The trail of the serpent
the Smasher, and from the Smasher to Gus, with a glance which, if
anything, had the slightest shade of anxiety in it; “you cannot imagine
the interest we on the other side of the Atlantic take in everything
that occurs in the mother country. We may be great over there--we
may be rich over there--we may be universally beloved and respected
over there,--but I doubt--I really, after all, doubt,” he said
sentimentally, “whether we are truly happy. We sigh for the wings of a
dove, or to speak practically, for our travelling expenses, that we may
come over here and be at rest.”
“And yet I conclude it was the especial wish of your late friend to be
buried over there?” asked the stranger.
“It was--his dying wish.”
“And the melancholy duty of complying with that wish devolved on you?”
said the stranger, with a degree of puerile curiosity and frivolous
interest in an affair entirely irrelevant to the matter in hand which
bewildered Gus, and at which the Smasher palpably turned up his nose;
muttering to himself at the same time that the forrin swell would have
time to get to America while they was a-palaverin’ and a-jawin’ this
’ere humbug.
“Yes, it devolved on me,” replied the cheerful gentleman, offering his
cigar-case to the three friends, who declined the proffered weeds.
“We were connections; his mother’s half-sister married my second
cousin--not very nearly connected certainly, but extremely attached to
each other. It will be a melancholy satisfaction to his poor widow to
see his ashes entombed upon his native shore, and the thought of that
repays me threefold for anything I may suffer.”
He looked altogether far too airy and charming a creature to suffer
very much; but the stranger bowed gravely, and Gus, looking towards
the prow of the vessel, perceived the earnest eyes of Mr. Peters
attentively fixed on the little group.
As to the Smasher, he was so utterly disgusted with the stranger’s
manner of doing business, that he abandoned himself to his own thoughts
and hummed a tune--the tune appertaining to what is generally called
a comic song, being the last passages in the life of a humble and
unfortunate member of the working classes as related by himself.
While talking to the cheerful gentleman on this very melancholy
subject, the stranger from Liverpool happened to get quite close to the
coffin, and, with an admirable freedom from prejudice which astonished
the other passengers standing near, rested his hand carelessly on the
stout oaken lid, just at that corner where the canvas left it exposed.
It was a most speaking proof of the almost overstrained feeling of
devotion possessed by the cheerful gentleman towards his late friend
that this trifling action seemed to disturb him; his eyes wandered
uneasily towards the stranger’s black-gloved hand, and at last, when,
in absence of mind, the stranger actually drew the heavy covering
completely over this corner of the coffin, his uneasiness reached a
climax, and drawing the dingy drapery hurriedly back, he rearranged it
in its old fashion.
“Don’t you wish the coffin to be entirely covered?” asked the stranger
quietly.
“Yes--no; that is,” said the cheerful gentleman, with some
embarrassment in his tone, “that is--I--you see there is something of
profanity in a stranger’s hand approaching the remains of those we
love.”
“Suppose, then,” said his interlocutor, “we take a turn about the deck?
This neighbourhood must be very painful to you.”
“On the contrary,” replied the cheerful gentleman, “you will think me,
I dare say, a very singular person, but I prefer remaining by him to
the last. The coffin will be put in the hold as soon as we get on board
the _Washington_; then my duty will have been accomplished and my
mind will be at rest. You go to New York with us?” he asked.
“I shall have that pleasure,” replied the stranger.
“And your friend--your sporting friend?” asked the gentleman, with
a rather supercilious glance at the many-coloured raiment and
mottled-soap complexion of the Smasher, who was still singing _sotto
voce_ the above-mentioned melody, with his arms folded on the rail
of the bench on which he was seated, and his chin resting moodily on
his coat-sleeves.
“No,” replied the stranger; “my friends, I regret to say, leave me as
soon as we get on board.”
In a few minutes more they reached the side of the brave ship, which,
from the Liverpool quay, had looked a whitewinged speck not a bit too
big for Queen Mab; but which was, oh, such a Leviathan of a vessel
when you stood just under her, and had to go up her side by means of a
ladder--which ladder seemed to be subject to shivering fits, and struck
terror into the nervous lady and the bald-headed parrot.
All the passengers, except the cheerful gentleman with the coffin and
the stranger--with Gus and the Smasher and Mr. Peters loitering in
the background--seemed bent on getting up each before the other, and
considerably increased the confusion by evincing this wish in a candid
but not conciliating manner, showing a degree of ill-feeling which was
much increased by the passengers that had not got on board looking
daggers at the passengers that had got on board, and seemed settled
quite comfortably high and dry upon the stately deck. At last, however,
every one but the aforesaid group had ascended the ladder. Some stout
sailors were preparing great ropes wherewith to haul up the coffin,
and the cheerful gentleman was busily directing them, when the captain
of the steamer said to the stranger from Liverpool, as he loitered at
the bottom of the ladder, with Mr. Peters at his elbow,--“Now then,
sir, if you’re for the _Washington_, quick’s the word. We’re off
as soon as ever they’ve got that job over,” pointing to the coffin.
The stranger from Liverpool, instead of complying with this very
natural request, whispered a few words into the ear of the captain, who
looked very grave on hearing them, and then, advancing to the cheerful
gentleman, who was very anxious and very uneasy about the manner in
which the coffin was to be hauled up the side of the vessel, he laid a
heavy hand upon his shoulder, and said,--“I want the lid of that coffin
taken off before those men haul it up.”
Such a change came over the face of the cheerful gentleman as only
comes over the face of a man who knows that he is playing a desperate
game, and knows as surely that he has lost it. “My good sir,” he said,
“you’re mad. Not for the Queen of England would I see that coffin-lid
unscrewed.”
“I don’t think it will give us so much trouble as that,” said the other
quietly. “I very much doubt it’s being screwed down at all. You were
greatly alarmed just now, lest the person within should be smothered.
You were terribly frightened when I drew the heavy canvas over those
incisions in the oak,” he added, pointing to the lid, in the corner of
which two or three cracks were apparent to the close observer.
“Good Heavens! the man is mad!” cried the gentleman, whose manner had
entirely lost its airiness. “The man is evidently a maniac! This is too
dreadful! Is the sanctity of death to be profaned in this manner? Are
we to cross the Atlantic in the company of a madman?”
“You are not to cross the Atlantic at all just yet,” said the Liverpool
stranger. “The man is not mad, I assure you, but he is one of the
principal members of the Liverpool detective police force, and is
empowered to arrest a person who is supposed to be on board this boat.
There is only one place in which that person can be concealed. Here
is my warrant to arrest Jabez North, _alias_ Raymond Marolles,
_alias_ the Count de Marolles. I know as certainly as that I
myself stand here that he lies hidden in that coffin, and I desire
that the lid may be removed. If I am mistaken, it can be immediately
replaced, and I shall be ready to render you my most fervent apologies
for having profaned the repose of the dead. Now, Peters!”
The dumb detective went to one end of the coffin, while his colleague
stood at the other. The Liverpool officer was correct in his
supposition. The lid was only secured by two or three long stout
nails, and gave way in three minutes. The two detectives lifted it off
the coffin--and there, hot, flushed, and panting, half-suffocated,
with desperation in his wicked blue eyes, his teeth locked in furious
rage at his utter powerlessness to escape from the grasp of his
pursuers--there, run to earth at last, lay the accomplished Raymond,
Count de Marolles!
They put the handcuffs on him before they lifted him out of the coffin,
the Smasher assisting. Years after, when the Smasher grew to be an
older and graver man, he used to tell to admiring and awe-stricken
customers the story of this arrest. But it is to be observed that his
memory on these occasions was wont to play him false, for he omitted to
mention either the Liverpool detective or our good friend Mr. Peters
as taking any part in the capture; but described the whole affair as
conducted by himself alone, with an incalculable number of “I says,”
and “so then I thinks,” and “well, what do I do next?” and other
phrases of the same description.
The Count de Marolles, with tumbled hair, and a white face and blue
lips, sitting handcuffed upon the bench of the steamer between the
Liverpool detective and Mr. Peters, steaming back to Liverpool, was
a sight not good to look upon. The cheerful gentleman sat with the
Smasher and Mr. Darley, who had been told to keep an eye upon him, and
who--the Smasher especially--kept both eyes upon him with a will.
Throughout the little voyage there were no words spoken but these
from the Liverpool detective, as he first put the fetters on the
white and slender wrists of his prisoner: “Monsieur de Marolles,” he
said, “you’ve tried this little game once before. This is the second
occasion, I understand, on which you’ve done a sham die. I’d have you
beware of the third time. According to superstitious people, it’s
generally fatal.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE END OF THE DARK ROAD.
ONCE more Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy rang with a subject dismissed from
the public mind eight years ago, and now revived with a great deal
more excitement and discussion than ever. That subject was, the murder
of Mr. Montague Harding. All Slopperton made itself into one voice,
and spoke but upon one theme--the pending trial of another man for
that very crime of which Richard Marwood had been found guilty years
ago--Richard, who, according to report, had died in an attempt to
escape from the county asylum.
Very little was known of the criminal, but a great deal was
conjectured; a great deal more was invented; and ultimately, most
conflicting reports were spread abroad by the citizens of Slopperton,
every one of whom had his particular account of the seizure of De
Marolles, and every one of whom stood to his view of the case with a
pertinacity and fortitude worthy of a better cause. Thus, if you went
into High Street, entering that thoroughfare from the Market-place,
you would hear how this De Marolles was a French nobleman, who had
crossed the Channel in an open boat on the night of the murder, walked
from Dover to Slopperton--(not above two hundred miles by the shortest
cut)--and gone back to Calais in the same manner. If, staggered by
the slight discrepancies of time and place in this account of the
transaction, you pursued your inquiries a little further down the
same street, you would very likely be told that De Marolles was no
Frenchman at all, but the son of a clergyman in the next county, whose
unfortunate mother was at that moment on her knees in the throne-room
at Buckingham Palace, soliciting his pardon on account of his
connection with the clerical interest. If this story struck you as more