THE DUNGEON.
Return we now to Bill Bolter, the murderer, who had taken refuge in the
subterranean hiding-place of the Old House in Chick Lane.
Heavily and wearily did the hours drag along. The inmate of that
terrible dungeon was enabled to mark their lapse by the deep-mouthed
bell of St. Sepulchre's Church, on Snow Hill, the sound of which boomed
ominously at regular intervals upon his ear.
That same bell tolls the death-note of the convict on the morning of his
execution at the debtors' door of Newgate.
The murderer remembered this, and shuddered.
A faint--faint light glimmered through the little grating at the end of
the dungeon; and the man kept his eyes fixed upon it so long, that at
length his imagination began to conjure up phantoms to appal him. That
small square aperture became a frame in which hideous countenances
appeared; and then, one gradually changed into another--horrible
dissolving views that they were!
But chiefly he beheld before him the tall gaunt form of his murdered
wife--with one eye smashed and bleeding in her head:--the other glared
fearfully upon him.
This phantasmagoria became at length so fearful and so real in
appearance, that the murderer turned his back towards the little grating
through which the light struggled into the dungeon in two long, narrow,
and oblique columns.
But then he imagined that there were goblins behind him; and this idea
soon grew as insupportable as the first;--so he rose, and groped his way
up and down that narrow vault--a vault which might become his tomb!
This horrible thought never left his memory. Even while he reflected
upon other things,--amidst the perils which enveloped his career, and
the reminiscences of the dread deeds of which he had been
guilty,--amongst the reasons which he assembled together to convince
himself that the hideous countenances at the grating did not exist in
reality,--there was that one idea--unmixed--definite--standing boldly
out from all the rest in his imagination,--_that he might be left to die
of starvation!_
At one time the brain of this wretch was excited to such a pitch that he
actually caught his head in his two hands, and pressed it with all his
force--to endeavour to crush the horrible visions which haunted his
imagination.
Then he endeavoured to hum a tune; but his voice seemed to choke him. He
lighted a pipe, and sate and smoked; but as the thin blue vapour curled
upwards, in the faint light of the grating, it assumed shapes and forms
appalling to behold. Spectres, clad in long winding sheets--cold grisly
corpses, dressed in shrouds, seemed to move noiselessly through the
dungeon.
He laid aside the pipe; and, in a state of mind bordering almost upon
frenzy, tossed off the brandy that had remained in the flask.
But so full of horrible ideas was his mind at that moment, that it
appeared to him as if he had been drinking blood!
He rose from his seat once more, and groped up and down the dungeon,
careless of the almost stunning blows which he gave his head, and the
violent contusions which his limbs received, against the uneven walls.
Hark! suddenly voices fell upon his ears.
He listened with mingled fear and joy,--fear of being discovered, and
joy at the sound of human tones in the midst of that subterranean
solitude.
Those voices came from the lower window of the dwelling on the other
side of the ditch.
"How silent and quiet everything has been lately in the old home
opposite," said a female.
"Last night--or rather early this morning, I heard singing there,"
replied another voice, which was evidently that of a young woman.
Oh! never had the human tones sounded so sweet and musical upon the
murderer's ears before!
"It is very seldom that any one ever goes into that old house now," said
the first speaker.
"Strange rumours are abroad concerning it: I heard that there are
subterranean places in which men can conceal themselves, and no power on
earth could find them save those in the secret."
"How absurd! I was speaking to the policeman about that very thing a
few days ago; and he laughed at the idea. He says it is impossible; and
of course he knows best."
"I am not so sure of that. Who knows what fearful deeds have those old
walls concealed from human eye? For my part, I can very well believe
that there are secret cells and caverns. Who knows but that some poor
wretch is hiding there this very moment?"
"Perhaps the man that murdered his wife up in Union Court."
"Well--who knows? But at this rate we shall never get on with our work."
The noise of a window being shut down fell upon the murderer's ears: and
he heard no more.
But he had heard enough! Those girls had spoken of him:--they had
mentioned him as _the man who had murdered his wife_.
The assassination, then, was already known: the dread deed was bruited
abroad:--thousands and thousands of tongues had no doubt repeated the
tale here and there--conveying it hither and thither--far and wide!
And throughout the vast metropolis was he already spoken of as the _man
who had murdered his wife_!
And in a few hours more, would millions in all parts hear of _the man
who had murdered his wife_!
And already were the officers of justice actively in search of _the man
who had murdered his wife_!
Heavily--heavily passed the hours.
At length the dungeon became pitch dark; and then the murderer saw
sights more appalling than when the faint gleam stole through the
grating.
In due time the sonorous voice of Saint Sepulchre proclaimed the hour of
nine.
Scarcely had the last stroke of that iron tongue died upon the breeze,
when a noise at the head of the spiral staircase fell upon the
murderer's ears. The trap-door was raised, and the well-known voice of
Dick Flairer was heard.
"Well, Bill--alive or dead, eh--old fellow!" exclaimed the burglar.
"Alive--and that's all, Dick," answered Bill Bolter, ascending the
staircase.
"My God! how pale you are, Bill," said Dick, the moment the light of the
candle fell upon the countenance of the murderer as he emerged from the
trap-door.
"Pale, Dick!" ejaculated the wretch, a shudder passing over his entire
frame; "I do not believe I can stand a night in that infernal hole."
"You must, Bill--you must," said Flairer: "all is discovered up in Union
Court there, and the police are about in all directions."
"When was it found out? Tell me the particulars--speak!" said the
murderer, with frenzied impatience.
"Why, it appears that the neighbours heard a devil of a noise in your
room, but didn't think nothink about it, cos you and Polly used to spar
a bit now and then. But at last the boy--Harry, I mean--went down stairs
and said that his mother wouldn't move, and that his father had gone
away. So up the neighbours went--and then everything was blown. The
children was sent to the workus, and the coroner held his inquest this
afternoon at three. Harry was had up before him; and--"
"And what?" demanded Bolter, hastily.
"And, in course," added Dick, "the Coroner got out of the boy ull the
particklars: so the jury returned a verdict----"
"Of _Wilful Murder_, eh?" said Bill, sinking his voice almost to a
whisper.
"_Wilful Murder against William Bolter_," answered Dick, coolly.
"That little vagabond Harry!" cried the criminal--his entire countenance
distorted with rage; "I'll be the death on him!"
"There's no news at all about t'other affair up at Clapton, and no stir
made in it at all," said Dick, after a moment's pause: "so that there
business is all right. But here's a lot of grub and plenty of lush,
Bill: that'll cheer ye, if nothink else will."
"Dick!" exclaimed the murderer, "I cannot go back into that hole--I had
rather get nabbed at once. The few hours I have already been there have
nearly drove me mad; and I can't--I won't attempt the night in that
infernal cold damp vault. I feel as if I was in my coffin."
"Well, you know best," said Dick, coolly. "A hempen neckcloth at Tuck-up
fair, and a leap from a tree with only one leaf, is what you'll get if
you're perverse."
"My God--my God!" ejaculated Bolter, wringing his hands, and throwing
glances of extreme terror around the room: "what am I to do? what am I
to do?"
"Lie still down below for a few weeks, or go out and be scragged," said
Dick Flairer. "Come, Bill, be a man; and don't take on in this here way.
Besides, I'm in a hurry, and must be off. I've brought you enough grub
for three days, as I shan't come here too often till the business has
blowed over a little."
Bill Bolter took a long draught from a quart bottle of rum which his
friend had brought with him; and he then felt his spirits revive.
Horrible as the prospect of a long sojourn in the dungeon appeared, it
was still preferable to the fearful doom which must inevitably follow
his capture; and, accordingly, the criminal once more returned to his
hiding-place.
Dick Flairer promised to return on the third evening from that time; and
the trap-door again closed over the head of the murderer.
Bolter supped off a portion of the provisions which his friend had
brought him, and then lay down upon the hard stone bench to sleep. A
noisome stench entered the dungeon from the Ditch, and the rats ran over
the person of the inmate of that subterranean hole. Repose was
impossible; the miserable wretch therefore sate up, and began to smoke.
By accident he kicked his leg a little way beneath the stone bench: the
heel of his boot encountered something that yielded to the touch; and a
strange noise followed.
That noise was like the rattling of bones!
The pipe fell from the man's grasp; and he himself was stupefied with
sudden terror.
At length, exercising immense violence over his feelings, he determined
to ascertain whether the horrible suspicions which had entered his mind,
were well-founded or not.
He thrust his hand beneath the bench, and encountered the mouldering
bones of a human skeleton.
With indescribable feelings of agony and horror he threw himself upon
the bench--his hair on end, and his heart palpitating violently.
Heaven only can tell how he passed that long weary night--alone, in the
darkness of the dungeon, with his own thoughts, the skeleton of some
murdered victim, and the vermin that infected the subterranean hole.
[Illustration]
He slept not a wink throughout those live-long hours, the lapse of which
was proclaimed by the voice of Saint Sepulchre's solemn and deep toned
bell.
And none who heard the bell during that night experienced feelings of
such intense anguish and horror as the murderer in his lurking-hole. Not
even the neighbouring prison of Newgate, nor the hospital of Saint
Bartholomew, nor the death-bed of a parent, knew mental suffering so
terrible as that which wrung the heart of this guilty wretch.
The morning dawned; and the light returned to the dungeon.
The clock had just struck eight, and the murderer was endeavouring to
force a mouthful of food down his throat, when the voice of a man in the
street fell upon his ear. He drew close up to the grating, and clearly
heard the following announcement:--
"_Here is a full and perfect account of the horrible assassination
committed by the miscreant William Bolter, upon the person of his wife;
with a portrait of the murderer, and a representation of the room as it
appeared when the deed was first discovered by a neighbour. Only one
Penny! The fullest and most perfect account--only one Penny!_"
A pause ensued, and then the voice, bawling more lustily than before,
continued thus:--
"_A full and perfect account of the bloody and cruel murder in Upper
Union Court; showing how the assassin first dashed out one of his
victim's eyes, and then fractured her skull upon the floor. Only one
Penny, together with a true portrait of the murderer, for whose
apprehension a reward of One Hundred Pounds is offered! Only one
Penny!_"
"A reward of one hundred pounds!" cried another voice: "my eye! how I
should like to find him!"
"Wouldn't I precious soon give him up!" ejaculated a third.
"I wonder whereabouts he is," said a fourth. "No doubt that he has run
away--perhaps to America--perhaps to France."
"That shews how much you know about such things," said a fifth speaker.
"It is a very strange fact, that murderers always linger near the scene
of their crime; they are attracted towards it, seemingly, as the moth is
to the candle. Now, for my part, I shouldn't at all wonder if the
miscreant was within a hundred yards of us at the present moment."
"_Only one Penny! The fullest and most perfect account of the horrible
and bloody murder_----"
The itinerant vender of pamphlets passed on, followed by the crowd which
his vociferations had collected; and his voice soon ceased to break the
silence of the morning.
Bolter sank down upon the stone bench, a prey to maddening feelings and
fearful emotions.
A hundred pounds were offered for his capture! Such a sum might tempt
even Dick Flairer or Tom the Cracksman to betray him.
Instinctively he put his fingers to his neck, to feel if the rope were
there yet, and he shook his head violently to ascertain if he were
hanging on a gibbet, or could still control his motions.
The words "miscreant," "horrible and bloody murder," and "portrait of
the assassin," still rang in his ears--loud--sonorous--deep--and with a
prolonged echo like that of a bell!
Already were men speculating upon his whereabouts, and anxious for his
apprehension--some for the reward, others to gratify a morbid curiosity:
already were the newspapers, the cheap press, and the pamphleteers busy
with his name.
None now mentioned him save as _the miscreant William Bolter_.
Oh! if he could but escape to some foreign land,--if he could but avoid
the ignominious consequences of his crime in this,--he would dedicate
the remainder of his days to penitence,--he would toil from the dawn of
morning till sunset to obtain the bread of honesty,--he would use every
effort, exert every nerve to atone for the outrage he had committed upon
the laws of society!
But--no! it was too late. The blood-hounds of the law were already upon
his track.
An hour passed away; and during that interval the murderer sought to
compose himself by means of his pipe and the rum-bottle: but he could
not banish the horrible ideas which haunted him.
Suddenly a strange noise fell upon his ear.
The blood appeared to run cold to his very heart in a refluent tide; for
the steps of many feet, and the sounds of many voices, echoed through
the old house.
The truth instantly flashed to his mind: the police had entered the
premises.
With hair standing on end, eye-balls glaring, and forehead bathed in
perspiration, the murderer sate motionless upon the cold stone
bench--afraid even to breathe. Every moment he expected to hear the
trap-door at the head of the spiral staircase move: but several minutes
elapsed, and his fears in this respect were not accomplished.
At length he heard a sound as of a body falling heavily; and then a
voice almost close to him fell upon his ear.
The reader will remember that the vault in which he was concealed,
joined the cellar from whence Walter Sydney had escaped. The officers
had entered that cellar by means of the trap-door in the floor of the
room immediately above it. Bolter could overhear their entire
conversation.
"Well, this is a strange crib, this is," said one. "Show the bull's-eye
up in that farther corner: there may be a door in one of them dark
nooks."
"It will jist end as I said it would," exclaimed another: "the feller
wouldn't be sich a fool as to come to a place that's knowed to the Force
as one of bad repute."
"I didn't think, myself, there was much good in coming to search this
old crib: but the inspector said _yes_, and so we couldn't say _no_."
"Let's be off: the cold of this infernal den strikes to my very bones.
But I say--that there shelving board that we first lighted on in getting
down, isn't made to help people to come here alive."
"Turn the bull's-eye more on it."
"Now can you see?"
"Yes--plain enough. It leads to a hole that looks on the ditch. But the
plank is quite old and rotten; so I dare say it was put there for some
purpose or another a long time ago. Pr'aps the thieves used to convey
their swag through that there hole into a boat in the ditch, and----"
"No, no," interrupted the other policeman: "it wasn't swag that they
tumbled down the plank into the Fleet: it was stiff 'uns."
"Very likely. But there can't be any of that kind of work ever going on
now: so let's be off."
The murderer in the adjoining vault could hear the policemen climb up
the plank towards the trap-door; and in a few minutes profound silence
again reigned throughout the old house.
This time he had escaped detection; and yet the search was keen and
penetrating.
The apparent safety of his retreat restored him to something like good
spirits; and he began to calculate the chances which he imagined to
exist for and against the probability of his escape from the hands of
justice.
"There is but five men in the world as knows of this hiding-place," he
said to himself; "and them is myself, Dick Flairer, Crankey Jem, the
Resurrection Man, and Tom the Cracksman. As for me, I'm here--that's one
what won't blab. Dick Flairer isn't likely to sell a pal: Tom the
Cracksman I'd rely on even if he was on the rack. Crankey Jem is staunch
to the backbone; besides, he's in the Jug: so is the Resurrection Man.
They can't do much harm there. I think I'm tolerably safe; and as for
frightening myself about ghosts and goblins----"
He was suddenly interrupted by the rattling of the bones beneath the
stone-bench. He started; and a profuse perspiration instantly broke out
upon his forehead.
A huge rat had disturbed those relics of mortality; but this little
incident tended to hurl the murderer back again into all that appalling
gloominess of thought from which he had for a moment seemed to be
escaping.
Time wore on: and heavily and wearily still passed the hours. At length
darkness again came down upon the earth: the light of the little grating
disappeared; and the vault was once more enveloped in the deepest
obscurity.
The murderer ate a mouthful, and then endeavoured to compose himself to
sleep, for he was worn out mentally and bodily.
The clock of Saint Sepulchre's proclaimed the hour of seven, as he awoke
from a short and feverish slumber.
He thought he heard a voice calling him in in his dreams; and when he
started up he listened with affright.
"Bill--are you asleep?"
It was not, then, a dream: a human voice addressed him in reality.
"Bill--why don't you answer?" said the voice. "It's only me!"
Bolter suddenly felt relieved of an immense load; it was his friend Dick
who was calling him from the little trap-door. He instantly hurried up
the staircase, and was surprised to find that there was no light in the
room.
"My dear feller," said Dick, in a hurried tone, "I didn't mean to come
back so soon again, but me and Tom is a-going to do a little business
together down Southampton way--someot that he has been told of; and as
we may be away a few days, I thought I'd better come this evenin' with a
fresh supply. Here's plenty of grub, and rum, and bakker."
"Well, this is a treat--to hear a friendly voice again so soon," said
Bill;--"but why the devil don't you light the candle?"
"I'm a-going to do it now," returned Dick; and he struck a lucifer-match
as he spoke. "I thought I wouldn't show a light here sooner than was
necessary; and we must not keep it burning too long; cos there may be
chinks in them shutters, and I des say the blue-bottles is on the
scent."
"They come and searched the whole place this mornin'," said Bill: "but
they didn't smell me though."
"Then you're all safe now, my boy," cried Dick. "Here, look alive--take
this basket, and pitch it down the stairs: it's well tied up, and chock
full of cold meat and bread. Put them two bottles into your pocket:
there--that's right. Now--do you want anythink else?"
"Yes--a knife. I was forced to gnaw my food like a dog for want of one."
"Here you are," said Dick; and, taking a knife from the secret cupboard
between the windows, he handed it to his friend. "Now are you all
right?"
"Quite--that is, as right as a feller in my sitivation can be. You won't
forget to come----"
Bolter was standing within two or three steps from the top of the
staircase; and the greater part of his body was consequently above the
trap-door.
He stopped suddenly short in the midst of his injunction to his
companion, and staggered in such a way that he nearly lost his footing.
His eye had caught sight of a human countenance peering from behind the
half-open door of the room.
"Damnation!" exclaimed the murderer: "I'm sold at last!"--and, rushing
up the steps, he fell upon Dick Flairer with the fury of a tiger.
At the same moment four or five officers darted into the room:--but they
were too late to prevent another dreadful deed of blood.
Bolter had plunged the knife which he held in his hand, into the heart
of Dick Flairer, the burglar.
The blow was given with fatal effect: the unfortunate wretch uttered a
horrible cry, and fell at the feet of his assassin, stone dead.
"Villain! what have you done?" ejaculated the serjeant who headed the
little detachment of police.
"I've drawn the claret of the rascal that nosed upon me," returned
Bolter doggedly.
"You were never more mistaken in your life," said the serjeant.
"How--what do you mean? Wasn't it that scoundrel Dick that chirped
against me?"
"No--ten thousand times _No_!" cried the officer: "it was a prisoner in
Newgate who split upon this hiding place. Somehow or another he heard of
the reward offered to take you; and he told the governor the whole
secret of the vault. Without knowing whether we should find you here or
not, we came to search it."
"Then it was the Resurrection Man who betrayed me after all!" exclaimed
Bolter; and, dashing the palms of his two hands violently against his
temples, he added, in a tone of intense agony, "I have murdered my best
friend--monster, miscreant that I am!"
The policeman speedily fixed a pair of manacles about his wrists; and in
the course of a quarter of an hour he was safely secured in one of the
cells at the station-house in Smithfield.
On the following day he was committed to Newgate.