CAPTAIN PRODDER GOES BACK TO DONCASTER.
Mr. Samuel Prodder, returning to London after having played his
insignificant part in the tragedy at Mellish Park, found that city
singularly dull and gloomy. He put up at some dismal boarding-house,
situated amid a mazy labyrinth of brick and mortar between the Tower
and Wapping, and having relations with another boarding-house in
Liverpool. He took up his abode at this place, in which he was known
and respected. He drank rum-and-water, and played cribbage with other
seamen, made after the same pattern as himself. He even went to an
East-End theatre upon the Saturday night after the murder, and sat out
the representation of a nautical drama, which he would have been glad
to have believed in, had it not promulgated such wild theories in the
science of navigation, and exhibited such extraordinary experiments
in the manoeuvring of the man-of-war, upon which the action of the
play took place, as to cause the captain's hair to stand on end in
the intensity of his wonder. The things people did upon that ship
curdled Samuel Prodder's blood, as he sat in the lonely grandeur of
the eighteenpenny boxes. It was quite a common thing for them to walk
unhesitatingly through the bulwarks and disappear in what ought to have
been the sea. The extent of browbeating and humiliation borne by the
captain of that noble vessel; the amount of authority exercised by a
sailor with loose legs; the agonies of sea-sickness, represented by a
comic countryman, who had no particular business on board the gallant
bark; the proportion of hornpipe-dancing and nautical ballad-singing
gone through, as compared to the work that was done,--all combined
to impress poor Samuel with such a novel view of her Majesty's
naval service, that he was very glad when the captain who had been
browbeaten suddenly repented of all his sins,--not without a sharp
reminder from the prompter, who informed the _dramatis personæ,_ in a
confidential voice that it was _parst_ twelve, and they'd better cut it
short,--joined the hands of the contumacious sailor and a young lady
in white muslin, and begged them to be 'appy.
It was in vain that the captain sought distraction from the one idea
upon which he had perpetually brooded since the night of his visit to
Mellish Park. He would be wanted in Yorkshire to tell what he knew
of the dark history of that fatal night. He would be called upon to
declare at what hour he had entered the wood, whom he had met there,
what he had seen and heard there. They would extort from him that
which he would have died rather than tell. They would cross-examine,
and bewilder, and torment him, until he told them everything,--until
he repeated, syllable by syllable, the passionate words that had been
said,--until he told them how, within a quarter of an hour of the
firing of the pistol, he had been the witness of a desperate scene
between his niece and the murdered man,--a scene in which concentrated
hate, vengeful fury, illimitable disdain and detestation had been
expressed by her--by her alone:--the man had been calm and moderate
enough. It was she who had been angry; it was she who had given loud
utterance to her hate.
Now, by reason of one of those strange inconsistencies common to
weak human nature, the captain, though possessed night and day by a
blind terror of being suddenly pounced upon by the minions of the law,
and compelled to betray his niece's secret, could not rest in his
safe retreat amid the labyrinths of Wapping, but must needs pine to
return to the scene of the murder. He wanted to know the result of the
inquest. The Sunday papers gave a very meagre account, only hinting
darkly at suspected parties. He wanted to ascertain for himself what
had happened at the inquest, and whether his absence had given rise
to suspicion. He wanted to see his niece again,--to see her in the
daylight, undisturbed by passion. He wanted to see this beautiful
tigress in her calmer moods, if she ever had any calmer moods. Heaven
knows the simple merchant-captain was well-nigh distracted as he
thought of his sister Eliza's child, and the awful circumstances of his
first and only meeting with her.
Was she--that which he feared people might be led to think her, if they
heard the story of that scene in the wood? No, no, no!
She was his sister's child,--the child of that merry, impetuous little
girl, who had worn a pinafore and played hop-scotch. He remembered his
sister flying into a rage with one Tommy Barnes for unfair practices in
that very game, and upbraiding him almost as passionately as Aurora had
upbraided the dead man. But if Tommy Barnes had been found strangled
by a skipping-rope or shot dead from a pea-shooter in the next street
a quarter of an hour afterwards, would Eliza's brother have thought
that she must needs be guilty of the boy's murder? The captain had gone
so far as to reason thus, in his trouble of mind. His sister Eliza's
child would be likely to be passionate and impetuous; but his sister
Eliza's child would be a generous, warm-hearted creature, incapable of
any cruelty in either thought or deed. He remembered his sister Eliza
boxing his ears on the occasion of his gouging out the eyes of her
wax-doll; but he remembered the same dark-eyed child sobbing piteously
at the spectacle of a lamb that a heartless butcher was dragging to the
slaughter-house.
But the more seriously Captain Prodder revolved this question in his
mind, the more decidedly his inclination pointed to Doncaster; and
early upon that very morning on which the quiet marriage had taken
place in the obscure City church, he repaired to a magnificent
Israelitish temple of fashion in the Minories, and there ordered
a suit of such clothes as were most affected by elegant landsmen.
The Israelitish salesman recommended something light and lively in
the fancy-check line; and Mr. Prodder, submitting to that authority
as beyond all question, invested himself in a suit which he had
contemplated solemnly athwart a vast expanse of plate-glass, before
entering the temple of the Graces. It was "Our aristocratic tourist,"
at seventy-seven shillings and sixpence, and was made of a fleecy and
rather powdery-looking cloth; in which the hues of baked and unbaked
bricks predominated over a more delicate hearthstone tint,--which
latter the shopman declared to be a colour that West-End tailors had
vainly striven to emulate.
The captain, dressed in "Our aristocratic tourist," which suit was
of the ultra cut-away and peg-toppy order, and with his sleeves and
trousers inflated by any chance summer's breeze, had perhaps more of
the appearance of a tombola than is quite in accordance with a strictly
artistic view of the human figure. In his desire to make himself
utterly irrecognizable as the seafaring man who had carried the
tidings of the murder to Mellish Park, the captain had tortured himself
by substituting a tight circular collar and a wisp of purple ribbon
for the honest half-yard of snowy linen which it had been his habit
to wear turned over the loose collar of his blue coat. He suffered
acute agonies from this modern device, but he bore them bravely; and
he went straight from the tailor's to the Great Northern Railway
Station, where he took his ticket for Doncaster. He meant to visit that
town as an aristocratic tourist; he would keep himself aloof from the
neighbourhood of Mellish Park, but he would be sure to hear the result
of the inquest, and he would be able to ascertain for himself whether
any trouble had come upon his sister's child.
The sea-captain did not travel by that express which carried Mr. and
Mrs. Mellish to Doncaster, but by an earlier and a slower train, which
lumbered quietly along the road, conveying inferior persons, to whom
time was not measured by a golden standard, and who smoked, and slept,
and ate, and drank resignedly enough, through the eight or nine hours'
journey.
It was dusk when Samuel Prodder reached the quiet racing-town from
which he had fled away in the dead of the night so short a time before.
He left the station, and made his way to the market-place, and from the
market-place he struck into a narrow lane that led him to an obscure
street upon the outskirts of the town. He had a great terror of being
led by some unhappy accident into the neighbourhood of the Reindeer,
lest he should be recognized by some hanger-on of that hotel.
Half-way between the beginning of the straggling street and the point
at which it dwindled and shrank away into a country lane, the captain
found a little public-house called the Crooked Rabbit,--such an obscure
and out-of-the-way place of entertainment that poor Samuel thought
himself safe in seeking for rest and refreshment within its dingy
walls. There was a framed-and-glazed legend of "good beds" hanging
behind an opaque window-pane,--beds for which the landlord of the
Crooked Rabbit was in the habit of asking and receiving almost fabulous
prices during the great Leger week. But there seemed little enough
doing at the humble tavern just now, and Captain Prodder walked boldly
in, ordered a steak and a pint of ale, with a glass of rum-and-water,
hot, to follow, at the bar, and engaged one of the good beds for his
accommodation. The landlord, who was a fat man, lounged with his back
against the bar reading the sporting news in the 'Manchester Guardian;'
and it was the landlady who took Mr. Prodder's orders and showed him
the way into an awkwardly-shaped parlour, which was much below the
rest of the house, and into which the uninitiated visitor was apt to
precipitate himself head foremost, as into a well or pit. There were
several small mahogany tables in this room, all adorned with sticky
arabesques, formed by the wet impressions of the bottom rims of pewter
pots; there were so many spittoons that it was almost impossible to
walk from one end of the room to the other without taking unintentional
foot-baths of sawdust; there was an old bagatelle-table, the cloth
of which had changed from green to dingy yellow, and was frayed and
tattered like a poor man's coat; and there was a low window, the sill
of which was almost on a level with the pavement of the street.
The merchant-captain threw off his hat, loosened the slip of ribbon
and the torturing circular collar supplied him by the Israelitish
outfitter, and cast himself into a shining mahogany arm-chair close to
this window. The lower panes were shrouded by a crimson curtain, and
he lifted this very cautiously and peered for a few moments into the
street. It was lonely enough and quiet enough in the dusky summer's
evening. Here and there lights twinkled in a shop window, and upon one
threshold a man stood talking to his neighbour. With one thought always
paramount in his mind, it is scarcely strange that Samuel Prodder
should fancy these people must necessarily be talking of the murder.
The landlady brought the captain the steak he had ordered, and the
tired traveller seated himself at one of the tables and discussed his
simple meal. He had eaten nothing since seven o'clock that morning, and
he made very short work of the three-quarters of a pound of meat that
had been cooked for him. He finished his beer, drank his rum-and-water,
smoked a pipe, and then, as he had the room still to himself, he made
an impromptu couch of Windsor chairs arranged in a row, and, in his own
_parlance_, turned-in upon this rough hammock to take a brief stretch.
He might have set his mind at rest, perhaps, before this, had he
chosen. He could have questioned the landlady about the murder at
Mellish Park; she was likely to know as much as any one else he might
meet at the Crooked Rabbit. But he had refrained from doing this
because he did not wish to draw attention to himself in any way, as a
person in the smallest degree interested in the murder. How did he know
what inquiries had possibly been made for the missing witness? There
was perhaps some enormous reward offered for his apprehension, and a
word or a look might betray him to the greedy eyes of those upon the
watch to obtain it.
Remember that this broad-shouldered seafaring man was as ignorant as a
child of all things beyond the deck of his own vessel, and the watery
high-roads he had been wont to navigate. Life along shore was a solemn
mystery to him,--the law of the British dominions a complication of
inscrutable enigmas, only to be spoken of and thought of in a spirit
of reverence and wonder. If anybody had told him that he was likely to
be seized upon as an accessory before the fact, and hung out of hand
for his passive part in the Mellish Park catastrophe, he would have
believed them implicitly. How did he know how many Acts of Parliament
his conduct in leaving Doncaster without giving his evidence might
come under? It might be high treason, lese-majesty,--anything in the
world that is unpronounceable and awful,--for aught this simple sailor
knew to the contrary. But in all this it was not his own safety that
Captain Prodder thought of. That was of very little moment to this
light-hearted, easy-going sailor. He had perilled his life too often
on the high seas to set any exaggerated value upon it ashore. If they
chose to hang an innocent man, they must do their worst; it would be
their mistake, not his; and he had a simple seaman-like faith, rather
vague, perhaps, and not very reduceable to anything like thirty-nine
articles, which told him there were sweet little cherubs sitting up
aloft who would take good care that any such sublunary mistake should
be rectified in a certain supernal log-book, upon whose pages Samuel
Prodder hoped to find himself set down as an honest and active sailor,
always humbly obedient to the signals of his Commander.
It was for his niece's sake, then, that the sailor dreaded any
discovery of his whereabouts; and it was for her sake that he resolved
upon exercising the greatest degree of caution of which his simple
nature was capable.
"I won't ask a single question," he thought; "there's sure to be a pack
of lubbers dropping in here, by-and-by, and I shall hear 'em talking
about the business as likely as not. These country folks would have
nothing to talk about if they didn't overhaul the ship's books of their
betters."
The captain slept soundly for upwards of an hour, and was awakened at
the end of that time by the sound of voices in the room, and the fumes
of tobacco. The gas was flaring high in the low-roofed parlour when
he opened his eyes, and at first he could scarcely distinguish the
occupants of the room for the blinding glare of light.
"I won't get up," he thought; "I'll sham asleep for a bit, and see
whether they happen to talk about the business."
There were only three men in the room. One of them was the landlord,
whom Samuel Prodder had seen reading in the bar; and the other two were
shabby-looking men, with by no means too respectable a stamp either
upon their persons or their manners. One of them wore a velveteen
cut-away coat with big brass buttons, knee-breeches, blue stockings,
and highlows. The other was a pale-faced man, with mutton-chop
whiskers, and dressed in a shabby-genteel costume, that gave indication
of general vagabondage rather than of any particular occupation.
They were talking of horses when Captain Prodder awoke, and the sailor
lay for some time listening to a jargon that was utterly unintelligible
to him. The men talked of Lord Zetland's lot, of Lord Glasgow's lot,
and the Leger and the Cup, and made offers to bet with each other, and
quarrelled about the terms, and never came to an agreement, in a manner
that was utterly bewildering to poor Samuel; but he waited patiently,
still feigning to be asleep, and not in any way disturbed by the men,
who did not condescend to take any notice of him.
"They'll talk of the other business presently," he thought; "they're
safe to talk of it."
Mr. Prodder was right.
After discussing the conflicting merits of half the horses in the
racing calendar, the three men abandoned the fascinating subject; and
the landlord re-entering the room after having left it to fetch a fresh
supply of beer for his guests, asked if either of them had heard if
anything new had turned up about that business at Mellish Park.
"There's a letter in to-day's 'Guardian,'" he added, before receiving
any reply to his question, "and a pretty strong one. It tries to fix
the murder upon some one in the house, but it don't exactly name the
party. It wouldn't be safe to do that yet awhile, I suppose."
Upon the request of the two men, the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit
read the letter in the Manchester daily paper. It was a very clever
letter, and a spirited one, giving a synopsis of the proceedings at the
inquest, and commenting very severely upon the manner in which that
investigation had been conducted. Mr. Prodder quailed until the Windsor
chairs trembled beneath him as the landlord read one passage, in which
it was remarked that the stranger who carried the news of the murder to
the house of the victim's employer, the man who had heard the report
of the pistol, and had been chiefly instrumental in the finding of the
body, had not been forthcoming at the inquest.
"He had disappeared mysteriously and abruptly, and no efforts were
made to find him," wrote the correspondent of the 'Guardian.' "What
assurance can be given for the safety of any man's life when such a
crime as the Mellish Park murder is investigated in this loose and
indifferent manner? The catastrophe occurred within the boundary of
the Park fence. Let it be discovered whether any person in the Mellish
household had a motive for the destruction of James Conyers. The man
was a stranger to the neighbourhood. He was not likely, therefore, to
have made enemies outside the boundary of his employer's estate, but
he may have had some secret foe within that limit. Who was he? where
did he come from? what were his antecedents and associations? Let each
one of these questions be fully sifted, let a cordon be drawn round the
house, and every creature living in it be held under the surveillance
of the law until patient investigation has done its work, and such
evidence has been collected as must lead to the detection of the guilty
person."
To this effect was the letter which the landlord read in a loud and
didactic manner, that was very imposing, though not without a few
stumbles over some hard words, and a good deal of slapdash jumping at
others.
Samuel Prodder could make very little of the composition, except that
it was perfectly clear he had been missed at the inquest, and his
absence commented upon. The landlord and the shabby-genteel man talked
long and discursively upon the matter; the man in the velveteen coat,
who was evidently a thorough-bred cockney and only newly arrived in
Doncaster, required to be told the whole story before he was upon a
footing with the other two. He was very quiet, and generally spoke
between his teeth, rarely taking the unnecessary trouble of removing
his short clay-pipe from his mouth, except when it required refilling.
He listened to the story of the murder very intently, keeping one eye
upon the speaker and the other on his pipe, and nodding approvingly now
and then in the course of the narrative.
He took his pipe from his mouth when the story was finished, and filled
it from an india-rubber pouch, which had to be turned inside-out in
some mysterious manner before the tobacco could be extricated from it.
While he was packing the loose fragments of shag or bird's-eye neatly
into the bowl of the pipe with his stumpy little finger, he said, with
supreme carelessness--
"I know'd Jim Conyers."
"Did you now?" exclaimed the landlord, opening his eyes very wide.
"I know'd him," repeated the man, "as intimate as I know'd my own
mother; and when I read of the murder in the newspaper last Sunday,
you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Jim's got it at last,'
I said; for he was one of them coves that goes through the world
cock-a-doodling over other people to sich a extent, that when they _do_
drop in for it, there's not many particular sorry for 'em. He was one
of your selfish chaps, this here; and when a chap goes through this
life makin' it his leadin' principle to care about nobody, he mustn't
be surprised if it ends by nobody carin' for him. Yes, I know'd Jim
Conyers," added the man, slowly and thoughtfully, "and I know'd him
under rather pecooliar circumstances."
The landlord and the other man pricked up their ears at this point of
the conversation.
The trainer at Mellish Park had, as we know, risen to popularity from
the hour in which he had fallen upon the dewy turf in the wood, shot
through the heart.
"If there wasn't any particklar objections," the landlord of the
Crooked Rabbit said, presently, "I should oncommonly like to hear
anything you've got to tell about the poor chap. There's a deal of
interest took about the matter in Doncaster, and my customers have
scarcely talked of anything else since the inquest."
The man in the velveteen coat rubbed his chin and smoked his pipe
reflectively. He was evidently not a very communicative man; but it was
also evident that he was rather gratified by the distinction of his
position in the little public-house parlour.
This was no other than Mr. Matthew Harrison, the dog-fancier; Aurora's
pensioner, the man who had traded upon her secret, and made himself the
last link between her and the low-born husband she had abandoned.
Samuel Prodder lifted himself from the Windsor chairs at this juncture.
He was too much interested in the conversation to be able to simulate
sleep any longer. He got up, stretched his legs and arms, made
elaborate show of having just awakened from a profound and refreshing
slumber, and asked the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit to mix him
another glass of that pineapple-rum grog.
The captain lighted his pipe while his host departed upon this errand.
The seaman glanced rather inquisitively at Mr. Harrison; but he was
fain to wait until the conversation took its own course, and offered
him a safe opportunity of asking a few questions.
"The pecooliar circumstances under which I know'd James Conyers,"
pursued the dog-fancier, after having taken his own time and smoked out
half a pipeful of tobacco, to the acute aggravation of his auditory,
"was a woman,--and a stunner she was, too; one of your regular
spitfires, that'll knock you into the middle of next week if you so
much as asks her how she does in a manner she don't approve of. She
was a woman, she was, and a handsome one, too; but she was more than
a match for James, with all his brass. Why, I've seen her great black
eyes flash fire upon him," said Mr. Harrison, looking dreamily before
him, as if he could even at that moment see the flashing eyes of which
he spoke; "I've seen her look at him, as if she'd wither him up from
off the ground he trod upon, with that contempt she felt for him."
Samuel Prodder grew strangely uneasy as he listened to this man's
talk of flashing black eyes and angry looks directed at James Conyers.
Had he not seen his niece's shining orbs flame fire upon the dead man
only a quarter of an hour before he received his death-wound? Only so
long--Heaven help that wretched girl!--only so long before the man for
whom she had expressed unmitigated hate had fallen by the hand of an
unknown murderer.
"She must have been a tartar, this young woman of yours," the landlord
observed to Mr. Harrison.
"She was a tartar," answered the dog-fancier: "but she was the right
sort, too, for all that; and what's more, she was a kind friend to me.
There's never a quarter-day goes by that I don't have cause to say so."
He poured out a fresh glass of beer as he spoke, and tossed the liquor
down his capacious throat with the muttered sentiment, "Here's towards
her."
Another man had entered the room while Mr. Prodder had sat smoking his
pipe and drinking his rum-and-water, a hump-backed, white-faced man,
who sneaked into the public-house parlour as if he had no right to be
there, and seated himself noiselessly at one of the tables.
Samuel Prodder remembered this man. He had seen him through the window
in the lighted parlour of the north lodge when the body of James
Conyers had been carried into the cottage. It was not likely, however,
that the man had seen the captain.
"Why, if it isn't Steeve Hargraves from the Park!" exclaimed the
landlord, as he looked round and recognized the "Softy"; "he'll be able
to tell plenty, I dare say. We've been talking of the murder, Steeve,"
he added, in a conciliatory manner.
Mr. Hargraves rubbed his clumsy hands about his head, and looked
furtively, yet searchingly, at each member of the little assembly.
"Ay, sure," he said; "folks don't seem to me to talk about owght else.
It was bad enoogh oop at the Park; but it seems worse in Doncaster."
"Are you stayin' up town, Steeve?" asked the landlord, who seemed to be
upon pretty intimate terms with the late hanger-on of Mellish Park.
"Yes, I'm stayin' oop town for a bit; I've been out of place since the
business oop there; you know how I was turned out of the house that
had sheltered me ever since I was a boy, and you know who did it. Never
mind that; I'm out o' place now, but you may draw me a mug of ale; I've
money enough for that."
Samuel Prodder looked at the "Softy" with considerable interest. He
had played a small part in the great catastrophe, yet it was scarcely
likely that he should be able to throw any light upon the mystery. What
was he but a poor half-witted hanger-on of the murdered man, who had
lost all by his patron's untimely death?
The "Softy" drank his beer, and sat, silent, ungainly, and disagreeable
to look upon, amongst the other men.
"There's a reg'lar stir in the Manchester papers about this murder,
Steeve," the landlord said, by way of opening a conversation; "it don't
seem to me as if the business was goin' to be let drop over-quietly.
There'll be a second inquest, I reckon, or a examination, or a memorial
to the Secretary of State, or summat o' that sort, before long."
The "Softy's" face, expressionless almost always, expressed nothing
now but stolid indifference; the stupid indifference of a half-witted
ignoramus, to whose impenetrable intellect even the murder of his own
master was a far-away and obscure event, not powerful enough to awaken
any effort of attention.
"Yes; I'll lay there'll be a stir about it before long," the landlord
continued. "The papers put it down very strong that the murder must
have been done by some one in the house; by some one as had more
knowledge of the man, and more reason to be angry against him, than
strangers could have. Now you, Hargraves, were living at the place;
you must have seen and heard things that other people haven't had the
opportunity to hear. What do _you_ think about it?"
Mr. Hargraves scratched his head reflectively.
"The papers are cleverer nor me," he said at last; "it wouldn't do for
a poor fond chap like me to go agen such as them. I think what they
think. I think it was some one about the pleace did it; some one that
had good reason to be spiteful again him that's dead."
An imperceptible shudder passed over the "Softy's" frame as he alluded
to the murdered man. It was strange with what gusto the other three men
discussed the ghastly subject; returning to it persistently in spite
of every interruption, and in a manner licking their lips over its
gloomiest details. It was surely more strange that they should do this,
than that Stephen Hargraves should exhibit some reluctance to talk
freely upon the dismal topic.
"And who do you think had cause to be spiteful agen him, Steeve?" asked
the landlord. "Had him and Mr. Mellish fell out about the management of
the stable?"
"Him and _Mr._ Mellish had never had an angry word pass between 'em, as
I've heerd of," answered the "Softy."
He laid such a singular emphasis upon the word _Mr._ that the three men
looked at him wonderingly, and Captain Prodder took his pipe from his
mouth and grasped the back of a neighbouring chair as firmly as if he
had entertained serious thoughts of flinging that trifle of furniture
at the "Softy's" head.
"Who else could it have been, then, as had a spite against the man?"
asked some one.
Samuel Prodder scarcely knew who it was who spoke, for his attention
was concentrated upon Stephen Hargraves; and he never once removed his
gaze from the white face, and dull, blinking eyes.
"Who was it that went to meet him late at night in the north lodge?"
whispered the "Softy." "Who was it that couldn't find words that
was bad enough for him, or looks that was angry enough for him? Who
was it that wrote him a letter,--I've got it, and I mean to keep it
too,--askin' of him to be in the wood at such-and-such a time upon
the very night of the murder? Who was it that met him there in the
dark,--as others could tell as well as me? Who was it that did this?"
No one answered. The men looked at each other and at the "Softy" with
open mouths, but said nothing. Samuel Prodder grasped the topmost bar
of the wooden chair still more tightly, and his broad bosom rose and
fell beneath his tourist waistcoat like a raging sea; but he sat in the
shadow of the queerly-shaped room, and no one noticed him.
"Who was it that ran away from her own home and hid herself, after the
inquest?" whispered the "Softy." "Who was it that was afraid to stop in
her own house, but must run away to London without leaving word where
she was gone for anybody? Who was it that was seen upon the mornin'
before the murder, meddlin' with her husband's guns and pistols, and
was seen by more than me, as them that saw her will testify when the
time comes? Who was this?"
Again there was no answer. The raging sea laboured still more heavily
under Captain Prodder's waistcoat, and his grasp tightened, if it could
tighten, on the rail of the chair; but he uttered no word. There was
more to come, perhaps, yet; and he might want every chair in the room
as instruments with which to appease his vengeance.
"You was talkin', when I just came in, a while ago, of a young woman in
connection with Mr. James Conyers, sir," said the "Softy," turning to
Matthew Harrison; "a black-eyed woman, you said; might she have been
his wife?"
The dog-fancier started, and deliberated for a few moments before he
answered.
"Well, in a manner of speaking, she was his wife," he said at last,
rather reluctantly.
"She was a bit above him, loike--wasn't she?" asked the "Softy." "She
had more money than she knew what to do with--eh?"
The dog-fancier stared at the questioner.
"You know who she was, I suppose?" he said suspiciously.
"I think I do," whispered Stephen Hargraves. "She was the daughter of
Mr. Floyd, the rich banker oop in London; and she married our squire
while her first husband was alive; and she wrote a letter to him that's
dead, askin' of him to meet her upon the night of the murder."
Captain Prodder flung aside the chair. It was too poor a weapon with
which to wreak his wrath; and with one bound he sprang upon the
"Softy," seizing the astonished wretch by the throat, and overturning
a table, with a heap of crashing glasses and pewter pots, that rolled
away into the corners of the room.
"It's a lie!" roared the sailor; "you foul-mouthed hound! you know
that it's a lie! Give me something," cried Captain Prodder; "give me
something, somebody, and give it quick, that I may pound this man into
a mash as soft as a soaked ship's biscuit; for if I use my fists to him
I shall murder him, as sure as I stand here. It's my sister Eliza's
child you want to slander, is it? You'd better have kept your mouth
shut while you was in her own uncle's company. I meant to have kep'
quiet here," cried the captain, with a vague recollection that he had
betrayed himself and his purpose; "but was I to keep quiet and hear
lies told of my own niece? Take care," he added, shaking the "Softy,"
till Mr. Hargraves's teeth chattered in his head, "or I'll knock those
crooked teeth of yours down your ugly throat, to hinder you from
telling any more lies of my dead sister's only child."
"They weren't lies," gasped the "Softy," doggedly; "I said I've got the
letter, and I have got it. Let me go, and I'll show it to you."
The sailor released the dirty wisp of cotton neckerchief by which he
had held Stephen Hargraves; but he still retained a grasp upon his
coat-collar.
"Shall I show you the letter?" asked the "Softy."
"Yes."
Mr. Hargraves fumbled in his pockets for some minutes, and ultimately
produced a dirty scrap of crumpled paper.
It was the brief scrawl which Aurora had written to James Conyers,
telling him to meet her in the wood. The murdered man had thrown it
carelessly aside after reading it, and it had been picked up by Stephen
Hargraves.
He would not trust the precious document out of his own clumsy hands,
but held it before Captain Prodder for inspection.
The sailor stared at it, anxious, bewildered, fearful; he scarcely knew
how to estimate the importance of the wretched scrap of circumstantial
evidence. There were the words, certainly, written in a bold, scarcely
feminine, hand. But these words in themselves proved nothing until it
could be proved that his niece had written them.
"How do I know as my sister Eliza's child wrote that?" he asked.
"Ay, sure; but she did though," answered the "Softy." "But, coom, let
me go now, will you?" he added, with cringing civility; "I didn't know
you was her uncle. How was I to know owght about it? I don't want to
make any mischief agen Mrs. Mellish, though she's been no friend to me.
I didn't say anything at the inquest, did I? though I might have said
as much as I've said to-night, if it comes to that, and have told no
lies. But when folks bother _me_ about him that's dead, and ask this
and that and t'oother, and go on as if I had a right to know all about
it, I'm free to tell my thoughts, I suppose? surely I'm free to tell my
thoughts?"
"I'll go straight to Mr. Mellish, and tell him what you've said, you
scoundrel!" cried the captain.
"Ay, do," whispered Stephen Hargraves maliciously; "there's some of it
that'll be stale news to him, anyhow."