. Darley and me,” resumed Mr. Peters, “put our ’eds together,
and we came to this conclusion, that if this young gent was mad when
he committed the murder, they couldn’t hang him, but would shut him in
a asylum for the rest of his nat’ral life--which mayn’t be pleasant in
the habstract, but which is better than hangin’, any day.”
“So you determined on proving me mad,” said Richard.
“We hadn’t such very bad grounds to go upon, perhaps, old fellow,”
replied Mr. Darley; “that brain-fever, which we thought such a
misfortune when it laid you up for three dreary weeks stood us in
good stead; we had something to go upon, for we knew we could get
you off by no other means. But to get you off this way we wanted your
assistance, and we didn’t hit upon the plan till it was too late to
get at you and tell you our scheme; we didn’t hit upon it till twelve
o’clock on the night before your trial. We tried to see your counsel;
but he had that morning left the town, and wasn’t to return till
the trial came on. Peters hung about the court all the morning, but
couldn’t see him; and nothing was done when the judge and jury took
their seats. You know the rest; how Peters caught your eye----”
“Yes,” said Dick, “and how seven letters upon his fingers told me the
whole scheme, and gave me my cue; those letters formed these two words,
‘Sham mad.’”
“And very well you did it at the short notice, Dick,” said Gus; “upon
my word, for the moment I was almost staggered, and thought, suppose
in getting up this dodge we are only hitting upon the truth, and the
poor fellow really has been driven out of his wits by this frightful
accusation?”
“A scrap of paper,” said Mr. Peters, on his active fingers, “gave the
hint to your counsel--a sharp chap enough, though a young un.”
“I can afford to reward him now for his exertions,” said Richard, “and
I must find him for that purpose. But Peters, for heaven’s sake tell us
about this young man whom you suspect to be the murderer. If I go to
the end of the world in search of him, I’ll find him, and drag him and
his villainy to light, that my name may be cleared from the foul stain
it wears.”
Mr. Peters looked very grave. “You must go a little further than the
end of this world to find him, I’m afraid, sir,” said the fingers.
“What do you say to looking for him in the next? for that’s the station
he’d started for when I last saw him; and I believe that on that line,
with the exception of now and then a cock-and-a-bull-lane ghost, they
don’t give no return tickets.”
“Dead?” said Richard. “Dead, and escaped from justice?”
“That’s about the size of it, sir,” replied Mr. Peters. “Whether he
thought as how something was up, and he was blown, or whether he was
riled past bearin’ at findin’ no money in that ’ere cabinet, I can’t
take upon myself to say; but I found him six months after the murder
out upon a heath, dead, with a laudanum-bottle a-lying by his side.”
“And did you ever find out who he was?” asked Gus.
“He was a usher, sir, at a ’cademy for young gents, and a very pious