A Little World Part 56

"Never mind that, Sir Francis," said Harry. "I am as deeply interested in the search as yourself, and I cannot give up hope so easily. When I feel despair creeping upon me I will give up--not before. But you are better this morning?"

"More resigned, Clayton--more resigned," said the old man, sadly. "It is time to try and bear it."

Harry reminded him that the sergeant was still hopeful, and also told him of the man's last words; but Sir Francis only shook his head sadly.

He grew more interested, though, when Harry related his adventures of the past night, and also laid bare a few of his thoughts; but they seemed to make no lasting impression; and soon after, leaving the room, Harry made his way anxiously to the police court, for the feeling grew stronger that he had at last run the villain to earth--this man whom he had recognised on the previous night as the informer, and also as the low-browed scoundrel who had watched them at the bird-dealer's.

Might not this be poor Lionel's destroyer? It was mere suspicion, but might he not have committed some foul deed, with Lionel Redgrave for victim, even as he had essayed on the previous night, for it was by the narrowest shade that he had himself escaped. Poor Lionel was perhaps caught in one of the vile purlieus of Decadia, and had been dragged away and hidden after being plundered; while to divert suspicion, with extra cunning--where no suspicion existed--this scoundrel had essayed to lay the blame upon the house of Wragg.

Suspicions these, certainly; but as Harry walked on, from being shadowy they gradually grew more solid and firm, so that he eagerly waited at the court the turn of Mr John Screwby, whose vile countenance, when placed in the dock, wore anything but an improved aspect, with the addition of a damaged nose and a pair of hideously discoloured eyes.

The case was plain enough as far as the attempt was concerned.

Suspicion of other matters, of course, could not be raised. But there were several little ugly facts brought forward respecting Mr John Screwby's character--touching six months' imprisonment for this, three months' imprisonment for that, a year for something else,--altogether a total of four years for different offences that the warders of different prisons could declare to. Consequently, as Mr Screwby's name stank in the nostrils of the law, he was remanded, with the certain prospect of being committed for trial at the next hearing.

Weary and unsettled, Harry strolled down the next evening to Decadia.

The first face he encountered was that of D. Wragg, who was seated behind his counter with the shutters up, and the gas turned down very low.

"Oh, yes! you can go up," said the little man, gloomily; "but don't you make no mistake, and think I ain't so sharp as I should be, because I've seemed a bit queer lately. It was all through a drop o' drink, and I shouldn't ha' taken that if it hadn't been along o' that friend o'

yours. Cuss him! what did he want to go losing dorgs for, and come here bringing mis'ry into a pore man's home?"

D. Wragg ended his speech almost with a whine, wiping away two or three maudlin drink-begotten tears; when, seeing from the man's state that it would be of little avail to remind him of the cause of Lionel's first visit, Harry ascended to find Canau sitting up in bed, holding one of Janet's hands in his.

"Aha!" he said, softly; "then you have come again. What news of your friend? None? Aha! I suspect D. Wragg once, and he trapped me like one of his pigeons; but there--he is innocent; he has no secrets but about wretched dogs. He is not bad, but he is little--little at heart.

He has no soul for a great crime. He hides away dogs in holes and cupboards and corners, and we hear mysterious cries, and think them dreadful, here in this house, and the good Madame Vink faints away.

Then I go looking--to find what? Ma foi! dogs--dogs--dogs. Nothing more. There was nothing to find."

"Are you an arch-traitor?" thought Harry for a moment, as he sat gazing at the injured man. "If your heart could be laid bare, would it disclose anything?" The sad calm look upon the little Frenchman's face disarmed him, though, the next instant, and he felt half angry at the flash of suspicion, as Canau continued--

"We have strange ideas all of us; and we all suspect one another. I have often think D. Wragg knows where your poor foolish friend has gone, and he think the same of me; and the work-people outside say it is a judgment on me that I am struck down, and that it will save me from what they call 'scragg.' But no, no! I shall not be hung at Vieux Bailee.

But they are _sots_--fools all."

Harry sat by the bed half-disposed to tell of Screwby's attack, but he refrained.

"Monsieur," said Canau, after a pause, "I think I shall be the better for this hurt. It has made me think of how I have let myself drift-- drift away, when I ought to have fought, and been something better.

There is only one thing that I have kept of the past, when I was another man, and that is my music. Janet, my child, when I am well, we will go from here and live otherwise: I have not been just to you. But D. Wragg has been good to me, and a friend when I was in despair with life; still I must change. Yes, we will go and live away from this wretched place.

Pah! how could I have kept you here so long? Only let me get well, for I shall not die of this hurt. I wish that you too were glad and happy as I feel. Poor Janet, too, would be glad of heart did she know that your friend was found, and the old man his father at peace."

Janet listened eagerly as Harry spoke of the inutility of their search, and then the poor girl shrank back; but attention was drawn from her by a sharp cry of pain from Canau.

"Shall I fetch a doctor?" said Harry earnestly.

"No, no; I shall be better--well directly. The pain is sometimes sharp.

But ah, bah! it is nothing. I shall live--I shall be well soon. I do not trouble myself at all. But hark! Mon Dieu! listen! Is there fresh trouble in the house? They will not search again--I cannot have it!

Monsieur, I am weak."

Harry, as he started up, gazed curiously at the injured man, for there was a strange dread in his tones that again raised suspicion. But there was evidently something important on the wing. Amidst a good deal of noise, there arose the sound of voices in loud altercation; and as he opened the door D. Wragg could easily be heard as he exclaimed--

"Don't you make no mistake now; I'm not going to have my place searched again; so now, then!"

"Ah-h-h! Ma foi!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Canau, and a spasm sent its trace across his features, while Janet, wild-eyed and strained, held tightly by his hand.

"There is something coming now!" thought Harry, and his heart beat painfully as D. Wragg's voice was again heard.

"Yes; he is here! And if he is here, what o' that? Don't you make no mistake. There ain't no harm in his coming here if he likes, is there?

No one ain't a-going to burke him. I'll fetch him down, for I ain't going to have no more searchings in my house."

"Searching! Ah! I cannot bear it!" groaned the Frenchman.

Directly after there was the thump, thump, of D. Wragg's heavy boot on the stairs.

"'Tis for me," said Harry, turning to Canau. "There seems to be news;"

and then, with a feeling of compa.s.sion, he continued, "but do you know anything of it all?--speak if you do."

"I know! No, no; not a word!" exclaimed Canau, when, waiting to hear no more, Harry hurried excitedly to the door, to encounter Sergeant Falkner, while closely following him came D. Wragg, growling viciously, and tearing at his spikey hair, as he set his boot down violently upon each stair, as if crus.h.i.+ng under it vermin in the shape of the police.

A few words, though, from the sergeant had the effect of setting D.

Wragg off into a set of terpsich.o.r.ean evolutions that were grotesque in the extreme. Certainly a triumphal dance was intended, with accompanying stamps of the thick boot and snappings of his fingers; but how he could possibly have contrived to jerk, and start, and jig as he did, and yet live, was a puzzle that brought down the far-famed Gordian knot into a contemptible cat's-cradle of Berlin wool. Dislocation! It might have been thought that he was out of joint from head to toe, and india-rubber had taken the place of his muscles.

"I told you so--I told you so!" he shouted. "There! don't you make no more mistakes, any on you, because--Hip--hip--hip--hooray! I say, though, Mr Canau, ain't it glorious? But I say, sir, Mr Clayton, sir, is there any little thing in the shop? Don't you make--there! ain't I glad!"

Another triumphal dance succeeded D. Wragg's burst of eloquence, when he stumped off, sowing turnips as he went, to find Mrs Winks; while Harry hurried back into the room to whisper one word--a word which made the Frenchman fall back upon his pillow with a sigh of content, as Janet turned to the window to hide her face from those who were too much engrossed with their own thoughts to think of the poor girl's feelings.

"I am content now, Monsieur Clayton," sighed Canau. "There will be no more suspicion, and you will come and see me when I am a different man.

But I could not bear that there should be a slur upon the place where we have lived so long. But there! go--you are anxious;" and as Harry hurried from the room, Canau repeated, with brightening eye, that most important word which Harry had uttered, and that word was--

"Found!"

Volume 3, Chapter XVI.

MR PURKIS DOES HIS DOOTY.

Mr Purkis stood in his shop carefully cutting out strips of white paper for the measurement of future customers' feet, when he heard the pattering of feet, and antic.i.p.ating trade for the establishment, he raised his eyes, slowly, and with due importance.

"What's this, Mr Purkis, sir?" cried the visitor, rus.h.i.+ng into the shop with a violence that made the little bell give tongue furiously--so furiously that it seemed as if disposed to compete with little Tim Ruggles, excited and hot as he was with running. "What does all this mean, sir? How is it--when was it--and how did it happen? I must know--must, indeed."

Mr Purkis stood erect, with his hands beneath his black linen ap.r.o.n, and puffed out and collapsed his cheeks again and again, but without answering his visitor.

"I must know, Mr Purkis, sir," cried Tim again, as he took off his hat, put it on, and walked about the shop in his excitement. "I've been to Mr Pellet's, sir, and he won't tell me a word, so I've come to you."

"Well, you see, Mr Ruggles," said Purkis, slowly, as if he sold his speech by the yard like shoe-string, after puffing and gasping three or four times like a fat old tench,--"you see--"

"Don't say a word, Joseph--don't commit yourself," exclaimed Mrs Purkis, coming forth in a great hurry from the back regions, and busily rolling her arms up in her ap.r.o.n as she came, perhaps to hide their red and chappy state--perhaps from modesty or for comfort.

Mr Purkis looked at his wife, and then again at restless Tim, gave a gasp or two, puffed out his cheeks beadle-wise, and then opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

"Don't say a word--don't say anything about it!" exclaimed Mrs Purkis again in a great state of excitement, but unrolling one arm to place it through her husband's, as if for protection, as she looked defiantly at Tim. "You know what the pleece said to the boy when he took him up for stealing the list-slippers. What you say now 'll be used in evidence agen you! You're mixed up enough with it as it is."

"Oh! please don't stop him," cried Tim Ruggles, in agony, as he wrung his hands and looked imploringly from one to the other. "What does it mean?"

"Well you see, Mr Ruggles," said Purkis, after another tenchy gasp.