Chapter Nine.
The Plot Thickens
In his remarkably eager and somewhat eccentric pursuit of pleasure—that pursuit which is so universal yet so diverse among men, to say nothing about boys—Tommy Splint used to go about town like a jovial lion-cub seeking whom he might terrify!
To do him justice, Tommy never had any settled intention of being wicked. His training at the hands of chimney-pot Liz and the gentle Susy had so far affected his arab spirit that he had learned, on the whole, to prefer what he styled upright to dishonourable mischief. For instance, he would not steal, but he had no objection to screen a thief or laugh at his deeds. His natural tenderness of heart prevented his being cruel to dogs or cats, but it did not prevent his ruffling some of the former into furious rage, and terrifying many of the latter into cataleptic fits.
One afternoon, having roved about for some time without aim, sometimes howling in at open doors and bolting, frequently heaping banter upon good-natured policemen, occasionally asking of mild old ladies the way to places he had never heard of, or demanding what o’clock it was of people who did not possess watches, and whistling most of the time with irritating intensity—our little hero at last came to the conclusion that felicity was not to be obtained by such courses—not at least, at that time. He was out of sorts, somehow, so he would return to the garden and comfort Susy and the old woman, i.e. find comfort to himself in their society. He went whistling along, therefore, until his steps were suddenly and violently arrested.
To account for this we must tell how, about this time, it chanced that a very drunk man of the very lowest London type, as far as appearance went, awoke from a heavy slumber which he had been enjoying under the seat of a compartment in a certain low gin-palace. He was about to stretch himself and give vent to a noisy yawn when the word “Laidlaw” smote his ear. Pale, worn-out, cadaverous, threadbare, inexpressibly mean, the man gently raised his dissolute form on one elbow and listened to two men in a box beside him. Their heads met almost over the spot where his own head rested. The men were Lockhart and Spivin, and the occasion was that on which we have already described them as engaged in plotting, or referring to, the downfall of the man from Scotland.
Trumps (for he was the listener), though well practised in the art of eavesdropping, could not gather the gist of the plotters’ discourse. Only this he made out, that, in some way or other, they meant to do, or had done, mischief to the man who had spared and helped, and, above all, had trusted him! It was tantalising to hear so little, though so near, for, from his position under the seat, he could have grasped Mr Lockhart’s ankles. But the plotters were much too knowing to speak in tones that could be easily overheard. Besides, other noisy people were arguing in the neighbouring and opposite compartments, so that the confusion of tongues rendered them, they thought, safe. Even the man under the seat although so very near, would have failed to catch the drift of a single sentence had not the name of Laidlaw sharpened his ears and faculties. One that he did catch, however, was suggestive, viz., “put the 50 pound note in his bag,” or something to that effect.
When the two friends rose to depart, Trumps sank noiselessly on the ground like a filthy shadow, but the quick eye of the lawyer caught sight of his leg.
Lockhart started, turned aside, and gave Trumps a kick in the ribs. It was a sharp painful kick, but drew from him only a heavy snore. To make quite sure the man of law administered another kick. This caused the recumbent man to growl forth a savage oath which terminated in a snore so very natural that the lawyer fell into the trap, and went off with the contemptuous remark—“Dead drunk!”
Trumps, however, was very much the reverse. He was indeed all alive and greatly sobered by his nap as well as by what he had heard. He rose and followed the plotters, but missed them in the crowd outside. In his anxiety to overtake them he ran somewhat violently against Tommy Splint, and thus arrested him, as we have said, in the pursuit of pleasure.
“Hallo, Thunderbolt!” exclaimed the boy sternly, as he started back and doubled his fists, “who let you out o’ Noogate?”
The thief was about to pass without deigning a reply, when, glancing at the small questioner, he suddenly stopped and held out his hand.
“I say, Splint, is it you I’ve run into?”
“Well, it’s uncommon like me. Any’ow, not a twin brother, I s’pose it must be myself. But I hain’t got the pleasure o’ your acquaintance as I knows on.”
“What! Don’t you remember Trumps?”
“No, I don’t remember Trumps, an’, wot’s more, I don’t b’lieve from the look of ’im that any of Trumps’s family or friends wants to remember ’im.”
The possibility that the boy might remember Trumps was not so unlikely after all, for, being of a highly social disposition, Tommy was pretty well acquainted with, and known to, nearly all the thieves and pickpockets of the locality. Indeed he would certainly have been one of themselves but for garret-garden influences.
“Well, Tommy,” said the thief confidentially, “I remember you, an’ I wants a little conversation with you.”
“No, you don’t” returned the boy, retreating; “you wants my wipe, or puss, or ticker, you do—or suthin’ o’ that sort—but you’ve come to the wrong shop, you have.”
“But really, Tommy, I’ve got summat to say to ’ee about your noo friend from Scotland, David Laidlaw.”
“How d’ee know he’s my friend?” asked Tommy, becoming suddenly interested.
“’Cause I’ve seen you jawin’ with ’im; an’ I’ve seen you go up together to visit chimney-pot Liz an’ Susy; an’—”
“Oh! you knows chimley-pot Liz an’ Susy, do ye? But of course you does. Everybody as knows anythink knows them.”
“Ay, lad, an’ I knows lawyer Lockhart too,” said Trumps, with a peculiar look; “him that owns the ’ouses ’ereabouts, an’ draws the rents—”
“Draws the rents!” interrupted the boy, with a look of scorn; “screws the rents, you mean.”
“Jus’ so, boy—screws ’em. Ah, ’e is a thief, is lawyer Lockhart.”
“Come, if that’s so, you’ve no occasion to be ’ard on ’im, Trumps, for you’re in the same boat, you know.”
“No, I ain’t,” replied Trumps, with virtuous indignation, “for ’e’s a mean thief!”
“Oh, an’ you’re a ’ighminded one, I s’pose,” returned the boy, with a hearty chuckle; “but come along, young man. If you’ve suthin’ to tell me about Da-a-a-vid Laidlaw I’m your man. This way.”
He led the man down the alley, across the court, round the corner, and up the stair to the landing.
“There you are,” he said, “this is my snuggery—my boodwar, so to speak. Sot down, an’ out with it.”
Seated there, the thief, in low confidential and solemn tones, related what he had seen and heard in the public-house, and told of his own acquaintance with and interest in Laidlaw.
“The willains!” exclaimed Tommy. “An’ wot d’ee think they’re agoin’ to do?”
“Screw ’im some’ow, an’ git ’im out o’ the way.”
“But w’y?”
“That’s wot I wants to ask you, lad. I knows nothing more than I’ve told ’ee.”
“We must save Da-a-a-vid!” exclaimed Tommy in a tragic manner, clutching his hair and glaring.
Tommy’s sense of the ludicrous was too strong for him, even in the most anxious times, and the notion of him and Trumps saving anybody overwhelmed him for a moment; nevertheless, he really was excited by what he had heard.
“Come—come with me,” he cried, suddenly seizing Trumps by the sleeve of his shabby coat and half dragging him up to the garret, where he found old Liz and Susy in the garden on the roof.
“Allow me to introdooce a friend, granny. ’E ain’t much to look at, but never mind, ’e’s a good ’un to go.”
Old Liz and Susy had become too much accustomed to low life in its worst phases to be much troubled by the appearance of their visitor, and when he had explained the object of his visit they became deeply interested.
“You think, then,” said Liz, after listening to the whole story, “that lawyer Lockhart intends to hide a 50 pound note in Mr Laidlaw’s travelling bag, and say he stole it?”
“Yes, ma’am; that’s what I think.”
“And for what purpose?” asked Susy with some anxiety.
“To git him convicted an’ sent to prison, miss,” replied Trumps promptly. “I know lawyer Lockhart—we call ’im liar Lockhart in the—well, ahem! an’ as I was sayin’, ’e’s a villain as’ll stick at nothing. If ’e sets ’is ’art on gittin’ Mr Laidlaw into prison ’e’ll git ’im in; for what purpus, of course, I don’t know.”
After further discussion of the subject it was finally arranged that Tommy Splint should go straight to the house of Mr Spivin, where the Scotsman lodged, and reconnoitre.
“And be sure, Tommy,” whispered Susan at the head of the stair when he was about to leave, “that you find out all about this horrid plot. We must save him. He saved me, you know,” she added, with a blush.
“Yes, we must save ’im,” said the boy in a tone of determination that inspired confidence in the girl, even though it made her laugh.
Trumps accompanied Tommy part of the way, and told him that he knew some ugly things about lawyer Lockhart that might get that gentleman into difficulties if he could only prove them, but he couldn’t quite see his way to that, not being learned enough in the law.
“You see, Tommy—”
“Thomas, if you please,” interrupted the urchin with dignity. “My hintimates calls me Tommy, but you ain’t one o’ them yet, Mr Trumps. You ain’t even on my wisitin’ list. P’r’aps I may promote yer to that some day, but—it depends. Now, look ’ere, slimey-coat—if any one larned in the law was inclined to pump you, could you be pumped?”
With a remarkably sly look Trumps replied, “Yes—for a consideration!”
“All right, young man. Give me your card; or, if you hain’t got one, let me know w’ere you ’ang hout.”
Having been satisfied on this point, Tommy told the thief that he had no further use for him, and as he wished to cross London Bridge alone, he (Trumps) was free to make himself scarce.
Chapter Ten.
Detective Doings
For a considerable time the boy prowled about the house of Mr Spivin in the hope of seeing David Laidlaw go out or in; but our Scot did not appear. At last a servant-girl came to the open door with a broom in her hand to survey the aspect of things in general. Tommy walked smartly up to her, despite the stern gaze of a suspicious policeman on the opposite side of the street.
“My sweet gal,” he said affably touching his cap, “is Capting Laidlaw within?”
“There’s no Captain Laidlaw here,” answered the girl sharply; “there was a Daivid Laidlaw, but—”
“Da-a-a-vid, my dear, not Daivid. The gen’l’m’n hisself told me, and surely ’e knows ’ow to prenounce ’is own name best.”
“You’ve a deal of cheek, boy—anyway, Laidlaw ’as bin took up, an’ ’e’s now in prison.”
The sudden look of consternation on the boy’s face caused the girl to laugh.
“D’ee know w’ere they’ve took ’im to?”
“No, I don’t.”
“But surely you don’t b’lieve ’e’s guilty?” said the boy, forgetting even his humorous tendencies in his anxiety about his friend.
“No, I don’t” said the girl, becoming suddenly earnest, “for Mary an’ me saw—”
“Martha-a-a!” shouted a female voice from the interior of the house at that moment.
The girl ran in. At the same time the suspicious policeman came up with, “Now then, youngster, move on.”
“Move off you mean, bobby. Hain’t you been to school yet, stoopid?” cried the boy, applying his thumb to his nose and moving his fingers in what he styled a thumbetrical manner as he ran away.
But poor Tommy Splint was in no jesting mood. He had been impressed with the idea from infancy—rightly or wrongly—that once in the clutches of the law it was no easy matter to escape from them; and he was now utterly incapable of deciding what his next step should be. In this difficulty he was about to return disconsolate to Cherub Court when it occurred to him that it might be worth while to pay a visit to the good ship Seacow, and obtain the opinion of Sam Blake.
Although it was broad day and the sun was glowing gloriously in an unclouded sky, he found Sam down in a dark hole, which he styled his bunk, fast asleep.
Sam did not move when Tommy shook and woke him. He merely opened his eyes quietly and said, “All right, my lad; what’s up?” After hearing the boy’s story to the end he merely said, “Mind your helm—clear out!” flung off his blankets, and bounded to the floor like an acrobat.
Being already in his shirt, short drawers, and stockings, it did not take quite a minute to don trousers, vest and coat. Another minute sufficed for the drawing on of boots, fastening a necktie, running a broken comb through his front locks, and throwing on a glazed hat. Two minutes all told! Men whose lives often depend on speed acquire a wonderful power of calmly-rapid action.
“What d’ee say to it, Sam?” asked Tommy as they hurried along the streets.
“Hold on! avast! belay! I’m thinkin’!” said Sam. The boy accordingly held on, avasted, and belayed until his companion had thought it out.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the sailor at last. “I’ll go an’ see Colonel—Colonel—what’s ’is name? old Liz’s friend—Burntwood, is it, or—”
“Brentwood,” said Tommy.
“That’s it—Brentwood. You don’t know his address, do you? No? Never mind; we’ll go to Cherub Court an’ get it, and then make sail for the Colonel’s. I’ve no more notion which way to steer, lad, than the man in the moon; but the Colonel will be sure to know how to lay our course, an’ he’ll be willin’, I’ve no doubt first for his own sake, seein’ that this Lockhart is his own lawyer; second, for old Liz’s sake, seein’ that her affairs are involved in it; and third, for the sake of his country, if he’s a good and true man.”
The sailor was not disappointed. Colonel Brentwood did not indeed himself know exactly how to act but he knew that the best thing to do in the circumstances was to seek aid from those who did know. He therefore went straight to Scotland Yard—that celebrated centre of the London Police Force—and put the matter before the authorities there. A detective, named Dean, was appointed to take the job in hand.
“John,” observed Mrs Brentwood to her husband, prophetically, after an interview with the detective at their own house, “you may depend upon it that Mr Dean will discover that more things are amiss than this affair of the Scotsman and dear old nurse.”
“Possibly—indeed probably,” returned the Colonel; “but what makes you think so?”
“The fact that no thorough scoundrel ever yet confined himself to one or two pieces of villainy.”
“But Lockhart is not yet proved to be a thorough scoundrel. You have condemned the poor man, my dear, without trial, and on insufficient evidence.”
“Insufficient evidence!” echoed Dora indignantly. “What more do you want? Has he not systematically robbed dear old Liz? Are not the Railway Share Lists and Reports open to inspection?”
“True, Dora, true. Be not indignant. I have admitted that you may be right. Our detective will soon find out. He has the calm, self-confident, penetrating look of a man who could, if possible, screw something out of nothing.”
Whether or not Mr Dean possessed the power ascribed to him is yet to be seen. We have not space to follow him through the whole of the serpentine sinuosities of his investigations, but we will watch him at one or two salient points of his course.
First of all he visited Tommy Splint, who, in the privacy of his “boodwar” revealed to him, as he thought, every scrap of information about the affair that he possessed. To all of this Mr Dean listened in perfect silence, patiently, and with a smile of universal benevolence. He not only appreciated all the boy’s commentaries and jests and prophecies on the situation, but encouraged the full development of his communicative disposition. Tommy was charmed. Never before had he met with such an audience—except, perhaps, in Susy.
When the boy had fairly run himself out Mr Dean proceeded to pump and squeeze, and the amount of relevant matter that he pumped and squeezed out of him, in cross-questioning, was so great, that Tommy was lost in a mixture of admiration and humility. You see, up to that time he had thought himself rather a knowing fellow; but Mr Dean managed to remove the scales from his eyes.
“Now, my boy,” said the detective, after having squeezed him quite flat, and screwed the very last drop out of him, “you are quite sure, I suppose, as to Mr Trumps’s words—namely, that he knew Mrs Morley—chimney-pot Liz, as you call her—”
“Parding. I never called her that—chimley-pot is her name.”
“Well, chimley-pot be it—and that he had formerly known Mr Lockhart but did not say when or where he had first become acquainted with either; yet Trumps’s peculiar look and manner when speaking of the lawyer led you to think he knew more about him than he chose to tell?”
“Right you air, sir. That’s ’ow it stands.”
“Good; and in reference to the servant-girl—you are sure that she became suddenly very earnest when she said she believed Laidlaw was not guilty, and that she and some one named Mary had ‘seen something,’ but you don’t know what, owing to a sudden interruption?”
“Right again, sir.”
“Now, then,” said Mr Dean, rising, “we will go up and see Mrs Morley.”
They found the old woman alone, knitting in her rustic chair in her floral bower on the roof. Mr Dean sat down to have a chat and Tommy seated himself on a stool to gaze and listen, for he was fascinated, somehow, by the detective.
It was really interesting to observe the tact with which the man approached his subject and the extreme patience with which he listened to the somewhat garrulous old woman.
Being a Briton he began, of course, with the weather, but slid quickly and naturally from that prolific subject to the garden, in connection with which he displayed a considerable knowledge of horticulture—but this rather in the way of question than of comment. To slide from the garden to the gardener was very easy as well as natural; and here Mr Dean quite won the old woman’s heart by his indirect praise of Susy’s manipulation of plants and soils. To speak of Susy, without referring to Susy’s early history, would have been to show want of interest in a very interesting subject. Mr Dean did not err in this respect. From Susy’s mother he naturally referred to the family in which she and old Liz had been in service, and to the return of the only surviving member of it to England.
All this was very interesting, no doubt, but it did not throw much light into the mind of Mr Dean, until old Liz mentioned the fact that Mr Lockhart, besides being solicitor to the Brentwoods, was also solicitor to old Mr Weston, who had left his property to Colonel Brentwood. She also said that she feared, from what Mrs Brentwood had recently said to her, there was some difficulty about the will, which was a pity, as the only people she knew besides Mr Lockhart who knew anything about it were a footman named Rogers and a butler named Sutherland, both of whom had been witnesses to the will; but the footman had gone to the bad, and the butler had gone she knew not where.
Then Mr Dean began to smell another rat, besides that which he was just then in pursuit of, for the Colonel had incidentally mentioned to him the circumstance of the estate passing away from him, owing to a new will having been recently discovered. Although the matter was not the detective’s present business, he made a mental note of it.
After quitting the garden, and promising soon to return, the detective had an interview with Mr Trumps in the parlour of the thieves’ missionary. Many a fallen and apparently lost man and woman had been brought to the Saviour in that parlour by that missionary—the same whom we have introduced to the reader in the thieves’ den. Through the medium of Tommy Splint the interview was brought about, and no sooner did Trumps ascertain the object that Dean had in view than he became suddenly confidential.
“Now, look here,” he said, when he found himself alone with Mr Dean, “I knows more about them Brentwoods and Westons than you think for.”
“No doubt you do; and I suppose you wish to sell your knowledge at the highest possible figure,” said Dean, with a very slight smile.
“You’re wrong for once,” returned Trumps. “If you’d said that to me two days ago, I’d ’ave said ‘yes;’ but I’ve ’eard things in this blessed room w’ich ’as made me change my mind. You’re welcome to all I knows for nothing.”
Mr Dean did not believe in sudden conversion, nevertheless he expressed gratification. Being what the Yankees call ’cute, he avoided anything like eagerness in gaining information.
“My business here, however,” he said, “is to get information about that Scotsman, you know, and the charge of theft by Mr Lockhart. We believe Laidlaw to be innocent and, understanding that you think as we do, and that you know something about him, we hope you may be able to help us.”
From this point Mr Dean began to pump and squeeze, and Trumps proved worthy of his name in the way he submitted to both processes. At last, when nothing more was to be got Mr Dean said, in a somewhat careless way, “You are acquainted, I believe, with old Mrs Morley—chimney-pot Liz, they call her—are you not?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve known her long. Knew her when I was footman in a family connected with the Brentwoods.”
“Oho!” thought Mr Dean with sudden surprise, for he began to smell more of his second rat, but he looked stolid; said nothing; did not move a muscle; merely nodded his head gently as if to say, go on.
“Now I know what you’re driving at,” continued Trumps, with a very knowing wink, “an’ I’ll help you. First place, my name ain’t Trumps.”
“I know that—it’s Rodgers,” said the detective.
“Whew! how d’ee know that?” exclaimed the thief in extreme surprise.
“We detectives know everything,” said Dean.
“Oh! then there’s no need for me to tell you anything more,” returned Trumps, alias Rodgers, with a grin.
“Well, I don’t know exactly everything,” returned Dean; “but I do know—at least I guess—that you were a footman in the service of Richard Weston, Esquire, of Weston Hall, in Kent; that the butler’s name was Sutherland, and that you and he were witnesses to Mr Weston’s will.”
“Just so. You’re right.”
“Now, are you aware,” said Mr Dean, “that Colonel Brentwood has lost, or is going to lose, his estate because a new will by Richard Weston has been found, leaving it to another man?”
“No, I did not know that, but that clears up to me the mystery of the will that I witnessed. You must know that when we were witnessing the will, Sutherland and me both noticed that it was eight pages of big paper, and that it seemed to have two beginnings—one bein’ in the middle. Master couldn’t see well, an’ was very weak at the time—so weak that when he came to the last page the pen fell out of his hand and only half of the last name was signed. Mr Lockhart said that would do, however, an’ we witnessed it. Master never completed the signature, for he took to his bed that very day, and no one ever saw him put pen to paper again. Sutherland often spoke to me about that, and wondered if a will with an imperfect signature would pass. Hows’ever, it was none of our business, so we forgot about it, and soon after Sutherland went to stay with a family in Pimlico as butler, where I think he is now. As for me—”
“Yes, I know,” said Dean significantly; “you need not recall that just now. Can you give me the name and address of the family in Pimlico?”
“Good; now then,” said Mr Dean after booking his information, “I’ll want to see you again, so don’t get yourself into scrapes, and keep your tongue quiet. Your missionary will help you, I have no doubt. Meanwhile, I will go and pay a visit to a certain Martha who lives on the other side of the river.”