COUNTERCHECK.
Mr. Effingham began to think that the position of affairs was growing
serious. A month had elapsed since his interview with old Mr. Lyons at
the Net of Lemons, and he had not gained one scrap of information as
to the whereabouts of the holder of the forged bill, which was to be
held _in terrorem_ over Sir Charles Mitford for money-extracting
purposes, and which was finally to be given up for an enormous round
sum. Not a single scrap; and worse than all, he had so devoted himself
to this one scent, that his other chances of money-getting were
falling into disuse. Not that there was much to be done elsewhere; it
was the off-racing season, so that his trade of tipster and tout, with
occasional sallies into the arena of welching, could not have been
turned to very profitable purpose. The Bank authorities had lately
been terribly wideawake; several packets of slippery greasy
half-crowns, and many rolls of soft sleezy bank-notes, lay hid in
their manufacturer's and engraver's workshops, waiting a better time
for their circulation. There had been some notable burglaries both in
town and country. Gentlemen with blackened faces who wore smock-frocks
over their ordinary clothes had done some very creditable work in
out-of-the-way mansions and London houses whose owners were
entertaining company in the country, and the melting-pots of old Mr.
Lyons and others of his fraternity were rarely off the fire. But this
branch of trade was entirely out of Mr. Effingham's line. "He's a good
'un at passing a half-bull or at spinning a flash fiver. There's a air
about him that goes down uncommon. He's fust-rate for that, is D'Ossay
Butler; but as rank a little cur as ever waddled. When he thinks traps
is on, he's off; and as to my cracksman's business, or anything where
pluck's wanted, Lor' bless you, you might as well have a girl in
highstrikes as D'Ossay." That was what his companions said of him, and
it was pretty nearly true. Where a little swaggering bantam-cock
demeanour was of use, D'Ossay succeeded; but where anything like
physical courage or physical force was required, he was no good at
all.
When the lion is on short commons, the jackal is generally in a
very bad way. If Mr. D'Ossay Butler was hard up, the condition of
tall-hatted Mr. Griffiths was necessarily frightful. That worthy
member of society was financially at the lowest ebb, and had resorted
to a trade which he reserved for the depths of despair, a mild
cardsharping--a "three, two, and vun" game, in which it was an
impossibility for the bystander to point out the exact position of the
king--at low public-houses. During all his wanderings, however, he
kept his eyes open to the necessity of obeying his instructions from
D'Ossay Butler, to the necessity of discovering the whereabouts of
Lizzy Ponsford, the holder of the bill. There was no slum that he
visited; no public-house, where he first propitiated the landlord by
the purchase of half-a-pint of ale, and then proceeded to suggest to
the notice of the two or three sawney-looking men at the bar a "curous
little game he had there, at which 'atfuls of money had been von, and
which was the favourite recreation of the horficers of the Queen's
Life-Guards at the Windsor Barracks, where he'd 'ad the pleasure of
introducin' it 'imself;" no pedestrian ground, no penny-gaff, where he
did not get into conversation with somebody connected with the
premises, and try to worm out that all-important secret. But all was
of no avail. Many of the persons he spoke to knew or had heard of Tony
Butler, and paid many handsome compliments to the deceased--"a
vide-avake vun and no mistake," "a feller as vould take your coat off
your back on to his own," &c.; but very few had known Lizzie Ponsford,
and those had not seen or heard of her for a considerable time.
So Mr. Griffiths began to keep clear of Mr. Effingham. There was
nothing to be got from his employer but abuse, and that was an article
of which Mr. Griffiths perhaps had a surfeit, especially after he had
picked up a few stray eighteenpences from the frequenters of the Pig
and Whistle, at the noble game of the "three, two, and vun." But one
night, finding himself in the neighbourhood of the Strand, and having
had rather a successful evening,--he had won fifteen shillings from a
sailor, at a public-house in Thames Street; a sailor who paid him
rigidly, and then cursed him for an adjective swab and kicked him into
the street,--Mr. Griffiths thought he would take a little refreshment
at Johnson's. On presenting the crown of his hat within the
swing-doors, that article was immediately recognized by Mr. Effingham,
seated moodily in the nearest box, and its owner hailed in the nearest
approach to a voice of thunder which that small gentleman could
accomplish.
"Come in; I see you!" called out the little man. "I've been wondering
what had become of you all this time. I thought you'd gone to stay
with some swell in the country for the hunting-season. I was goin' to
ask if they had got your address at the _Morning-Post_ office, that I
might write you a line and see if you could find it convenient to lend
me a trifle."
"You must be in luck to have such spirits, D'Ossay,--you must," said
Mr. Griffiths sententiously. "Out of collar and out at elbows--that's
what I've been out of. Look at my coat," pointing to his arms;
"shining like bees-wax. Look at my crabshells," pointing to his boots;
"as leaky as an old punt, reg'larly wore down to the sewin', and all
through elberin' and cadgin' my way into every crib where I thought
there was a chance of my comin' at what we wanted to know."
"And what good have you done with all that tremenduous exertion?"
"No good,--not a scrap. I suppose you've been at the same game? How
have you got on?"
"About the same as you have. Just as 'ealthy my lookout is."
"Well, I'll tell you what I intend to do. I've worked high and low,
here and there, like a blessed black slave, to find out where this gal
is, and I've had no luck no more than you have. And I intend to cut
it. I'm sick of all this dodgin' and divin', and askin' everybody
after somebody that nobody knows. I intend to cut it. That's what I
intend!"
"And let it go altogether, after all the trouble we've had;
after-- Not such a flat, Griffiths; don't you fear. Look here, my boy,"
said Mr. Butler, putting his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, and
producing therefrom two sovereigns; "do you see that couple of quid?
That, with a shilling and a fourpenny bit, is all that remains to your
friend D'Ossay of the current coin of this realm--the real business, I
mean, and no fakement. But these two simple skivs shall be turned into
fifty or a hundred before the end of the week. And to show you that I'm
not boasting, I'll stand a drink. Here, waiter!--brandy hot, two!"
Mr. Griffiths gazed in double admiration at his friend's generosity
and pluck; but low as he was, he really admired the latter, from which
he might possibly derive ultimate benefit, more than the former, from
which he was about to receive immediate advantage. After the first sip
of his grog he said--
"And how's it coming off?"
"I don't mind telling you," said D'Ossay. "There's nothing to
hide--why should there be? I'm going to try it on again with our
friend the Bart."
"Without the bill?"
"Of course, without the bill, considering that neither you nor I have
been able to get hold of it. But didn't I raise a fiftier out of him
without the bill before, and why shouldn't I do that, or double that,
now?"
"Ah, why indeed?" said Mr. Griffiths, who always coincided when he did
not know what else to do, and there was nothing to lose by so doing.
"You see, I thought he might down upon me with the extortion dodge,
and hand me over to a bobby. But there's no bobbies where he is now;
he couldn't ring the bell and send out that sleek-looking vally, and
have me in Vine Street in a brace of shakes. He's down in the country
ever so far away. I called at Eaton Place to-day, and they gave me his
address."
"And how do you mean to get at him? Not by writin'? Don't trust your
fist on paper."
"Teach your grandmother, Griffiths! How do I mean to get at him? Why,
by paying one of those yellow-boys to a booking-clerk at 6.30
to-morrow morning, and going down by the Great-Western parliamentary
to Torquay, which is close by the swell's place."
"And then?"
"Then I shall put up at some quiet crib, and go over the next morning
and take him on the bounce--just as I did before."
"And suppose he shows fight and won't part?"
"Then I must send up a line to you, and you must get up a friendly
lead, or something of that kind, and work me back to town."
"And you'll chance all that?"
"I'd chance a mile more than that for such stakes, where there's no
knockin' about or head-punchin' business, Griffiths. I've not got what
they call animal courage, which means I don't like being hurt. Some
people do, I suppose, and they have animal courage. Now, let's settle
where I'm to write to you, and all the rest of the business."
Mr. Effingham spoke thus cheerily, and seemed thoroughly determined on
his undertaking and confident of his success, as he sat, late at
night, in a warm brilliantly-lit tavern-parlour, with the odours of
tobacco and hot spirituous drinks fragrant to him floating pleasantly
about. He took quite another view of the subject when he turned out
between five and six the next morning into a bald blank street, swept
by torrents of rain, in which no one was visible but the policeman and
the few vagrants huddling round the early-breakfast stall at the
corner. Mr. Effingham wrapped himself up as best he might in his
fifteen-shilling pea-jacket, and under cover of a big gingham
umbrella, borrowed from his landlady, made the best fight he could
against the wind and the rain, which, however, had so far the best of
it that he was tolerably damp by the time he reached the Paddington
station.
He took his ticket, and seated himself on the shelf in one of those
wooden boxes which benevolent railway directors set aside for the
conveyance of parliamentarians. His companions were two navvies, who
had not slept off the effects of last night's drunkenness, and whose
language made Mr. Effingham--albeit not unused to listening to "tall
talk"--shrink with disgust; an old woman with steaming black garments,
and an umbrella which would not stand up in any corner and would not
lie under the seat, and got itself called most opprobrious names for
its persistence in leaning against the nearest navvy; and a young
woman with a swollen face tied up in a check cotton handkerchief. Mr.
Effingham made an effort to let the very small window on his side
down, but the young woman with the toothache had it up in an instant;
while the aperture on the other side was constantly stuffed with the
body of one or other of the drunken navvies, who fought for the
privilege of leaning half out of the carriage, and running the chance
of being knocked to pieces against arches and tunnel-walls. So the
navvies fought and swore, and the old woman sniffed and took little
snatches of sleep, waking with a prolonged snort and start; and the
young woman moaned and rubbed her face, until Mr. Effingham was nearly
mad. Circumstances were almost too much for him; he grew first
desponding, and then desperate. He wished he had never started on his
journey; he would get out at the next station at which the train
stopped (and as the parliamentary duly stopped at every station, he
would not have had to wait long); he would go back to London. No, he
would not do that; he had boasted about his intention to Griffiths,
and would lose all authority over that satellite if he did not show at
least the semblance of a fulfilment of his purpose. He would get out
at the next station, and wait at a public-house in the village until
the next day, and then go back and tell Griffiths he had seen Sir
Charles Mitford, and had found it impossible to get any money out of
him. And then, just as the whistle shrieked out and the engine reduced
its particularly slow pace to a slower still, preparatory to pulling
up, Mr. Effingham's hands strayed into his waistcoat-pocket, where he
found only a half-sovereign and a few shillings remaining--the extent
of his earthly possessions. That decided him; he would go on, come
what might! Such a state of impecuniosity nerved him to anything;
and--the absence of policemen in rural districts still pleasantly
remembered--he determined upon pursuing his original idea and of
continuing his journey.
The next day Sir Charles Mitford, who had been compelled to devote the
morning to dry details of business connected with his estate--details
to which he listened conscientiously, over which he shook his head
visibly, and which he did not in the least understand--had got rid of
the man of business from the library about noon, and was just thinking
he would go and see what Mrs. Hammond was doing, when Banks entered,
and closing the door after him in a secret and mysterious manner,
announced "That party, sir."
"What 'party,' Banks?"
"The party that called in Heaton Place, Sir Charles, and ast to see
you, and you wouldn't see at first, but did afterwards, Sir Charles."
"I don't know yet whom you mean, Banks."
"The naval party, Sir Charles; though lookin' more like after the
coats and humbrellas in the 'all. The naval party as served with you
on board some ship, Sir Charles."
"Oh," said Mitford hurriedly, "I recollect now; one of--one of my
sailors from my old yacht--yes, yes, of course. You can show him into
my own room, Banks. I'll go up there at once."
"'Sailor,'" said Mr. Banks to himself as he walked down the passage,
"'from my hold yacht,' did he say? Why, if what they say at the Club
is right, the honly naval concern which he knew of before comin' in
for the title was the Fleet Pris'n! This is a queer start about this
feller, this is. I wonder why he wants to see Mitford, and why Mitford
can't refuse hisself to him?--This way, young man." And he beckoned
haughtily to Mr. Effingham, and preceded him to his master's room.
Sir Charles had already arrived there, and was seated in his large
armchair when the visitor was shown in.
Ah, what a different visitor from the Mr. Effingham who called in
Eaton Place! Then full of vulgar confidence and brazen audacity; now,
flinching, slouching, cowardly. His dress bedraggled from the previous
day's wretched journey, his manner downcast from the preconceived
notion of failure in his mission, and the impossibility of enforcing
his previous demands. A very wretched specimen of humanity was Mr.
Effingham as he stood before Sir Charles Mitford, shifting his limp
hat from hand to hand, and waiting to be asked to sit down.
When Banks had retired and closed the door, Sir Charles looked up
quietly and steadily at his visitor, and said, "Well, Mr.--I forget
your name--you've broken your promise, as I expected, and come to try
and extort money from me again!"
"Extort, Sir Charles! that's not the word, sir; I--"
"That _is_ the word, sir! Sheer barefaced robbery and
extortion--that's what has brought you down here; deny it if you can!
Have you come to ask me for money, or have you not?"
"Well, Sir Charles, I--that is--"
"No shuffling, sir! no prevarication! Have you or not?"
"Well, suppose I have?"
"Suppose you have! And suppose that I, as a justice of the peace and
magistrate for the county, make out a warrant for your committal to
prison as a rogue and vagabond? We're a long way from London, and
justice's law is to be had down in these parts. Besides, how could you
appeal? to whom could you refer? I've made a point of having a few
inquiries made about you since you last did me the honour of a call,
and I find that if not a regular gaol-bird, you could at all events be
recognized by the police as a swindler and an utterer of base coin.
What do you think of that Mr.--Butler?"
What did he think of it? The realization of his worst fears, the
overthrow of his strongest hopes! He ought to have relied on the
presentiment which had told him that the man would take this course,
though not so promptly or so strongly. He thought he would try one
more bit of bounce, and he shook himself together and put as much
impudence as he could command into his look as he said,
"How do you know I've not got that forged bill in my pocket?"
"By your face, sir! I can see that as plainly as if it were written
there in big black letters! Ah, I knew I was right! Now, what have you
got to say to this, Mr. Butler?"
Mr. Effingham fairly collapsed. "Nothing, Sir Charles," he stammered.
"I've nothing to say-only have mercy, Sir Charles! I have not brought
the bill with me, but I know where it is, and could lay my hand on it
at any time, Sir Charles. And as to what you said about committing me
as a rogue and a vagabond, O Lord! don't do it, Sir Charles! pray
don't! I'm a poor miserable devil without a rap; but if you'll only
let me go, I'll find my way back to town, and never intrude on you
again, Sir Charles; I--"
All this time Mr. Effingham had been backing, and with his hand behind
him feeling for the handle of the door. Having secured it, he was
about to vanish, when Sir Charles called out to him "Stop!" and he
stopped at once.
"You say you're hard-up, Mr. Butler?"
"I'm positively stumped, Sir Charles."
"Then you'd be glad to earn a little money?"
"If I could do so--" Mr. Effingham was about to say "honestly," but he
thought this would be a little too glaring, so he finished his
sentence by substituting "without incurring any danger, I should be
delighted."
"There would not be the slightest danger--"
"By danger I mean, punching of heads and that kind of thing."
"Precisely; there would be nothing of that. The only person with whom
you would be brought into contact would be a woman."
Mr. Effingham's barometrical mercury rose as quickly as it fell. "A
woman!" he said, as he settled his limp collar and gave a pull at his
dirty wristbands,--"a woman, Sir Charles! Oh, then, I've no fear."
"Wait and hear what you're required to do, sir, before you give an
opinion. The person to whom I allude is at the present moment in this
house. She is therefore, although not invited by me, to a certain
extent my guest, and it would be impossible for me to appear in the
matter. You comprehend me?"
"Perfectly."
"Especially as she is to be got rid of at once and for ever. When I
say 'got rid of,' I don't mean it in the slang phrase of the penny
romances--I don't mean that the woman is to be killed; but simply that
she is to be told that she must remain here no longer, and the danger
of doing so must be strongly pointed out to her."
"Exactly, je twig! Now will you please to tell me the name of this
good lady, and what reason I'm to give for insisting on her leaving
such a very swell and pleasant crib as this appears to be?"
"She is called here Miss Gillespie," said Sir Charles; "but You will
have heard of her under a very different name--Lizzie Ponsford."
"What!" exclaimed Mr. Effingham, leaping from his chair; "Lizzie
Ponsford here! She whom I've been--"
"Well, sir?" asked Sir Charles in astonishment.
"Whom I've been hearing so much about!" said Mr. Effingham, recovering
himself. "Lizzie Ponsford here!" he continued, going off again.
"Well, that is a rum start!"
"Be good enough to attend to me, sir. She is here, and she is in my
way. Her presence worries me, bringing back all sorts of hideous
associations that I thought I had got rid of, and never want to have
revived. You must see her, talk to her, and get her to go at once;
once gone, I could so arrange matters as to leave little chance of her
returning."
"I see!" said Mr. Effingham. "Now the question is, how to work her out
of this. What would be the best way to frighten her and get her under
your thumb?"
"What is your notion on that point?"
"I scarcely know yet! It will want a little thinking over, but I've no
doubt I shall be able to hit upon something. Is she pretty comfortable
where she is--likely not to give it up without a struggle?"
"You may take your oath she will not move unless compelled--it is for
you to find the something that will compel her."
"Exactly. Well, I don't think that there will be much difficulty about
that--at least," said he, correcting himself, for he feared that
comparative facility might lessen the reward--"at least, not much
difficulty for a man whose head's screwed on the right way. Now about
the payment?"
Sir Charles opened a drawer in his desk, and from a little _rouleau_
of gold counted out ten sovereigns. The chink of the money sounded
deliciously in Mr. Effingham's hungry ears.
"I will give you these ten sovereigns now," said Sir Charles; "and if
you succeed in carrying out all I have told you, I will give you fifty
more."
"Will you? Well, I always say what I think, and I say that's liberal.
Now look here! Very likely I shan't see you again; perhaps I shall
have to step it with her, in order to be sure she's safe off, and not
dodging, or likely to walk back again. So when you find she's really
gone, just you send a cheque for the fifty, made payable to bearer,
mind, and not crossed, to this address;" and bending down over the
table he took a pen and scrap of paper and wrote: Mr. Effingham, Mr.
Johnson's, The Brown Bear, Shakespeare Street, Strand, London. "Will
you do that?"
"I will."
"Having said so as an honourable gent, I know you'll keep your word.
Now how am I to see her?"
"She walks out every day at three o'clock with her pupil--"
"Her pupil! Lizzie Ponsford's pupil! My eye!"
"With her pupil," repeated Sir Charles sternly, "in the chestnut
avenue leading from the lodge-gate. A tall woman with very large eyes,
and crisp wavy °hair over her forehead; a peculiar-looking woman--you
couldn't mistake her."
"All right! As I go out of the lodge-gate now, I'll just say a few
words to the old lady that keeps it, that she may know me again--don't
you see?--and not be surprised at my coming in and out. And now, as I
shall probably have to hang about here for two or three days, where
can I put up?"
"You mustn't remain here in the house--"
"Lor' bless you, that would never do! isn't there a public near?"
"There is the Mitford Arms, within a quarter of a mile of the lodge."
"I saw it; the carrier's-cart which brought me over from Torquay
stopped there. That'll do. I'll be a littery gent gettin' up
information about the old county families, or an artist
sketchin'--that'll do. Now give me a week clear: if nothing's done by
then, you'll have spent ten pound very badly, and I shall have lost my
time. But if within that time--and it might be to-morrow or any
day--you find she's clean gone, you've got the address, and you'll
send the cheque to it?"
"You may rely on me."
"I do thoroughly. Now how am I to get out? It wouldn't do for you to
be seen with me--my togs, though just the sort of thing for the
littery gent, ain't very swell."
"You can go down this staircase," said Sir Charles, leading him to a
landing; "it guides on to the garden, take the first to the right, and
you'll come at last to the avenue."
Mr. Effingham put his finger to the limp brim of his hat and departed.
But when he arrived in the chestnut avenue, and had looked carefully
round, and found that he was out of sight of any one in the house, and
that there was no one near enough to observe his conduct, he rubbed
his hands together, and almost cut a caper in the air with delight.
"To think of it!" he said. "There never, never was such luck! D'Ossay,
my boy, you've got the trick of it somehow. What will Griffiths say
now? To think that I've been hunting for this woman all this time, and
that she's now placed in my hands--and by this very swell too! Two
birds with one stone now. Oh, there's a much bigger game than the
Bart.'s cheque for fifty! But it'll take a deal of thinking over and
planning; and if there's any one to do that, it's you, D'Ossay, my
boy, and no one else!"