HUNTED DOWN.
The trial of George Heritage for breaking into his own father’s house
and, in conjunction with some person not in custody, carrying off
jewellery and other articles of value, made an enormous sensation, and
the accounts were eagerly perused by all classes of readers. They
penetrated even to the society honoured by the presence of Mr. Boss
Knivett, and that young gentleman took the liveliest interest in the
proceedings, communicating all the facts with the greatest gusto to Mr.
Josh Heckett who unfortunately was not able to read them for himself,
having in early life been denied the inestimable blessings of
education. Every romantic element that could heighten the interest of
the story was present, even to the mysterious disappearance of
witnesses.
Directly after the event the old lodge-keeper had disappeared, and it
was supposed he had gone to join his daughter, a young woman who was
reported to know a good deal about the accused.
It was suspected that Marks was keeping out of the way rather than give
evidence against his young master, and every effort to trace his
whereabouts was unsuccessful.
The old squire could not be called as a witness, for his brain was
still affected. He recognized no one, and would sit all day staring
into vacancy, and moaning, ‘My son! my son!’
Young Heritage had been found near the scene of the crime, hiding and
breathless, but none of the property had been found on him. That, of
course, the confederate might have got away with, for there were
evidently two persons concerned in the outrage.
The prisoner, who was described by the special reporters as a
prepossessing young man, told a fairly plausible tale about his having
returned to ask his father’s forgiveness, but his whole conduct in
running away and in hiding was opposed to such a solution. Why should
he run away?
In the absence of all evidence that could lead to a conviction, the
magistrates, after a few remands, decided that the prisoner must be
discharged, and he was set at liberty.
Hardly had he left the dock, however, when he was arrested and conveyed
to London, there to take his trial on a more serious charge. He had
been recognized and sworn to in court as one who, under the _alias_ of
George Smith, had been engaged in extensive frauds.
In due course poor George found himself undergoing a preliminary
examination in a London police court. The bolt had fallen; the warning
of his mysterious friend had been justified; and he was charged with
committing the forgeries which he had now no doubt had been the
principal business of his respected employers. Messrs. Smith and Co.
Mr. Jabez Duck’s shiny head no sooner appeared in the box than George
knew how tightly the meshes were being drawn around him.
During the interval preceding the trial Marks managed to obtain an
interview with him in London. It was short and bitter, for the old
lodge-keeper firmly believed that his young master had made him an
innocent accomplice in a deed of violence. George, however, was glad to
see him, for he made him understand how necessary it was that Bess
should in no way be mixed up with this new charge, and that he was to
keep her out of the way until the trial was over.
‘Whatever happens, Marks,’ he said gently, ‘don’t let me drag her down
with me. My only consolation now is that I know she is safe with you.’
‘Come what may, Master George,’ answered the old man, his voice husky
with emotion, ‘my gal shall never know a moment’s misery as I can
help.’
Then they parted almost coldly, for George somewhat resented his
father-in-law’s implied doubts as to his innocence of the outrage at
the hall. But George felt that he was acting lightly in extorting a
promise from Bess’s father to keep her out of the way, though he would
have given the world to clasp her to his arms and cheer her up.
‘I did not acknowledge her when I could hold my head high,’ he said to
himself; ‘she shall not acknowledge me now I am a suspected felon.’
Amid all his misery, broken in spirit and broken in heart, the old
pride struggled for mastery and won. He had an odd idea that he was
doing the correct thing by the lodge-keeper’s daughter he had married
in not allowing her to see him or to acknowledge the tie that bound
them now he was in such an unfortunate and degraded position.
At the trial Mr. Jabez Duck told, with many embellishments and at least
two poetical quotations, how this dreadful young man had been admitted
to the bosom of his family under the name of Smith. Then the detective
bobbed up in the box to produce the implements of forgery and the
records of crime found at Mr. Smith’s lodging. The clerks from the bank
swore to him as the person who had presented the forged cheque of Grigg
and Limpet’s. Then an expert in handwriting proved that the
endorsement, ‘Smith and Co.,’ tallied with certain writings admitted to
be George’s, found at his rooms and on his person. Link by link the
chain of evidence was completed. Defence there was practically none,
but a firm denial on the prisoner’s part, and a cock-and-bull story of
having been the victim of some vile plot, which had not even the merit
of originality. It was just the sort of story clever rascals do invent
as a last resource. Doubtless there were other people concerned in the
matter, but they were his confederates, not his employers.
George stood and listened as the evidence grew blacker and blacker, and
at last began to wonder if it could be true—if he had lived two lives
and didn’t know it.
When he saw that against such damning facts he could make no defence,
he gave himself up to his fate. Bess, thank God, was with her father.
The old man had saved money, and would provide for her. She, at least,
need not share his shame. His marriage with her was a secret, and there
was no one to prove she was the girl who had been known as Mrs. Smith
at the little house at Dalston.
All he could do in support of his plea of ‘Not guilty’ would be to tell
an explanatory story, which he knew his Bess, when she read it, would
believe, whatever her father and the world did.
He put the whole plot against him down to Smith and Co. He believed in
his own heart that he had been made a scapegoat purposely by them; that
they had known who he was all along, and had had a hand in the
burglary. It was a clever plot, and it had succeeded. He was ruined for
life, but he had not anything on his conscience. He was deeply grieved
at his father’s condition, and felt partly responsible for it, but of
the hideous guilt attributed to him in that respect he knew he was
innocent.
His stoical calmness deserted him as the time grew near for the
verdict. The trial had been a long one. The element of doubt in the
case had at one time been strong, but the police evidence had turned
everything against him.
He was found guilty by twelve intelligent fellow-countrymen, and a long
sentence of penal servitude was pronounced against him by the judge,
who went out of his way to point a moral on the evils of young men
being extravagant, getting into debt, and keeping bad company.
When George heard the sentence and was removed, it seemed as though a
high wall were suddenly built up about his life. The sense of injustice
faded before the sudden feeling of intense loneliness which fell upon
him like a chill. He hardly realized all it meant at first. He had only
that strange sense of desolation which comes upon anyone left alone in
a strange place as his friends and companions vanish from his view.
When the warder touched him on the arm to lead him below, and the eyes
of the thronged court were fixed upon his face, he made a sudden effort
to rouse himself from the lethargy into which he seemed to have fallen.
He stepped to the front of the dock, and exclaimed in a loud, clear
voice:
‘As God is my witness, I am an innocent man!’
The famous trial was over, and the verdict was published in special
editions. The public quite agreed with the judge’s moral.
Messrs. Marston and Brooks read it and chuckled. The link was broken.
The stories about Smith and Co. told by George were disbelieved, and,
as George Heritage had been proved to be the author of the series of
forgeries on the banks, there was an end to inquiry. The slate of Smith
and Co. was wiped clean by the arrest and condemnation of their clerk,
and they might begin again. Never was there such a stroke of luck as
the burglary business. Without it George’s story might have led to
serious inquiries. As it was it would be unwise to start in business
again on the same lines, thought Marston, and luckily there was no
necessity, for a far more brilliant scheme was on the _tapis_, the
success of which would enable Smith and Co. to dissolve, and trade with
their capital in a less dangerous manner.
Josh Heckett heard the result through young Mr. Knivett, and the worthy
pair drank George’s health in a bumper.
‘Reg’ler bad un he must be, Josh, for to break into his own father’s
‘ouse, mustn’t he?’ said Mr. Boss.
‘Orful,’ answered Josh. ‘But there, it’s what them preaching coves sez
about the sarpent and the ungrateful child. There’s my young un as is
gone away and left her poor old grandfather, the jade! and I dunno
where she is no more than the man in the moon.’
‘Is that why you’ve moved, and given up the animals, Josh?’
‘Yes, it is,’ answered Josh. ‘I couldn’t attend to that business
myself, and, the starf of my old age bein’ broke, I had to retire into
private life.’
‘Werry private, eh, Josh?’ said Mr. Boss, with a grin.
‘Wanted a breath o’ fresh air, didn’t ye, old man, and went into the
country for to git it, and got it?’
Josh Heckett laughed, and told his young friend to ‘cheese his patter
and sling his hook.’
Which Mr. Boss, translating as instructions to hold his tongue and go,
proceeded to obey with alacrity.
Heckett didn’t allow any nonsense from his juniors, and he considered
Boss much too flighty and flippant ever to make a sound man of
business.
After Boss was gone, Heckett, who now occupied two rooms in a little
house over the water, went out and walked down to his old place in
Little Queer Street.
He still kept it on, locking the rooms and going there occasionally to
look after it.
He had only taken enough of his furniture away to fill his rooms. There
were still several old boxes and bundles and odds and ends left. And
all these were piled in one room—the back one.
Pushing a box and a heap of rubbish away, Josh had brought a lantern
from the inner room and lit it, stooped down, and lifted the trap in
the flooring.
It was so well contrived, and the dust and dirt lay over it so thickly
and well, that no one would suspect its presence unless accident, as in
Gertie’s case, revealed it.
To lift the board Heckett had to insert the blade of his knife and
force it up.
When it was open he stooped over, carefully holding the light, and
lifted up something near the top.
It was only a small bundle of letters and some papers.
‘I wonder if they’re worth anything,’ he said to himself. ‘I wish I’d
learned to read. Eddication ain’t a bad thing, even in our profession.’
The papers which he drew from their hiding-place were those which
Squire Heritage had placed in his deed box the night of the robbery.
The rings and bracelets and the other valuables were not here. They had
long ago been unset and disposed of in a market which has always been
safe and still continues so. In fact, it is so safe that valuable
jewels are almost as readily sold nowadays as they are easily stolen,
and that is saying a great deal.
Josh Heckett looked over his store, lifting up now this and now that,
examining everything carefully and putting it back again.
Taking up odds and ends haphazard, he drew out a little bundle
carefully tied up, which had evidently not been disturbed for years.
The wrapper was yellow with age.
‘My poor girl’s things,’ he murmured. ‘Poor lass! it’s tea year since I
gathered’em together and put’em here to be safe, and I ain’t set eyes
on’em since.’
He opened the bundle and looked through it. He rubbed his great coarse
hands carefully on his jacket before he touched the contents, then
tenderly and reverently he lifted the dead girl’s treasures from the
bundle.
There was the little locket she always wore when he took her out on
Sundays; there was the bit of blue ribbon, the last that ever decked
her hair; there were her thimble and her scissors; there was the faded
old daguerreotype of Josh and his wife and Gertie when she was a baby.
He looked at the faint, blurred picture now, and he remembered the day
it had been taken, when he’d driven the missus down to some cockney
haunt, and the travelling photographer had persuaded him to have his
likeness taken. There was a queer watery look about the old reprobate’s
eyes as he gazed at the coarsely framed and faded picture, and he gave
a grunt that bore the nearest possible resemblance to a sigh which a
man of his build and nature could accomplish.
He put down the picture, rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes,
cleared his throat, and then drew out a big leather-bound book.
‘My poor gal’s Bible,’ he said. ‘She was mighty fond o’ readin’ it at
times.’
Josh eyed the outside of the Bible curiously.
‘They say it’s a hinvallyable book,’ he muttered; ‘but it don’t look up
to much. I should’a thought a hinvallyable book’ud a been bound in red
or green and had a lot o’ gold about it. This here’s worth about
fourpence, I should say. But she thought a lot on it, poor gal; and I
ain’t going never to part with it for her sake.’
Josh put the took back again without opening it. He couldn’t have read
what was in it if he had. And yet there Was that in his dead daughter’s
Bible which, had he known it, Would have made his greedy eyes glisten
and his evil heart beat quicker.