The ruined aspect of the house and the long-neglected condition of the yard, or small garden as it once was, behind the building, constituted a scene of desolation, and conveyed an impression of utter loneliness to the mind of the young lady that made her shrink back for a moment as she placed her hand on the rusty latch of the crazy door leading into the lower premises. And seemed she not the sprite of some maiden who had been foully dealt with in that gloomy, tomb-like place, and whose unquiet ghost came to haunt the scene where her blood had been ruthlessly spilt and her mortal remains lay concealed in unconsecrated ground? Yes—such she indeed appeared, with her ashy pale face—her white dress, rendered whiter still by the moonbeams that played upon it—and her long dark hair which, having become loosened in the act of scaling the wall, now flowed all wildly and dishevelled over her shoulders!
We said that she hesitated for a moment to push her way into the dark and ruined building, wrapped as it was in sepulchral silence: but the dominant influence which had hitherto impelled her, asserted its empire once again; and, thrusting open the door, which was by no means a difficult matter—she entered the dilapidated house.
A chill struck to her heart and a vague terror seized upon her, as she now plunged, as it were, out of the pure moonlight into the utter darkness of those premises: but, subduing her fears, she advanced a few paces, with her arms extended so as to grope for the stairs.
Her right hand encountered the bannisters, which were loose and crazy, and raised a rattling noise as she grasped them: no longer alarmed, however, but feeling that the means of escape were gained, she was about to ascend the steps, when a door suddenly opened immediately in front of her—a light appeared—and the rays of the candle thus abruptly thrust forth revealed a countenance so hideous—so monster-like, that for a few moments Agnes stood transfixed in speechless horror—stupified—paralysed—motionless as a marble statue.
And glaring with horror also, were the eyeballs whose rivetted looks met her own: then a loud, hoarse, and affrighted voice exclaimed, “The ghost! the ghost!”—and the light, dropping suddenly on the ground, was immediately extinguished.
A piercing shriek burst from the lips of Agnes; and she fell senseless at the foot of the stairs.
We must now carry our narrative backward for a few hours, in order to explain the incident which has just been described.
At the corner of Stamford Street and the Blackfriars Road, there are three houses in a most dismantled and dilapidated condition. They seem to have been ravaged by fire; but time and neglect have in reality produced that deplorable appearance. The walls are blackened with accumulated dirt; and the state of the windows bears unequivocal evidence to the fact that every pane has been broken, individually and separately, by stones flung from the streets by vagabond boys or other mischievous persons. The fragments of glass that remain, seem as if the material never could have been transparent, but had even in its manufacture been stained with an inky dye; and the shutters wherewith the casements are closed inside, are equally blackened, as if by a smoke as dense as that which proceeds from the funnel of a steam-packet or the chimney of a factory.
For the last twenty years have these three houses been thus left to fall into ruin: for the fifth part of a century has the work of dilapidation and decay been going on! That they were once habited is evident from the fact that the blinds, pulled up round their rollers, still remain—but so begrimed with black dust and dirt that it is scarcely possible to believe they were ever white. The cords used to pull them down, with the tassels at the end, are likewise still there, and totally discoloured also. Very mournful is the aspect of those ruined tenements, with these indications that they once were comfortable dwellings,—that cheerful fires once burnt in the grates—that lights streamed from the casements in years gone by—and that the walls echoed to the gay pealing laughter of merry children!
Desolate—desolate, indeed, are the three houses,—a disfigurement to the entire vicinity, and having an appearance well calculated to throw a damp upon the spirits even of the most strong-minded of the neighbours.
There is something picturesque in the aspect which ruins in the open country—perhaps on the summit of a hill—assume from gradual decay; because there the ivy grows upon the walls, and the naked hideousness of dilapidation is concealed by the invasion of a wilderness of shrubs and sweets. But when the golden rays of a summer sun pour upon the blackened walls and shattered casements of houses in the midst of a populous city,—houses which have dwelling-places adjoining them and all around,—the effect is sombre, sad, and sinister in the extreme.
Such is the impression produced by those three houses in Stamford-street. Not that the street itself is otherwise cheerful in aspect: on the contrary, the entire thoroughfare stretching between the Blackfriars and Waterloo Roads, is gloomy and inhospitable in aspect. The exterior of the houses has a dinginess of wall and a darkness of window that are unrelieved by the aristocratic grandeur and the richness of curtains inside, which characterise the rows of smoke-dyed dwellings in more fashionable quarters.
The inhabitants of Stamford Street are amazingly prone to the letting of lodgings, when they can find any persons willing to take them. But that such pliant and easily-persuaded tenants are rare in that quarter, is proved to demonstration by the numbers of cards and bills in the windows announcing furnished apartments to let.
It is a curious study, and one that affords matter for speculation, to examine the cards and bills thus displayed. Some are written in a neat feminine hand, so small that the passer-by must protrude his head far over the railings to enable his vision to decipher the delicate announcements: others are penned in a bold, coarse hand—and, in them, the chances are ten to one that the word let is spelt with a double t;—while others, again, are printed in the types which the experienced eye has no difficulty in tracing to Peel’s famed establishment in the New Cut.
More than half of Stamford Street constantly appears to let; and, from all accounts, landlords experience no trifling difficulty in collecting the rents from the occupants of their houses. If you pass along Stamford Street just before quarter-day, and at a very early hour in the morning, or at a late hour in the night, you will be sure to perceive several vans loading with furniture; for the habit of “moon-shining it,” or flitting surreptitiously, is unfortunately of frequent occurrence in that district.
But these are not the only indications that the affairs of the inhabitants and lodgers in Stamford Street are far from being in the most blooming condition: the fact may also be gathered from the careworn countenance of the tax-gatherer as he leaves a fresh notice at every door, and from the common occurrence of the water being cut off. Nor less does the Poor Rates’ collector feel his task to be a most unpleasant one; while the tradesmen in the Blackfriars Road wonder, as they look over their ledgers, what the deuce Stamford Street is coming to. Visitors are frequently answered from the area—an unmistakeable precaution against the intrusion of sheriff’s officers; and even when the butcher delivers in his meat or the baker his bread at the front door, the chain is in many instances kept up.
Such is the prevalent state of affairs in the long thoroughfare which we have thus briefly described: but it is with the dilapidated houses—or rather with one of them—that we have now to occupy ourselves.
As soon as it was dusk, two men emerged from the miserable rookery constituted by the district of Broad Wall; and, entering Stamford Street, they proceeded stealthily along until they reached the ruined house which was next to the dwelling of the Misses Theobald. One of the men—a tall, stout, ruffian-like fellow, whom we shall presently describe more particularly—took a key from his pocket and opened the door of the dilapidated tenement, into which he hastily entered, his companion closely following him. We should however observe that this ingress was effected at a moment when no other persons were near; and that the door was opened and shut in a noiseless manner, so that no sound might reach the ears of the occupants of the adjacent dwelling.
“Now give us your hand, old feller,” said the ruffian-like individual, when they were safe inside the passage: “because the stairs is summut broke away, and the bannisters isn’t to be trusted. Lord! how you tremble! Why—what the hell are you afeard on?”
“Nothing—nothing, my good friend,” was the answer, delivered in a nervous tone: “only—it’s—it’s—so—very—very—dark.”
“Dark!” cried the ruffian, with a hoarse laugh: “why, it wery often is dark in a house at night-time, and where there’s no candle alight. But p’raps you’re afeard of ghosteses,” he continued, as he dragged rather than led the nervous old man down the crazy, rotting stairs towards the lower region of the place: “and if so, you’re in the right quarters to see a speret—for they do say the young gal which was murdered here, walks in her shroud;—but, for my part, I never see her—and I han’t got no fear of that sort.”
By the time these words were uttered, in a tone of coarse jocularity, the ruffian had conducted his companion to the bottom of the stairs; and, halting at that point, he struck a lucifer-match against the wall, and lighted a piece of candle which he took from his pocket.
He then led the way into the front kitchen of the house, bidding the old man close the door behind him.
The place was black all over with accumulated dust and dirt: the ceiling appeared as if it had been originally painted a sable hue; and the floor, broken in several parts, conveyed the same impression. The shelves above the dresser were in a most dilapidated condition; and the dense cob-webs clung to them, as well as to the corners of the ceiling, like masses of rotten rags. The shutters were closed; and over their entire surface were pasted sheets of thick brown paper—evidently to prevent the light of candles from peeping through their chinks and being noticed in the street. There was an old ricketty table in the middle of the kitchen: there were likewise two chairs, which, being made of a tough wood, had withstood the ravages of time; and an empty beer-barrel was placed upright near the table, as if it occasionally served as a third seat.
The ruffian stuck the candle in the neck of a bottle; and, opening one of the dresser-drawers, he drew forth a bottle and a couple of small tumblers:—then, placing himself on the barrel, he proceeded in a leisurely manner to light his pipe, while the old man—his companion—sank, nervous and trembling, into one of the Windsor-chairs.
The reader has no doubt already guessed that these two individuals were Vitriol Bob and Torrens;—and, if so, the surmise is correct.
The latter person needs no description; but the former character must be more elaborately dealt with on the present occasion. He was indeed, as Jack Rily had represented him, one of the greatest miscreants that ever disgraced humanity,—not only in reality, but also in personal appearance. Of tall stature, athletic frame, and muscular build, he possessed vast physical strength. He was about thirty-six years of age: his countenance was naturally ugly even to repulsiveness—but huge black whiskers meeting under his chin, rendered it positively ferocious;—and the small, dark, reptile-like eyes glared from beneath thick, overhanging brows. His lips were remarkably coarse and of a livid hue; and his nose, broken in the middle, had a deep indentation, giving an appearance of death’s-head flatness to the broad countenance. His apparel consisted of a seedy suit of black—a hat with very wide brims bent even to slouching—and a pair of heavy Wellington boots; and in his hand he carried a thick stick with a huge nob at one end and a massive ferrule at the other. This was his “life-preserver;” but he seldom had occasion to use it—for his proceedings were usually of the savage and diabolical nature described by the Doctor, and whence he derived the appellation of Vitriol Bob.
This terrible individual was well known to the police: but those functionaries trembled at the idea of molesting him. They would have experienced no such dread had his defensive weapons been confined to life-preservers or pistols: but there was something so horrible in the thought of having a bottle of burning, blinding fluid broken over the countenance, that the officers shuddered at the bare idea of tackling Vitriol Bob. Thus, whenever information was given of some nefarious deed which he had attempted or perpetrated, the police took very good care to search for him where they knew he was not to be found; and if they even met him in one of the bye-streets or obscure alleys on the Surrey side of the metropolis—the quarter which he chiefly honoured with his presence—they were suddenly seized with an inclination to look stedfastly into a picture-shop, or gaze up abstractedly at the sky, until he had passed.
Vitriol Bob knew that he was an object of terror to the functionaries of justice in general: but he was also well aware that there were exceptions to the rule, and that amongst so large a body as the police-force, some few individuals would pounce upon him at all risks. In fact, the impunity he enjoyed was not so completely assured as to render precaution unnecessary; and there was moreover such a thing as being taken by surprise. For these reasons he accordingly made use of one of the “haunted houses,”—for so they were denominated,—as a place of concealment whenever he had committed a deed calculated to lead to the institution of unpleasant enquiries.
Such was the individual whom we now find in company with Torrens; and the circumstance that threw them together in the first instance, will presently transpire through the medium of the conversation that took place as soon as they were seated in the kitchen of the haunted house.
“Well, here we are safe at last, old feller,” cried Vitriol Bob, puffing deliberately at his pipe, as if he savoured deliciously the soothing influences of the tobacco. “By goles! it is one of the best larks I ever was engaged in. Such a lot of tin, and so easily got!”
“Two thousand seven hundred a piece—eh?” said Torrens, eyeing his companion with nervous suspense, as if he were eager to assure himself that a fair and equitable division of the booty would take place.
“Hah!” observed the ruffian, in a complacent manner, as he filled the two tumblers with brandy from the black bottle: “drink!”—and he emptied one of the glasses at a draught, just as if it were a mere thimble-full of the fiery liquid. “It was a good job, old feller,” he continued, after a short pause, “that you fell in with such a prime chap as I am—or rayther, it was fortnit that I lodged in the same house, and as I came in heard you moaning and groaning away in your cellar. It was also lucky that you let me worm out of you all that had happened—although you was precious chary of making a confidant of me. You remember that I couldn’t believe you at fust—I looked on you as a perfect madman. Thinks I to myself, ‘There’s a precious lu-nattic just ’scaped out of Bedlam:’ for how was I to fancy that you’d raly been robbed of such an amount, living in a cellar as you was!”
“But you believed me at last—you saw that it was all true and correct,” exclaimed Torrens, perceiving that it suited the man’s humour to talk on the subject.
“Well, I did,” returned Vitriol Bob: “and now,” he added, tapping his breeches pockets significantly, “I have got plenty of proof that you didn’t tell no lies. But, Lord bless ye! you could have done nothink without me: you would have sat down quietly under your loss. But I told you that I’d find the old voman out, if so be she was in London at all; and so I did. The description you gave me of her was not to be mistaken—’specially by a genelman of eggs-sperience like myself. I went about all over London, looking for her; and then, behold ye! arter all she’s living within a stone’s throw of us, as one may say. By goles! I never shall forget how my heart jumped in my buzzim when I clapped eyes on her yesterday, as she came out of the coffee-house: but you don’t know how I found out that she actiwaliy lived there?”
“No—I do not,” said Torrens, observing that his companion bent upon him a look of mysterious importance, as much as to invite a query that should furnish him with the opportunity of giving an explanation relative to the point alluded to. “How did it happen, then?”
“Why, when I see the old voman come out of the coffee-house, I went straight away to my blewen—that’s Pig-faced Polly, as she’s called—and I tells her to go to the place, take tea and toast, and wait till she found out whether the old voman lived there, or not. But I orders Polly not to make inquiries, for fear of eggs-citing suspicion. Well, my gal did as I told her—and waited, and waited a good long time; and when she’d had three teas and four or five buttered toastesses, she see the old voman come in, and she hears the landlady come out and say, ‘Here’s your key, Mrs. Mortimer.’ Then up goes Mrs. Mortimer—for such her name seems to be—to her room; and Pig-faced Poll returns to me with the hintelligence. I knowed that my game was now safe enough; and it was me which dewised the plan of our going as officers with a search-warrant, when we’d watched the old voman leave the coffee-house this morning.”
“Yes—yes: I know that you did it all,” said Torrens, terribly alarmed lest he who experienced the lion’s share of the trouble, should now claim the lion’s share of the booty. “But how long shall we be obliged to remain here? I am in a hurry to get away—with my share—my fair share of my own money——”
“Your own money, indeed!” ejaculated Vitriol Bob, with a chuckling laugh. “Was it your’n when Mother Mortimer had it safe in her own box? And I should just like to know how you fust come by it? Not honestly, I’ll swear, old feller. Such a seedy-looking cove, living in such a way as you was, couldn’t have got near upon six thousand pound by wot’s called legitimate means. But that’s neether here nor there: I don’t care two figs how you got the tin—and if I ask no questions, I shan’t have no lies told me. Von thing is wery certain—that I’ve got it now.”
“But—but—you surely—my dear friend—you—” stammered Torrens, absolutely aghast at the idea, of still remaining a beggar.
“Come, let’s have no more of this drivelling nonsense,” interrupted Vitriol Bob, in a tone of unmitigated contempt: then, as he refilled and relighted his pipe, be observed, “Why, you have been in a fidget and a stew all day, ever since we secured the swag at the coffee-house. Don’t you see, my dear feller, that people in our sitiwations must act with somethink like common prudence? The old voman may rouse hell’s delight about her loss; and that was why I thought we’d better keep ourselves scarce for a time. So I made you stay close with me at the flash lodging-ken in the Mint all the arternoon till it was dusk; and then I brought you here. And here,” added Vitriol Bob, “we are safe enow: ’cos only Pig-faced Poll, Jack Rily, and one or two others of my pals knows anythink about this place being my haunt when I’m afeard of getting into trouble;—and there’s no danger of them splitting on us. So far from that, the Pig-faced will be sure to come here presently, when she finds I don’t wisit her own quarters this evening; and she’ll bring a basket of prog along with her—so that we shall have a jolly good supper in due time. Drink, old feller!”
Thus speaking, the ruffian refilled his own tumbler, and pushed the brandy bottle across the dirty table to Torrens, who did not, however, touch it—for his glass was only half emptied; and he experienced such lively sensations of alarm, that he felt as if his brain were reeling and his intellects were leaving him.
There he was—a feeble, helpless, weak old man, entirely in the power of an individual whom he knew to be of the most desperate character, but with whom he had joined in companionship only through the hope of recovering at least one-half of that treasure to gain which, in the first instance, he had imbrued his hands in blood. There he was—alone with that miscreant, in a place the aspect of which was sufficient to fill his attenuated soul with the gloomiest thoughts and the most melancholy forebodings,—alone with a demon in human shape, in a ruined and desolate tenement, to augment the cheerless influence of which superstition had lent its aid,—alone with a very fiend, in a haunt the ominous features of which were dimly shadowed forth and rendered more hideous by the dull, glimmering light of the solitary candle with its long wick and its sickly flame.
“Well—what are you thinking of?—and why don’t you drink?” were the words which, suddenly falling on the old man’s ears after a pause, awoke him as it were from a lethargy—a lethargy, however, in which the mind had been painfully active, though the body was motionless—petrified!
“I—I—was wondering how long we should have to remain here,” stammered Torrens, starting as if shaken by a strong spasm or moved by an electric shock.
“I asked you the question just now—and—and you did not give me a reply.”
“Well—it all depends, my fine feller,” answered Vitriol Bob. “Three or four days, perhaps——”
“Three or four days!” almost shrieked Torrens. “I shall die if I linger so long in this horrible place!”
“Die, indeed!” ejaculated the ruffian, in a contemptuous tone. “Why, Lord bless you—I’ve stayed here for three veeks at a time, afore now—without ever budging out. Not be able to linger, as you call it, in this comfortable crib—smoke and drink all day long—or drink only, if you don’t like smoking—and sleep in one of them Windsor-cheers as cozie as a bug in a rug! Besides, won’t you have me for a companion——”
“No—no: I can not—will not endure it!” exclaimed Torrens, starting up from his chair,—his countenance hideous with its workings—his nerves strung to the most painful state of tension—and a thousand frightful thoughts rushing in, with the speed and fury of a torrent, upon his appalled soul.
“Hold your cursed jaw, you fool!” growled Vitriol Bob, in a tone of sudden rage: “you will be heard in the street—and——”
“I care not!” screamed Torrens, louder than before. “Give me my share of the money—let me depart——”
“Be quiet, I say!” spoke the ruffian, in a still more irritated voice, while he sprang from his seat on the barrel; “or I shall do you a mischief.”
“I care not!” again cried Torrens—and again his tone grew still more piercing and shriekingly hysterical; for he was wrought up to a state of utter despair. “Give me my money, I say—give me——”
“Fool—be still!” exclaimed Vitriol Bob, rushing round the table, and grasping the old man by the throat.
But Torrens, inspired with a sudden strength that astonished the ruffian, broke away from his gripe, and rushed towards the door, crying “Murder—murder!”
“Damnation!” thundered Bob; and bounding after him, he sprang upon the old man with the fury and the force of a tiger.
“Murder!” again yelled the affrighted, desperate Torrens: but in another instant he was dashed violently against the wall.
A moan succeeded his agonising cry—and he fell heavily upon the floor. Vitriol Bob then jumped upon him—and the attenuated form of the wretched old man writhed beneath the heavy feet of the murderous ruffian.
There was a faint and stifling appeal for “Mercy! mercy!”—but the miscreant silenced it with a ferocious stamp of his heel on the mouth of the dying man;—and in a few moments all was over!
Vitriol Bob was now alone, in the gloomy, cheerless place, with the crushed and disfigured corpse of him whom he had literally trampled to death.
But scarcely was the deed accomplished, when a noise, as of gravel thrown from the street against the kitchen window, fell upon the ears of the murderer, whose countenance instantly expanded into an expression of grim delight at the well-known signal.
“Here’s Pig-faced Poll!” he exclaimed hastily: and then he paused to listen again.
At the expiration of about a minute the signal was repeated; and Vitriol Bob, no longer harbouring the slightest doubt, hurried up the stairs to open the street-door.
At five-and-twenty minutes past ten, on this eventful night, Mrs. Mortimer entered the narrow lane leading from the Blackfriars Road into Collingwood Street.
We have already stated that she had persuaded herself into a belief of Jack Rily’s fidelity towards his partner or pal in any enterprise: nevertheless, she could not help wishing that the business in hand was over—and she mentally exclaimed more than once, as she threaded the lane, “Would that to-morrow morning were come!” But she had such a powerful inducement to proceed in the affair at any risk, that the idea of retreating was discarded each time it faintly suggested itself; and when Jack Rily made his appearance, punctually to an instant, she felt her courage worked up to such a pitch that it was difficult to decide whether it arose from entire confidence or utter desperation.
“So, here you are, my fine old tiger-cat,” said the doctor, grasping her hand, with a force that might have been very friendly, but was not the less painful on that account. “I thought you would not flinch: indeed, I made sure you’d come to the scratch.”
“What have I to be afraid of—since you are so sure of being able to overpower the wretch whom you call Vitriol Bob!” demanded Mrs. Mortimer, in a firm tone. “I have already told you that I will undertake to manage the villain Torrens.”
“I long to see you grapple with him,” returned the doctor. “But we must not waste time in idle observations. Listen, my good lady, to our plan of proceeding. Vitriol Bob has a female acquaintance called Molly Calvert—or, in more familiar terms, Pig-faced Poll. This young woman knows his haunt—knows also the signals necessary to induce him to open the door. Besides, whenever he’s missing, she goes straight there, with a basket of provisions and what not—because she naturally suspects that he has done something queer and has found it convenient to make himself scarce. Well—you must be Pig-faced Poll for the nonce——”
“I understand you,” interrupted Mrs. Mortimer. “It is for me to give the signal and obtain admission——”
“Just so, my dear madam—and for us both—because if ever Molly Calvert and I go there together, it’s always the young woman herself who whispers a word of assurance to Vitriol Bob when he opens the door.”
“But suppose that the young woman you speak of, has already repaired to the robber’s haunt—suppose that she is already with him——”
“Now don’t take Jack Rily for an arrant fool!” said the ruffian; and, dark though it were in the narrow lane where this colloquy took place, Mrs. Mortimer could see the huge white teeth of her companion gleaming through the opening of his horrid hare-lip. “I know what I am about,” he continued. “Lord bless you! do you think I have been idle since I saw you this morning? No such thing! I went straight away to Molly Calvert, and made her send out for a bottle of gin. She is uncommonly fond of blue ruin—particularly when she drinks at another person’s expense; and as she drank this afternoon at mine, she did not spare it. In a word, I left her in such a helpless state of intoxication, that if she moves off her bed before two or three o’clock in the morning, then tell Jack Rily he is a fool and incapable of managing any business whatsoever.”
“I give you all possible credit for sagacity and forethought,” said Mrs. Mortimer, purposely flattering the ruffian. “Well, then, the young woman you speak of is placed in a condition which will render her incapable of interfering with our proceedings; and I must personate her for a moment or two, just to obtain admission into the home.”
“Personate her is scarcely the term, my dear madam,” answered Jack Rily: “because if Vitriol Bob only caught a glimpse of you by the neighbouring lamp-light, he would know deuced well that it was not the Pig-faced who sought admission. But it is a mere matter of vocal stratagem, if you understand me.”
“Speak plainly and briefly,” said Mrs. Mortimer, with some degree of sharpness in her tone.
“I will put it all into a nut-shell,” responded Jack Rily: then, with rapid utterance but impressive enunciation, he continued:—“The first signal is made by throwing a little gravel at a certain window; but, as that might be accidental, it is necessary to repeat it at the expiration of a minute or so. In a few seconds afterwards Vitriol Bob will open the front door as far as the chain inside will permit—and that is barely an inch: you must then immediately whisper, ‘It’s me and the Doctor,’ and the door will be instantly opened wide, Bob standing behind it. You pass rapidly in—and I’m at your heels; and as the passage and the stairs leading down to the kitchen are as dark as pitch, he won’t observe that it is not Molly Calvert whom he has admitted into the house. Now, mind, you must walk straight along the passage, and gain the stairs—and all this without any hesitation, but with an apparent knowledge of the premises. Go rapidly down the stairs, and you will then see a light straight before you. That will be in the front kitchen—and there you are certain to find Torrens. Spring upon him—tackle him desperately: there will not be a minute to lose—because the moment you appear in his presence, he will recognise you—he will utter a cry—and that must be the signal for the fight. Vitriol Bob will be just behind me—and——”
“You will assail him at the instant that I pounce upon Torrens?” said the old woman, with a bitter malignity in her tone, as she already gloated in anticipation upon the vengeance which she hoped to wreak upon her husband.
“Perform your part, ma’am—do all I have told you,” observed Jack Rily; “and leave the rest to me. And now are you ready?”
“Quite,” was the reply. “In which direction do we proceed?”
“The house is in Stamford Street,” answered the Doctor. “But you had now better follow me at a short distance.”
With these words, the man turned round, and proceeded along the narrow lane into the Blackfriars Road, up which he wended his way until he reached the corner of Stamford Street, where he looked back to satisfy himself that Mrs. Mortimer was in his track. He beheld her, by the light of the lamps, at a short distance behind; and, turning into Stamford Street, he was duly followed by her. Halting for a moment, he stooped down, gathered a few small pebbles from the side of the road joining the kerb-stone, and threw them at a window in the area of the dilapidated house which stood third from the corner. He then walked on a few paces, picked up some more little stones and hard crusted dirt, and turning back, met Mrs. Mortimer just opposite the house alluded to. The second volley was discharged at the window; and then they both stationed themselves at the door of the tenement, Mrs. Mortimer being placed in the most convenient position to give an answer to any summons that might issue from within.
The door was opened an inch or two; and the old woman, feigning the tone of a younger female, whispered hastily, “It’s me and the Doctor.” Thereupon the chain fell inside, and the door was opened half-way, Vitriol Bob standing behind it.
Mrs. Mortimer passed hastily in, followed by Jack Rily; and Vitriol Bob, closing the door noiselessly, readjusted the chain.
“Take care, Poll,” he said, in a hoarse and low tone: “don’t be in such a devil of a hurry to get down them stairs—’cos there’s somethink in the door-way of the kitchen that you might stumble over.”
“What is it, Bob?” demanded Jack Rily, hastily; for inasmuch as the real truth flashed to his mind in an instant, he feared lest Mrs. Mortimer should likewise suspect the fact, and, being thrown off her guard, betray herself by some sudden exclamation.
“What is it?—why, a stiff ’un,” responded Vitriol Bob, with a chuckling laugh which sounded horribly in the midst of the total darkness that prevailed in the passage and on the stairs. “I s’pose Poll has let you into the business, since you’ve come along with her,” continued the man; “and though I don’t see what right she had to tell you anythink about it, I ain’t sorry you have come—’cos you can help me to bury the old feller, and you shall have your reglars.”
Mrs. Mortimer now fully comprehended that Torrens had been murdered; and an appalling dread seized upon her—for she felt that she was completely in the power of two diabolical ruffians, who were as capable of assassinating her as one had already been to make away with her husband.
A faintness came over her—and she staggered against the wall for support; when Jack Rily, in answer to Vitriol Bob’s last observations, said, “Oh! Poll didn’t tell me a single word about any business that you had in hand: but as I met her quite by accident and suspected she was coming here, I forced myself, as one may say, upon her company—for I thought you’d be glad to see an old pal, if you was under a cloud.”
These words instantaneously re-assured Mrs. Mortimer. She comprehended that her confederate had uttered them, too, for that purpose; and it flashed to her mind that he only wanted to get Vitriol Bob down into the lower part of the house in order to make an attack upon him. She accordingly recovered her self-possession, and rapidly groped her way to the bottom of the stairs, when a feeble light, glimmering from the kitchen, showed her a sinister object lying just inside the threshold.
The blood ran cold in her veins: for, much as she had hated Torrens—anxiously as she had longed to be avenged upon him—profoundly as she abhorred the tie that to some degree had linked their fates, she nevertheless felt horrified at the conviction that the murdered man lay there—in her very path!
Nevertheless, she still maintained her courage as well as she could, and, hastily passing the lifeless form, entered the cheerless, gloomy kitchen, which indeed appeared to be the proper haunt for such a miscreant as Vitriol Bob, and the fitting scene for such a tragedy as the one which had been enacted there that night!
In the middle of the kitchen she paused, and listened with breathless suspense.
Jack Rily had just reached the bottom of the stairs leading thither: Vitriol Bob had only just begun to descend them.
“Well, here is indeed a stiff ’un,” exclaimed the former, stopping short in the interval between the foot of the steps and the threshold of the kitchen. “What had he done to you, Bob?—and when did this happen?”
“Wait a moment—and I’ll tell you all about it,” was the reply. “I hope Poll has brought lots of grub—for the business hasn’t taken away my appetite.”
“She has got a basket with her,” said Jack Rily.
At this moment Vitriol Bob reached the bottom of the stairs, when the Doctor sprang upon him with the sudden violence of a savage monster; and the murderer was thrown back on the steps.
“Treachery!” he exclaimed, in a tone resembling the subdued roar of a wild beast irritated by its keeper; and the two men were locked in a close embrace—a deadly struggle immediately commencing.
A mortal terror struck to the heart of Mrs. Mortimer, who knew full well that if her confederate should succumb, her own life would not be worth a moment’s purchase; and for upwards of a minute she stood rivetted to the spot, listening to the sounds of the conflict which she could not see.
Suddenly it struck her that she might aid her companion; and, taking from beneath her shawl a coil of rope with which she had intended to bind Torrens, whom she had made certain of subduing, she rushed to the scene of the struggle.
The gleam of light that reached that place, was sufficient, feeble though it were, to show her that Vitriol Bob had the advantage. He had succeeded in getting uppermost; and Jack Rily was struggling desperately underneath the man whose strength he had miscalculated. The conflict was thus progressing, accompanied by deep, low, but bitter execrations, when Mrs. Mortimer, whom a sense of danger suddenly restored to complete self-possession, threw a noose round Vitriol Bob’s neck, and instantly drew it tight,—exclaiming, as she performed this rapid and well-executed feat, “Courage, Rily,—courage: grasp him firmly—loosen not your hold!”
“Damnation!” ejaculated Vitriol Bob, the moment he felt the cord upon his neck and heard a strange female voice,—at the same time making a desperate—nay, almost superhuman effort to tear himself away from his foe and turn round on his new enemy.
But the woman drew the cord as tight as she could, and a sense of faintness came suddenly over the murderer,—so that Jack Rily was in another instant enabled to get uppermost once more.
“Tie his legs, old lady—and then we’ve nothing more to fear!” cried he, as he placed one knee on Vitriol Bob’s chest, and held the vanquished ruffian’s wrists firmly with the iron grasp of his sinewy hands. “Now, keep quiet, old fellow—or you’ll be strangled,” he continued, addressing himself to the wretch whose eyes glared savagely up at him even amidst the obscurity of the place: “It’s useless to resist—you are my prisoner,—and if it’s necessary to make you safer still, I’ll draw my clasp-knife across your throat—which I should be sorry to do, on account of old acquaintanceship.”
“What—what have I done to you—Jack—to—to deserve this?” gasped Vitriol Bob, half strangled with the noose, which, however, was now somewhat relaxed in consequence of Mrs. Mortimer being occupied in tying the other end of the rope round his ankles—a task which she performed with amazing skill and rapidity, and which, in consequence of Rily’s menaces, the vanquished one did not think it prudent to resist.
“I’ll tell you presently what you have done, Bob,” said the Doctor, in answer to the other’s query. “Now that you are bound neck and heels, you are not very formidable: nevertheless, I must just make your arms secure—and then we’ll hold a parley. Here, old lady—put your hand in the pocket on the right side of my coat, and give me out the cord you’ll find there. That’s right! Come—be steady, Bob—or I shall do you a mischief yet.”
The conqueror then proceeded to bind the wrists of the vanquished; and when this was done, he said, “Now, my fine fellow, I will just carry you into the kitchen; and if there is any brandy there, you shall have a drop to wash the dust out of your mouth.”
With these words, Jack Rily raised Vitriol Bob in his arms, and bore him into the kitchen, where he placed him on a chair; and the murderer now perceived for the first time that the female who had mainly contributed to his defeat, was the one whom himself and Torrens had robbed.
Jack Rily, on examining the bottle which he found upon the table, discovered that there was plenty of liquor left in it; and, filling a tumbler, he placed it to the lips of Vitriol Bob, who greedily swallowed the contents—for his throat was indeed parched with the dust raised by the late struggle and the semi-strangulation he had endured.
“Now, my hyena friend—my tiger-cat accomplice,” said the Doctor, turning towards Mrs. Mortimer, who, exhausted in mind and body, had sunk into a chair, “you will likewise partake of the stimulant. And mark you, madam,” he added, with deep emphasis, and in a tone that was particularly re-assuring to the old woman, “I owe you my life—and, whatever my intentions concerning you originally were, I can only now say that I’ll do all that’s fair and honourable towards you. But enough of that: so, drink!”
Mrs. Mortimer, greatly delighted at the result of the night’s expedition, smiled as cordially as her repulsive countenance would permit; but Jack Rily surveyed her with much admiration, for she reminded him at the moment of a pleased hyena after a copious meal. His satisfaction was enhanced by the readiness with which she tossed off the burning fluid; and, taking his turn with the brandy, he drank to her health.
“Now to business once more!” he exclaimed, as he set the glass upon the table. “And first, where’s the money, Bob?” he demanded turning towards the helpless ruffian, who sat moody and scowling in the chair in which be had been placed.
“I suppose you mean to let me have my reglars, Jack?” he said, in a tone which he endeavoured to render as conciliatory and agreeable as possible.
“Not a blessed halfpenny, Bob—and that’s flat,” responded the Doctor, as he plunged his hands into the pockets of his prisoner. “Ah! here’s the swag—and a precious heavy parcel it is too!” he exclaimed, after a few moments’ pause, and in a joyous tone. “My dear madam,” continued the villain, handing the brown paper packet to Mrs. Mortimer, “count it over—see that it’s right—and divide its contents equally. You may as well be satisfied at once that I mean to do what is right towards you—and then, may be, you will think seriously of the propriety of our clubbing our fortunes together, and setting up as a gentleman and lady living on our means—that is, you know, as Mr. and Mrs. Rily.”
All the latter portion of this long sentence was lost—entirely lost upon Mrs. Mortimer: for the moment that her hands grasped the brown paper parcel—that parcel which was so significantly weighty—her whole attention was absorbed in the task of examining its contents. She placed it upon the table; and, by the dim flickering light of the miserable candle, she counted the yellow pieces—turned over the soiled notes—and carefully reckoned up the whole,—exclaiming, at the completion of the business, “It is all right, save in respect to a single sovereign, which I dare say the rogues changed and spent directly. Here is your share, Mr. Rily—and I thank you much for your valuable aid.”
“You are the handsomest ogress I ever saw, when you appear gloating over the recovered gold,” said the Doctor. “If I could afford it, I would actually and positively give you my portion just to have the pleasure of contemplating your physiognomy while you fingered it. But perhaps we may have all things in common yet between you and me.”
Thus speaking, the ruffian secured his share of the spoil about his person—an example that was immediately followed by Mrs. Mortimer in respect to her division;—and all the while Vitriol Bob sate looking on with a countenance of the most demoniac ferocity. It was evident that, could the wretch release himself from his bonds, his rage would endow him with a strength calculated to give matters quite another turn: but he was helpless—powerless,—and this consciousness of his enthralled predicament only rendered his hatred the more savage against his successful enemies, and made his longings for revenge the more eager and also the more torturing on account of their unavailing intensity.
“I will now tell you, Bob,” said Jack Rily, turning towards him, “why I have played you this trick—and you will acknowledge that it is only tit for tat. You remember the swell’s crib we broke into at Peckham? Well—you found a bag containing a hundred and twenty sovereigns, in a drawer—and you never mentioned a word about it when we came to divide the plunder.”
“It’s a lie—a damned lie!” ejaculated the villain, ferociously.
“Say that again,” cried the Doctor, his hare-lip becoming absolutely white with rage, while the scar upon his cheek grew crimson,—“and I will cut your throat from ear to ear. How could I invent such a tale? But I saw the advertisement in the papers about the robbery—I read that a bag containing a hundred and twenty pounds in gold was abstracted from a chest of drawers—and I well remembered that you searched those drawers, and afterwards assured me there was nothing in them worth taking. I did not tell you that I had thus become aware of your treachery, because I resolved to be revenged some day or other. That day has now arrived—and you have the consolation of knowing that you have lost thousands in consequence of your beggarly meanness respecting a paltry sixty sovereigns, which was my share of the sum you kept back.”
“Well—’sposing it is all as you say, Jack,” exclaimed Vitriol Bob, assuming a humble and indeed abject tone,—“ain’t you more than even with me to-night? and won’t you let me have my reglars? We shall then be good friends again.”
“I do not mean to give you one farthing of my money—and I know this old lady won’t,” responded the Doctor. “As to our being friends again, I care not whether we become so, or whether we continue enemies. You can’t do me so much harm as I can you, Bob,” added Rily, in an impressive manner, and without a particle of his usual coarse jocularity: “for you have to-night done a deed that, if known, would send you to the scaffold.”
A deadly pallor passed over the countenance of the murderer; and he writhed in his chair with mingled rage and terror.
“Now, my old hyena,” exclaimed the doctor, turning towards Mrs. Mortimer, “I told you that you should have a good opportunity of seeing Vitriol Bob in all his hideousness. Which do you think is the ugliest of the two—he or me?”
And he grinned so horribly with his hare-lip and his gleaming teeth, that the old woman was for an instant appalled by the fiendish, malignant joy that caused his countenance thus to assume so frightful an expression.
“Well—you don’t like to pass an opinion upon the matter,” he said, with a chuckling laugh: “may be you think I am the ugliest of the two, and that it would hurt my feelings to tell me so. Lord bless you, my dear madam—a right down savage, ferocious, revolting ugliness is a splendid subject for admiration to my mind. The uglier people are—provided it’s the right sort of ugliness—the handsomer they are in my eyes. This may seem paradoxical—but it’s the truth; and it’s on that principle I am ready to marry you to-morrow, if you’ll have me. However—think upon it: there’s no hurry for your decision, my dear creature—pardon me for being so familiar. And now I may as well tell you that it was not my original intention to let you have one penny piece of all that swag,” he continued, after a few moments’ pause. “I had purposed to make use of you in obtaining it—and then self-appropriate it; because I didn’t look upon you in the light of a pal with whom it was necessary to keep faith. The moment, however, that you interfered in the struggle just now, the case became suddenly altered: you saved my life—and I wouldn’t harm a hair of your head for all the world. So you are quite welcome to take your departure at once if you will: but I should esteem it a mark of confidence if you’d remain here with me a few hours longer—and I’ll tell you why.”
“Show me a good reason,and I shall not object,” remarked Mrs. Mortimer, knowing that the man, in spite of his conciliatory observations, had the power to enforce, if he chose, what he seemed to ask as a favour.
“I will explain myself,” resumed Jack Rily: then glancing towards Vitriol Bob, he said, “Our friend here must remain in that condition until I can send Pig-faced Poll to release him from his bonds. It would not be worth while to risk another conflict by taking on ourselves the part of liberators. His young woman shall therefore be entrusted with that agreeable duty: but as she is drunk in bed——”