Dorothy's Double Volume I Part 14

'You are quite sure, Jacob, that you have done with Mr. Slippen? I should not like him to think that I had taken you away from him.'

'I ain't a-going back to him no ways,' the boy said, positively, 'not even if he would have me; and after what I said to him he would not do that. He called me a blooming young vaggerbond, and I says to him, "Vaggerbond yourself, ain't you wanting to make up false evidence agin a female? You are worse nor a vaggerbond," says I. "You are just the worst kind of a spy," says I, "and a liar at that." Then I had to make a bolt for it, and he arter me, and he run nigh fifty yards before he stopped; that is enough to show how mad he wor over it. First of all I thinks as I would go to the Garden, and take to odd jobs and sleeping under the waggons, as I used to do afore I took up with him. Then I says to myself, "There is that Captain Hampton; he is a nice sort of gent. I could get along first-rate with him if he would have me."'

'But those clothes you have got on, Jacob; I suppose Slippen gave you those?'

'Not he; Slippen ain't that sort; he got the clothes for me, and says he, "These 'ere clothes cost twenty-two bob. I intend to give you half-a-crown a week, and," says he, "I shall stop a bob a week for your clothes." I have been with him about half a year, so we are square as to the things.'

'But how did you live on eighteenpence a week?'

'I got a bob now and then from people who came to Slippen. When they knew as I was doing the watching for them they would tip me, so as to give me a h'interest in the case, as they said. I used to reckon on making two bob a week that way, so with Slippen's eighteenpence, I had sixpence a day for grub. I have got my old things wrapped up in the cupboard. I used to use them mostly when I went out watching. I can get them any time; I have got the key. I used to have to let myself in and out, so I have only got to watch till I see him go out, and then go in and get my things, and I can leave the key on the table when I come out.'

Captain Hampton looked at the boy for some time in silence; it really seemed a stroke of good luck that had thrown him in his way. There was no doubt of his shrewdness; he was honest so far as his ideas of honesty went. He wished to serve him, and would probably be faithful. He himself felt altogether at sea as to how to set about the quest for this man and the unknown woman who must be his a.s.sociate. Even if the boy could be of no material a.s.sistance, he would have him to talk to, and there was no one else to whom he could say anything on the subject.

'Well, Jacob,' he said at last, 'I am disposed to give you a trial.'

'Thank you, Captain,' the lad said gratefully. 'I will do my best for you, sir, whatever you tell me. I knows as I ain't much good to a gent like you, but I will try hard, sir, I will indeed.'

'And now what am I to do with you?' Captain Hampton went on. 'I am sure my landlady would not like to have you down in the kitchen, so for the present you had better get your meals outside.'

'That is all right, Captain. I can take my grub anywhere.'

'Very well, then, I will give you two s.h.i.+llings a day for food; that will be sixpence for breakfast and tea and a s.h.i.+lling for dinner. I suppose you could manage on that.'

'Why, it would be just a-robbing of you,' the boy said, indignantly. 'I can get a breakfast of a big cup of tea and a whopping piece of cake for twopence at a coffee-stall, and the same at night, that is fourpence, and for fourpence more I can get a regular blow out: threeha'porth of bread and two saveloys for dinner. I could do first-rate on eightpence.'

'That is all nonsense, Jacob. If you are coming to be my servant you must live decently. I daresay if you had a place where you could see to your own food you might do it cheaper, but having to pay for things at a coffee-shop, two s.h.i.+llings a day would be a fair sum. As I don't want you to do anything for me in the house at present I do not see that it will be of any use getting you livery, so we won't talk about that now.

You will most likely want another suit of clothes of some sort while going about to look for this man, whom I still want to find. As for your lodgings, I will see if there is a room vacant upstairs; if not, you must get a bed out.'

He rang the bell, and his landlord, who acted as valet to his lodgers, appeared.

'Richardson, I have engaged this boy to run errands for me. I do not want him to interfere in the house, and have arranged about his board, as no doubt you would find him in the way downstairs; but if you have an attic empty I should like to arrange for his sleeping here.'

'I could arrange that, sir. I have a small room at the top of the house empty; I would let it at four s.h.i.+llings a week.'

'Very well then. He will sleep here to-night.'

'Perhaps he will step up with me and I will show it to him, sir.'

Hampton nodded, and the boy followed the man out of the room. He returned in a couple of minutes.

'That will do, I suppose, Jacob?'

'It just will do,' the boy said; 'it is too good for a chap like me. The bed is too clean to sleep in: I would a sight rather lie down on the mat there, sir.'

'That won't do at all, Jacob. You must get into clean and tidy ways if you are to be with me. To-morrow morning I will give you some money, and you must go out and get yourself a stock of underlinen--s.h.i.+rts, and drawers, and stockings, and that sort of thing, and another pair or two of shoes. And now it is getting late and you had better go off to bed.

Give yourself a thorough good wash all over before you turn in, and again in the morning. Here are two s.h.i.+llings for your food to-morrow. Be here at nine o'clock and then we will talk things over. Here is another half-crown to get yourself a comb and brush.'

The next morning the boy presented himself looking clean and tidy.

'In the first place here is a list, Jacob, of the things you must get, or rather that I will get for you, for I will go out with you and buy them. And now about your work. I still want to find this man. Did you discover what name he was known by at his lodging?'

'He was known there as Cooper, Captain, I got that out of the servant girl, but lord bless you a name don't go for anything with these chaps.

No, he may call hisself something else at the next place he goes to.'

'You learnt he went away in a cab?'

The lad nodded.

'The first thing to do is to find that cab. It may have been taken from a stand near; it may have been one he hailed pa.s.sing along the road. How would you set about that?'

'Offer a reward,' the boy replied promptly. 'Get a thing printed and I will leave it at all the stands in that part.'

'Yes, that will be a good way.' Captain Hampton wrote a line or two on a piece of paper. It was headed--A Reward.--The cabman who took a man with several boxes from----'What is the address, Jacob, where the man lodged?'

'Twelve, Hawthorn Street.'

'From Hawthorn Street, Islington, on the evening of the 15th July, can earn one pound by calling upon Captain Hampton, 150 Jermyn Street.'

'That will do it,' the boy said, as the advertis.e.m.e.nt was read out.

'Well, I will get a hundred of these struck off at once, then you can set to work.'

Having gone to a printer's and ordered the handbills, which were to be ready in an hour, Captain Hampton went with the boy and bought his clothes.

'Now, Jacob, you will go back to the printer's in an hour's time and wait until you get the handbills. Here are five s.h.i.+llings to pay for them; then take a 'bus at the Circus for Islington and distribute the handbills at all the cab stands in the neighbourhood. I shan't want you any more to-day, but if I am at home when you come in you can let me know how you have got on. Be in by half-past nine always. You had better go on at your night school; you have nothing to do after dark and there is nowhere for you to sit here. There is no reason why you should not go on working there as usual.'

'All right, Captain; if you says so in course I will go, but I hates it worse nor poison.'

On his return Captain Hampton read the paper and wrote some letters, and was just starting to go out to lunch when Mr. Hawtrey was shown in.

'I am very glad I have caught you, Ned; I meant to tell you I would come round after seeing Levine. This business will worry me into my grave.

This morning Dorothy declared that the thing must be fought out. Her objection to going into court has quite vanished. She says that it is the only chance there is of getting to the bottom of things, and that if that is not done we must go away to China or Siberia, or some out-of-the-way place where no one will know her. Then I went to Levine.

Danvers called for me and took me there. I wrote to him last night and asked him to do so. Nothing could have been more polite than Levine's manner--I should say he would be a charming fellow at a dinner table. I went into the whole thing with him, he took notes while I was talking, and asked a question now and then; of course, I told him our last notion, that there must be somebody about exactly like Dorothy in face and figure. "And dress, too?" he asked, with a little sort of emphasis.

"Yes, and dress too," I said. When I had done he simply said that it was a singular case, which I could have told him well enough, and that he should like to take a little time to think it over. His present idea was that I had best pay the money. I told him that I did not care a rap about the money, but that if this thing got about, the fact that I had compromised it would be altogether ruinous to my daughter. He said, "I think you can rely upon it that Gilliat will preserve an absolute silence. I can a.s.sure you that jewellers get to know a great many curious family histories, and it is part of their business to be discreet." "Yes," I said, "but don't you see if, as I believe, this fellow Truscott got up the first persecution purely to revenge what he believes is a grievance against me--if that is so, and if he has any connection with this second business, you may be sure that somehow or other he will get something nasty about it put in one of these gutter journals." That silenced him, and he again said he would think it over.

When I got up to go he asked Danvers to wait a few minutes, as he took it that if the matter went into court he would, as a matter of course, be retained on our side. So I came away by myself and drove here. The worst of it is, I believe that the man thinks that Dorothy did it. Of course, as he does not know her he is not altogether to be blamed, but it is deucedly annoying to have to do with a man who evidently thinks your daughter is a thief.'

'Did he say anything as to our idea that some one else must have represented her?'

'Not a single word; he listened attentively while I told him, but he made no remarks whatever about it.'

After the doors of Mr. Levine's office had closed behind Mr. Hawtrey, the solicitor leant back in his chair and looked at Danvers with raised eyebrows.

'You have heard the story before, I suppose?' he asked.

'I heard about the first business, but not about this matter of the jewels; except that he gave me a slight outline as we drove here this morning. It is a curious business.'

'It is a very unpleasant business, but scarcely a curious one,' the lawyer said, with a grave smile. 'I have heard so many bits of queer family history, that I scarcely look at anything that way now as curious. You would be astonished, simply astonished, did you know how often things of this kind occur.'

'Then you think that Miss Hawtrey took the jewels?'