Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Nineteen.The Shades lose several good Customers.It would be unfair to Samuel Shuckleford to say that he had no compunction whatever in deciding upon a course of action which he knew would involve the ruin of Reginald Cruden.He did not like it at all. It was a nuisance; it was a complication likely to hamper him. He wished his mother and sister would be less gushing in the friendships they made. What right had they to interfere with his business prospects by tacking themselves on to the family of a man who was afterwards to turn out a swindler?Yes, it was a nuisance; but for all that it must not be allowed to interfere with the course that lay before the rising lawyer. Business is business after all, and if Cruden is a swindler, whose fault is it if Cruden’s mother breaks her heart? Not S.S.’s, at any rate. But S.S.’s fault it would be if he made a mess of this “big job”! That was a reproach no one should lay at his door.Samuel may not have been quite the Solomon he was wont to estimate himself. Still, to do him justice once more, he displayed no little ability in tracing out the different frauds of the Select Agency Corporation and establishing Reginald’s guilt conclusively in his own mind.It all fitted in like a curious puzzle. His sudden mysterious departure from London—his change of name—the selection of Liverpool as headquarters—the distribution of the circulars among unsuspecting schoolmistresses in the south of England—the demand for money to be enclosed with the order—and the fiction of the dispatch of the goods from London. What else could it point to but a deliberate, deeply-laid scheme of fraud? The further Samuel went, the clearer it all appeared, and the less compunction he felt for running to earth such a scoundrel.But he was going to do nothing in a hurry. S.S. was not the man to dish himself by showing his cards till he was sure he had them all in his hand. Possibly Cruden was not alone in the swindle. He might have accomplices. Even his mother and brother—who can answer for the duplicity of human nature?—might know more of his operations than they professed to know. He might have confederates among his old companions at theRocket, or even among his old school acquaintances. Yes; there was plenty to go into before Samuel put down his foot, and who knew better how to go into it than S.S.?So he kept his own counsel, and, except for cautioning his mother and sister to “draw off” from the undesirable connection, and intimidating the maid-of-all-work at Number 6, Dull Street, by most horrible threats of the penalties of the law, to detain and give to him every letter bearing the Liverpool postmark which should from that time forward come to the house, no matter to whom addressed—for in his zeal it was easy to forget that by such a proceeding he was sailing uncommonly close to the wind himself—showed no sign of taking any immediate step either in this or any other matter.Had he been aware that one Sniff, of the Liverpool detective police, had some days ago arrived, by a series of independent and far more artistic investigations, at as much knowledge as he himself possessed of the doings of the Corporation, Samuel would probably have been content to make the most of the cards he held before the chance of using them at all had slipped by.It is doubtful, however, whether in any case he would have succeeded in forestalling the wary Mr Sniff. That gentleman had discovered in a few hours what it had taken Samuel days of patient grubbing to unearth. And his discoveries would have decidedly astonished the self-complacent little practitioner. He would have been astonished, for instance, to hear that the Liverpool post-office had received instructions from the Home Office to hand over every letter addressed to Cruden Reginald, 13, Shy Street, to the police. He would also have been astonished if he had known that a detective in plain clothes dined every evening at the Shades, near to the table occupied by Mr Durfy and his friends; that the hall-porter of Weaver’s Hotel was a representative of the police in disguise, and that representatives of the police had called on business at theRocketoffice, had brushed up against Blandford at street-corners, and had even taken the trouble to follow him—Samuel Shuckleford—here and there in his evening’s perambulations.Yes, small job as it was in Mr Sniff’s estimation, he knew the way to go about it, and had a very good notion what was the right scent to go on and what the wrong.The one thing that did put him out at first was Reginald’s absolutely truthful replies to all the pleasant clergyman’s questions. This really did bother Mr Sniff. For when a swindler is face to face with his victim the very last thing you expect of him is straightforward honesty. So when Reginald had talked about Weaver’s Hotel and Mr John Smith, and had mentioned the number of orders that had arrived, and the account of money that had accompanied them, and had even confided the amount of his own salary, Mr Sniff had closed one of his mental eyes and said to himself, “Yes; we know all about that.”But when it turned out that, so far from such statements being fabrications to delude him, they were simply true—when the letter Reginald had written to Mr Medlock that very evening lay in his hands and corroborated all he had said—when he himself followed the poor fellow an hour or two later on his errand of mercy, and stood beside him as he spent that precious sixpence overRobinson Crusoeand thePilgrim’s Progress, Mr Sniff did feel for a moment disconcerted.But, unusual as it was, he made the bold venture of jumping to the conviction of Reginald’s innocence; and that theory once started, everything went beautifully.On the evening following Mrs Cruden’s sudden illness, Mr Durfy strolled down in rather a disconsolate frame of mind towards the Shades.Since his expulsion from theRocketoffice things had not been going pleasantly with him. For a day or two he had deemed it expedient to keep in retirement, and when at last he did venture forth, in the vague hope of picking up some employment worthy of his talents, he took care to keep clear of the haunts of his former confederates, whom, after his last failure, he rather dreaded meeting.It had been during this period that he had made the acquaintance of Shuckleford, and the prospect of revenge which that intimacy opened to him was a welcome diversion to the monotony of his existence.But prospects of revenge do not fill empty stomachs, and Durfy at the end of a week began to discover that there might be an end even to the private resources of the late overseer of an evening newspaper and the part proprietor of an Agency Corporation. He was, in fact, getting hard up, and therefore, putting his pride in his empty pocket, he strolled down moodily to the Shades, determined at any rate to have a supper at somebody else’s expense.He had not reckoned without his host, for after about half an hour’s impatient kicking of his heels outside, Mr Medlock and Mr Shanklin appeared on the scene, arm in arm.They appeared by no means elated at seeing him, but that mattered very little to the hungry Durfy, who followed them into the supper-room and took his seat at the table beside them. If he had been possessed of any sensitiveness, it might have been wounded by the utter indifference, after the first signs of displeasure, they paid to his presence. They continued their conversation as though no third party had been near, and except that Mr Medlock nodded when the waiter said “For three?” seemed to see as little of him as Hamlet’s mother did of the Ghost.However, for the time being that nod of Mr Medlock’s was all Durfy particularly coveted. He was hungry. Time enough to stand on his dignity when the knife and fork had done their work.“Yes,” said Mr Shanklin, “time’s up to-day. I’ve told him where to find us. If he doesn’t, you must go your trip by yourself; I can safely stay and screw my man up.”“Think he will turn up?”“Can’t say. He seems to be flush enough of money still.”“Well, he can’t say you’ve not helped him to get rid of it.”“I’ve done my best,” said Mr Shanklin, laughing.“I shall be glad of a holiday. It’s as hard work sponging one fool as it is fleecing a couple of hundred sheep, eh?”“Well, the wool came off very easily, I must say. I reckon there’ll be a clean £500 to divide on the Liverpool business alone.”“Nice occupation that’ll be on the Boulogne steamer to-morrow,” said Mr Shanklin. “Dear me, I hope it won’t be rough, I’m such a bad sailor!”“Then, of course,” said Mr Medlock, “there’ll be your little takings to add to that. Your working expenses can’t have been much.”Mr Shanklin laughed again.“No. I’ve done without circulars and a salaried secretary. By the way, do you fancy any one smells anything wrong up in the North yet?”“Bless you, no. The fellow’s pretty near starving, and yet he sent me up a stray £2 he received the other day. It’s as good as a play to read the letters he sends me up about getting the orders executed in strict rotation, as entered in a beautiful register he kept, and which I borrowed, my boy. Ha! ha! He wants me to run down to Liverpool, he says, as he’s not quite satisfied with his position there. Ho! ho! And he’d like a little money on account, as he’s had to buy stamps and coals and all that sort of thing out of his own thirteen shillings a week. It’s enough to make one die of laughing, isn’t it?”“It is funny,” said Mr Shanklin. “But you’re quite right to be on the safe side and start to-morrow. You did everything in his name, I suppose—took the office, ordered the printing, and all that sort of thing?”“Oh yes, I took care of that. My name or yours was never mentioned, except mine on the dummy list of directors. That won’t hurt.”“Well, the Corporation’s had a short life and a merry one; and your precious secretary’s likely to have a merry Christmas after it all—unless you’d like to go down and spend it with him, Durfy,” added Mr Shanklin, taking notice for the first time of the presence of their visitor.Durfy replied by a scowl.“I shall be far enough away by then,” said he.“Why, where are you going?”“I’m going with you, to be sure,” said he, doggedly.Messrs Medlock and Shanklin greeted this announcement with a laugh of genuine amusement.“I’m glad you told us,” said Mr Shanklin. “We should have forgotten to take a ticket for you.”“You may grin,” said Durfy. “I’m going, for all that.”“You’re a bigger fool even than you look,” said Mr Medlock, “to think so. You can consider yourself lucky to get a supper out of us this last night.”“You forget I can make it precious awkward for you if I like,” growled Durfy.“Awkward!You’vea right to be a judge of what’s awkward after the neat way you’ve managed things,” sneered Shanklin. “It takes you all your time to make things awkward for yourself, let alone troubling about us.”Durfy always hated when Mr Shanklin alluded to his blunders, and he scowled all the more viciously now because he felt that, after all, he could do little against his two patrons which would not recoil with twofold violence on his own head. No, he had better confine his reprisals to the Crudens by Mr Shuckleford’s assistance, and meanwhile make what he could out of these ungrateful sharpers.“If you don’t want me with you,” said he, “you’ll have to make it worth my while to stay away, that’s all. You’d think it a fine joke if you found yourself in the police-station instead of the railway-station to-morrow morning, wouldn’t you?”And Mr Durfy’s face actually relaxed into a smile at this flash of pleasantry.“You’d find it past a joke if you found yourself neck-and-crop in the gutter in two minutes,” said Mr Shanklin, in a rage, “as you will do if you don’t take care.”“I’ll take care for fifty pounds,” said Durfy. “It’s precious little share I’ve had out of the business, and if you want me mum, that’s what will do it. There, I could tell you a thing or two already; you don’t know—”“Tush! Durfy, you’re a born ass! Come round to my hotel to-morrow at eight, and I’ll see what I can do for you,” said Mr Medlock.Durfy knew how to value such promises, and did not look by any means jubilant at the prospect held out. However, at this moment Blandford and Pillans entered the supper-room, and his hosts had something better to think about than him.He was hustled from his place to make room for the new guests, and surlily retired to a neighbouring table, where, if he could not hear all that was said, he could at least see all that went on.“Hullo!” said Shanklin gaily, “here’s a nice time to turn up, dear boys. Medlock and I have nearly done supper.”“Couldn’t help. We’ve been to the theatre, haven’t we, Pillans?” said Blandford, who appeared already to be rather the worse for drink.“I have.You’vebeen in the bar most of the time,” said Pillans.“Ha! ha! I was told Bland was studying for the Bar. I do like application,” said Mr Medlock.Blandford seemed to regard this as a compliment, and sitting down at the table, told the waiter to bring a bottle of champagne and some more glasses.“Well,” he said, with a simper, “what I say I’ll do, I’ll do. I said I’d turn up here and pay you that bill, Shanklin, and I have turned up, haven’t I?”“Upon my honour, I’d almost forgotten that bill,” said Mr Shanklin, who had thought of little else for the last week. “It’s not inconvenient, I hope?”Blandford laughed stupidly.“Sorry if a trifle like that was inconvenient,” said he, with all the languor of a millionaire. “Forget what it was about. Some take in, I’ll swear. Never mind, a debt’s a debt, and here goes. How much is it?”“Fifty,” said Mr Shanklin.Blandford produced a pocket-book with a flourish, and took from it a handful of notes that made Durfy’s eyes, as he sat at the distant table, gleam. The half-tipsy spendthrift was almost too muddled to count them correctly, but finally he succeeded in extracting five ten-pound notes from the bundle, which he tossed to Shanklin.“Thanks, very much,” said that gentleman, putting them in his pocket. “I find I’ve left your bill at home, but I’ll send it round to you in the morning.”“Oh, all serene!” said Blandford, putting his pocketbook back into his pocket. “Have another bottle of cham—do—just to celebrate—settling—old scores. Hullo, where are you, Pillans?”Pillans had gone off to play billiards with Mr Medlock, so Blandford and Mr Shanklin attacked the bottle themselves. When it was done, the former rose unsteadily, and, bidding his friend good-night, said he would go home, as he’d got a headache. Which was about as true an observation as man ever uttered.“Good-night—old—feller,” said he; “see you to-morrow.”And he staggered out of the place, assisted to the door by Mr Shanklin, who, after an affectionate farewell, sauntered to the billiard-room, where Mr Medlock had already won a five-pound note from the ingenuous Mr Pillans.“Your friend’s in good spirits to-night,” said Mr Shanklin. “Capital fellow is Bland.”“So he is,” said Pillans.“Capital fellow, with plenty of capital, eh?” said Mr Medlock; “your shoot, Pillans, and I don’t mind going a sov. with you on the cannon.”Of course Pillans lost his sovereign, as he did several others before the game was over. Then, feeling he had had enough enjoyment for one evening, he said good-bye and followed his friend home.But some one else had already followed his friend home.Durfy, in whose bosom the glimpse of that well-lined pocket-book had roused unusual interest, found himself ready to go home a very few moments after Blandford had quitted the Shades. It may have been only coincidence, or it may have been idle curiosity to see if the tipsy lad could find his way home without an accident, or it may have been a laudable determination that, no one should take advantage of his helpless condition to deprive him of that comfortable pocket-book. Whatever it was, Durfy followed the reeling figure along the pavement as it threaded its way westward from the Shades.Blandford may have had reason enough left to tell him that it would be better for his headache to walk in the night air than to take a cab, and Mr Durfy highly approved of the decision. He was able without difficulty or obtrusiveness to follow his man at a few yards’ distance, and even give proof of his solicitude by an occasional steadying hand on his arm.Presently the wanderer turned out of the crowded thoroughfare up a by-street, where he had the pavement more to himself. Indeed, except for a few stragglers hurrying home from theatres or concerts, he encountered no one; and as he penetrated farther beyond the region of public houses and tobacco-shops into the serener realms of offices and chambers, and beyond that into the solitude of a West-end square, not a footstep save his own and that of his escort broke the midnight silence.Durfy’s heart beat fast, for he had a heart to beat on occasions like this. A hundred chances on which he had never calculated suddenly presented themselves. What if some one might be peering out into the night from one of the black windows of those silent houses? Suppose some motionless policeman under the shadow of a wall were near enough to see and hear! Suppose the cool night air had already done its work and sobered the wayfarer enough to render him obstinate or even dangerous! He seemed to walk more steadily. If anything was to be done, every moment was of consequence. And the risk?The vision of that pocket-book and the crisp white notes flashed across Durfy’s memory by way of answer.Yes, to Durfy, the outcast, the dupe, the baffled adventurer, the risk was worth running.He quickened his step and opened the blade of the penknife in his pocket as he did so. Not that he meant to use it, but in case—Faugh! the fellow was staggering as helplessly as ever! He never even heeded the pursuing steps, but reeled on, muttering to himself, now close to the palings, now on the kerb, his hat back on his head and the cigar between his lips not even alight.Durfy crept silently behind, and with a sudden dash locked one arm tightly round his victim’s neck, while with the other he made a swift dive at the pocket where lay the coveted treasure.It was all so quickly done that before Blandford could exclaim or even gasp the pocket-book was in the thief’s hands. Then as the arm round his neck was relaxed, he faced round, terribly sobered, and made a wild spring at his assailant.“Thief!” he shouted, making the quiet square ring and ring again with the echo of that word.His hand was upon Durfy’s collar, so fiercely that nothing but a hand-to-hand struggle could release its grip; unless—Durfy’s hand dropped to his pocket. There was a flash and a scream, and next moment Blandford was clinging, groaning, to the railings of the square, while Durfy’s footsteps died away in the gloomy mazes of a network of back streets.When Pillans got home to his lodgings that night he found his comrade in bed with a severe wound in the shoulder, unable to give any account of himself but that he had been first garotted, then robbed, and finally stabbed, on his way home from the Shades.Mr Durfy did not present himself at Mr Medlock’s hotel at the appointed hour next morning.Nor, although it was a fine calm day, and their luggage was all packed up and labelled, did Mr Medlock and his friend Mr Shanklin succeed in making their promised trip across the Channel. A deputation of police awaited them on the Victoria platform, and completely disconcerted their arrangements by taking them in a cab to the nearest police-station on a charge of fraud and conspiracy.

It would be unfair to Samuel Shuckleford to say that he had no compunction whatever in deciding upon a course of action which he knew would involve the ruin of Reginald Cruden.

He did not like it at all. It was a nuisance; it was a complication likely to hamper him. He wished his mother and sister would be less gushing in the friendships they made. What right had they to interfere with his business prospects by tacking themselves on to the family of a man who was afterwards to turn out a swindler?

Yes, it was a nuisance; but for all that it must not be allowed to interfere with the course that lay before the rising lawyer. Business is business after all, and if Cruden is a swindler, whose fault is it if Cruden’s mother breaks her heart? Not S.S.’s, at any rate. But S.S.’s fault it would be if he made a mess of this “big job”! That was a reproach no one should lay at his door.

Samuel may not have been quite the Solomon he was wont to estimate himself. Still, to do him justice once more, he displayed no little ability in tracing out the different frauds of the Select Agency Corporation and establishing Reginald’s guilt conclusively in his own mind.

It all fitted in like a curious puzzle. His sudden mysterious departure from London—his change of name—the selection of Liverpool as headquarters—the distribution of the circulars among unsuspecting schoolmistresses in the south of England—the demand for money to be enclosed with the order—and the fiction of the dispatch of the goods from London. What else could it point to but a deliberate, deeply-laid scheme of fraud? The further Samuel went, the clearer it all appeared, and the less compunction he felt for running to earth such a scoundrel.

But he was going to do nothing in a hurry. S.S. was not the man to dish himself by showing his cards till he was sure he had them all in his hand. Possibly Cruden was not alone in the swindle. He might have accomplices. Even his mother and brother—who can answer for the duplicity of human nature?—might know more of his operations than they professed to know. He might have confederates among his old companions at theRocket, or even among his old school acquaintances. Yes; there was plenty to go into before Samuel put down his foot, and who knew better how to go into it than S.S.?

So he kept his own counsel, and, except for cautioning his mother and sister to “draw off” from the undesirable connection, and intimidating the maid-of-all-work at Number 6, Dull Street, by most horrible threats of the penalties of the law, to detain and give to him every letter bearing the Liverpool postmark which should from that time forward come to the house, no matter to whom addressed—for in his zeal it was easy to forget that by such a proceeding he was sailing uncommonly close to the wind himself—showed no sign of taking any immediate step either in this or any other matter.

Had he been aware that one Sniff, of the Liverpool detective police, had some days ago arrived, by a series of independent and far more artistic investigations, at as much knowledge as he himself possessed of the doings of the Corporation, Samuel would probably have been content to make the most of the cards he held before the chance of using them at all had slipped by.

It is doubtful, however, whether in any case he would have succeeded in forestalling the wary Mr Sniff. That gentleman had discovered in a few hours what it had taken Samuel days of patient grubbing to unearth. And his discoveries would have decidedly astonished the self-complacent little practitioner. He would have been astonished, for instance, to hear that the Liverpool post-office had received instructions from the Home Office to hand over every letter addressed to Cruden Reginald, 13, Shy Street, to the police. He would also have been astonished if he had known that a detective in plain clothes dined every evening at the Shades, near to the table occupied by Mr Durfy and his friends; that the hall-porter of Weaver’s Hotel was a representative of the police in disguise, and that representatives of the police had called on business at theRocketoffice, had brushed up against Blandford at street-corners, and had even taken the trouble to follow him—Samuel Shuckleford—here and there in his evening’s perambulations.

Yes, small job as it was in Mr Sniff’s estimation, he knew the way to go about it, and had a very good notion what was the right scent to go on and what the wrong.

The one thing that did put him out at first was Reginald’s absolutely truthful replies to all the pleasant clergyman’s questions. This really did bother Mr Sniff. For when a swindler is face to face with his victim the very last thing you expect of him is straightforward honesty. So when Reginald had talked about Weaver’s Hotel and Mr John Smith, and had mentioned the number of orders that had arrived, and the account of money that had accompanied them, and had even confided the amount of his own salary, Mr Sniff had closed one of his mental eyes and said to himself, “Yes; we know all about that.”

But when it turned out that, so far from such statements being fabrications to delude him, they were simply true—when the letter Reginald had written to Mr Medlock that very evening lay in his hands and corroborated all he had said—when he himself followed the poor fellow an hour or two later on his errand of mercy, and stood beside him as he spent that precious sixpence overRobinson Crusoeand thePilgrim’s Progress, Mr Sniff did feel for a moment disconcerted.

But, unusual as it was, he made the bold venture of jumping to the conviction of Reginald’s innocence; and that theory once started, everything went beautifully.

On the evening following Mrs Cruden’s sudden illness, Mr Durfy strolled down in rather a disconsolate frame of mind towards the Shades.

Since his expulsion from theRocketoffice things had not been going pleasantly with him. For a day or two he had deemed it expedient to keep in retirement, and when at last he did venture forth, in the vague hope of picking up some employment worthy of his talents, he took care to keep clear of the haunts of his former confederates, whom, after his last failure, he rather dreaded meeting.

It had been during this period that he had made the acquaintance of Shuckleford, and the prospect of revenge which that intimacy opened to him was a welcome diversion to the monotony of his existence.

But prospects of revenge do not fill empty stomachs, and Durfy at the end of a week began to discover that there might be an end even to the private resources of the late overseer of an evening newspaper and the part proprietor of an Agency Corporation. He was, in fact, getting hard up, and therefore, putting his pride in his empty pocket, he strolled down moodily to the Shades, determined at any rate to have a supper at somebody else’s expense.

He had not reckoned without his host, for after about half an hour’s impatient kicking of his heels outside, Mr Medlock and Mr Shanklin appeared on the scene, arm in arm.

They appeared by no means elated at seeing him, but that mattered very little to the hungry Durfy, who followed them into the supper-room and took his seat at the table beside them. If he had been possessed of any sensitiveness, it might have been wounded by the utter indifference, after the first signs of displeasure, they paid to his presence. They continued their conversation as though no third party had been near, and except that Mr Medlock nodded when the waiter said “For three?” seemed to see as little of him as Hamlet’s mother did of the Ghost.

However, for the time being that nod of Mr Medlock’s was all Durfy particularly coveted. He was hungry. Time enough to stand on his dignity when the knife and fork had done their work.

“Yes,” said Mr Shanklin, “time’s up to-day. I’ve told him where to find us. If he doesn’t, you must go your trip by yourself; I can safely stay and screw my man up.”

“Think he will turn up?”

“Can’t say. He seems to be flush enough of money still.”

“Well, he can’t say you’ve not helped him to get rid of it.”

“I’ve done my best,” said Mr Shanklin, laughing.

“I shall be glad of a holiday. It’s as hard work sponging one fool as it is fleecing a couple of hundred sheep, eh?”

“Well, the wool came off very easily, I must say. I reckon there’ll be a clean £500 to divide on the Liverpool business alone.”

“Nice occupation that’ll be on the Boulogne steamer to-morrow,” said Mr Shanklin. “Dear me, I hope it won’t be rough, I’m such a bad sailor!”

“Then, of course,” said Mr Medlock, “there’ll be your little takings to add to that. Your working expenses can’t have been much.”

Mr Shanklin laughed again.

“No. I’ve done without circulars and a salaried secretary. By the way, do you fancy any one smells anything wrong up in the North yet?”

“Bless you, no. The fellow’s pretty near starving, and yet he sent me up a stray £2 he received the other day. It’s as good as a play to read the letters he sends me up about getting the orders executed in strict rotation, as entered in a beautiful register he kept, and which I borrowed, my boy. Ha! ha! He wants me to run down to Liverpool, he says, as he’s not quite satisfied with his position there. Ho! ho! And he’d like a little money on account, as he’s had to buy stamps and coals and all that sort of thing out of his own thirteen shillings a week. It’s enough to make one die of laughing, isn’t it?”

“It is funny,” said Mr Shanklin. “But you’re quite right to be on the safe side and start to-morrow. You did everything in his name, I suppose—took the office, ordered the printing, and all that sort of thing?”

“Oh yes, I took care of that. My name or yours was never mentioned, except mine on the dummy list of directors. That won’t hurt.”

“Well, the Corporation’s had a short life and a merry one; and your precious secretary’s likely to have a merry Christmas after it all—unless you’d like to go down and spend it with him, Durfy,” added Mr Shanklin, taking notice for the first time of the presence of their visitor.

Durfy replied by a scowl.

“I shall be far enough away by then,” said he.

“Why, where are you going?”

“I’m going with you, to be sure,” said he, doggedly.

Messrs Medlock and Shanklin greeted this announcement with a laugh of genuine amusement.

“I’m glad you told us,” said Mr Shanklin. “We should have forgotten to take a ticket for you.”

“You may grin,” said Durfy. “I’m going, for all that.”

“You’re a bigger fool even than you look,” said Mr Medlock, “to think so. You can consider yourself lucky to get a supper out of us this last night.”

“You forget I can make it precious awkward for you if I like,” growled Durfy.

“Awkward!You’vea right to be a judge of what’s awkward after the neat way you’ve managed things,” sneered Shanklin. “It takes you all your time to make things awkward for yourself, let alone troubling about us.”

Durfy always hated when Mr Shanklin alluded to his blunders, and he scowled all the more viciously now because he felt that, after all, he could do little against his two patrons which would not recoil with twofold violence on his own head. No, he had better confine his reprisals to the Crudens by Mr Shuckleford’s assistance, and meanwhile make what he could out of these ungrateful sharpers.

“If you don’t want me with you,” said he, “you’ll have to make it worth my while to stay away, that’s all. You’d think it a fine joke if you found yourself in the police-station instead of the railway-station to-morrow morning, wouldn’t you?”

And Mr Durfy’s face actually relaxed into a smile at this flash of pleasantry.

“You’d find it past a joke if you found yourself neck-and-crop in the gutter in two minutes,” said Mr Shanklin, in a rage, “as you will do if you don’t take care.”

“I’ll take care for fifty pounds,” said Durfy. “It’s precious little share I’ve had out of the business, and if you want me mum, that’s what will do it. There, I could tell you a thing or two already; you don’t know—”

“Tush! Durfy, you’re a born ass! Come round to my hotel to-morrow at eight, and I’ll see what I can do for you,” said Mr Medlock.

Durfy knew how to value such promises, and did not look by any means jubilant at the prospect held out. However, at this moment Blandford and Pillans entered the supper-room, and his hosts had something better to think about than him.

He was hustled from his place to make room for the new guests, and surlily retired to a neighbouring table, where, if he could not hear all that was said, he could at least see all that went on.

“Hullo!” said Shanklin gaily, “here’s a nice time to turn up, dear boys. Medlock and I have nearly done supper.”

“Couldn’t help. We’ve been to the theatre, haven’t we, Pillans?” said Blandford, who appeared already to be rather the worse for drink.

“I have.You’vebeen in the bar most of the time,” said Pillans.

“Ha! ha! I was told Bland was studying for the Bar. I do like application,” said Mr Medlock.

Blandford seemed to regard this as a compliment, and sitting down at the table, told the waiter to bring a bottle of champagne and some more glasses.

“Well,” he said, with a simper, “what I say I’ll do, I’ll do. I said I’d turn up here and pay you that bill, Shanklin, and I have turned up, haven’t I?”

“Upon my honour, I’d almost forgotten that bill,” said Mr Shanklin, who had thought of little else for the last week. “It’s not inconvenient, I hope?”

Blandford laughed stupidly.

“Sorry if a trifle like that was inconvenient,” said he, with all the languor of a millionaire. “Forget what it was about. Some take in, I’ll swear. Never mind, a debt’s a debt, and here goes. How much is it?”

“Fifty,” said Mr Shanklin.

Blandford produced a pocket-book with a flourish, and took from it a handful of notes that made Durfy’s eyes, as he sat at the distant table, gleam. The half-tipsy spendthrift was almost too muddled to count them correctly, but finally he succeeded in extracting five ten-pound notes from the bundle, which he tossed to Shanklin.

“Thanks, very much,” said that gentleman, putting them in his pocket. “I find I’ve left your bill at home, but I’ll send it round to you in the morning.”

“Oh, all serene!” said Blandford, putting his pocketbook back into his pocket. “Have another bottle of cham—do—just to celebrate—settling—old scores. Hullo, where are you, Pillans?”

Pillans had gone off to play billiards with Mr Medlock, so Blandford and Mr Shanklin attacked the bottle themselves. When it was done, the former rose unsteadily, and, bidding his friend good-night, said he would go home, as he’d got a headache. Which was about as true an observation as man ever uttered.

“Good-night—old—feller,” said he; “see you to-morrow.”

And he staggered out of the place, assisted to the door by Mr Shanklin, who, after an affectionate farewell, sauntered to the billiard-room, where Mr Medlock had already won a five-pound note from the ingenuous Mr Pillans.

“Your friend’s in good spirits to-night,” said Mr Shanklin. “Capital fellow is Bland.”

“So he is,” said Pillans.

“Capital fellow, with plenty of capital, eh?” said Mr Medlock; “your shoot, Pillans, and I don’t mind going a sov. with you on the cannon.”

Of course Pillans lost his sovereign, as he did several others before the game was over. Then, feeling he had had enough enjoyment for one evening, he said good-bye and followed his friend home.

But some one else had already followed his friend home.

Durfy, in whose bosom the glimpse of that well-lined pocket-book had roused unusual interest, found himself ready to go home a very few moments after Blandford had quitted the Shades. It may have been only coincidence, or it may have been idle curiosity to see if the tipsy lad could find his way home without an accident, or it may have been a laudable determination that, no one should take advantage of his helpless condition to deprive him of that comfortable pocket-book. Whatever it was, Durfy followed the reeling figure along the pavement as it threaded its way westward from the Shades.

Blandford may have had reason enough left to tell him that it would be better for his headache to walk in the night air than to take a cab, and Mr Durfy highly approved of the decision. He was able without difficulty or obtrusiveness to follow his man at a few yards’ distance, and even give proof of his solicitude by an occasional steadying hand on his arm.

Presently the wanderer turned out of the crowded thoroughfare up a by-street, where he had the pavement more to himself. Indeed, except for a few stragglers hurrying home from theatres or concerts, he encountered no one; and as he penetrated farther beyond the region of public houses and tobacco-shops into the serener realms of offices and chambers, and beyond that into the solitude of a West-end square, not a footstep save his own and that of his escort broke the midnight silence.

Durfy’s heart beat fast, for he had a heart to beat on occasions like this. A hundred chances on which he had never calculated suddenly presented themselves. What if some one might be peering out into the night from one of the black windows of those silent houses? Suppose some motionless policeman under the shadow of a wall were near enough to see and hear! Suppose the cool night air had already done its work and sobered the wayfarer enough to render him obstinate or even dangerous! He seemed to walk more steadily. If anything was to be done, every moment was of consequence. And the risk?

The vision of that pocket-book and the crisp white notes flashed across Durfy’s memory by way of answer.

Yes, to Durfy, the outcast, the dupe, the baffled adventurer, the risk was worth running.

He quickened his step and opened the blade of the penknife in his pocket as he did so. Not that he meant to use it, but in case—

Faugh! the fellow was staggering as helplessly as ever! He never even heeded the pursuing steps, but reeled on, muttering to himself, now close to the palings, now on the kerb, his hat back on his head and the cigar between his lips not even alight.

Durfy crept silently behind, and with a sudden dash locked one arm tightly round his victim’s neck, while with the other he made a swift dive at the pocket where lay the coveted treasure.

It was all so quickly done that before Blandford could exclaim or even gasp the pocket-book was in the thief’s hands. Then as the arm round his neck was relaxed, he faced round, terribly sobered, and made a wild spring at his assailant.

“Thief!” he shouted, making the quiet square ring and ring again with the echo of that word.

His hand was upon Durfy’s collar, so fiercely that nothing but a hand-to-hand struggle could release its grip; unless—

Durfy’s hand dropped to his pocket. There was a flash and a scream, and next moment Blandford was clinging, groaning, to the railings of the square, while Durfy’s footsteps died away in the gloomy mazes of a network of back streets.

When Pillans got home to his lodgings that night he found his comrade in bed with a severe wound in the shoulder, unable to give any account of himself but that he had been first garotted, then robbed, and finally stabbed, on his way home from the Shades.

Mr Durfy did not present himself at Mr Medlock’s hotel at the appointed hour next morning.

Nor, although it was a fine calm day, and their luggage was all packed up and labelled, did Mr Medlock and his friend Mr Shanklin succeed in making their promised trip across the Channel. A deputation of police awaited them on the Victoria platform, and completely disconcerted their arrangements by taking them in a cab to the nearest police-station on a charge of fraud and conspiracy.

Chapter Twenty.Samuel Shuckleford finds Virtue its own Reward.It was just as well for Horace’s peace of mind, during his time of anxious watching, that two short paragraphs in the morning papers of the following day escaped his observation.“At — police-court yesterday, two men named Medlock and Shanklin were brought before the magistrate on various charges of fraud connected with sham companies in different parts of the country. After some formal evidence they were remanded for a week, bail being refused.”“A youth named Reginald was yesterday charged at Liverpool with conspiracy to defraud by means of fictitious circulars addressed in the name of a trading company. He was remanded for three days without bail, pending inquiries.”It so happened that it fell to Booms’s lot to cut the latter paragraph out. And as he was barely aware of the existence of Cruden’s brother, and in no case would have recognised him by his assumed name, the news, even if he read it, could have conveyed no intelligence to his mind.Horace certainly did not read it. Even when he had nothing better to do, he always regarded newspapers as a discipline not to be meddled with out of office hours. And just now, with his mother lying in a critical condition, and with no news day after day of Reginald, he had more serious food for reflection than the idle gossip of a newspaper.The only other person in London whom the news could have interested was Samuel Shuckleford. But as he was that morning riding blithely in the train to Liverpool, reading theLaw Times, and flattering himself he would soon make the public “sit up” to a recognition of his astuteness, he saw nothing of them.He found himself on the Liverpool platform just where, scarcely three months ago, Reginald had found himself that dreary afternoon of his arrival. But, unlike Reginald, it cost the young ornament of the law not a moment’s hesitation as to whether he should take a cab or not to his destination. If only the cabman knew whom he had the honour to carry, how he would touch up his horse!“Shy Street. Put me down at the corner,” said Samuel, swinging himself into the hansom.So this was Liverpool. He had never been there before, and consequently it was not to be wondered at that the crowds jostling by on the pavement, without so much as a glance in his direction, neither knew him nor had heard of him. He could forgive them, and smiled to think how different it would be in a few days, when all the world would point at him as he drove back to the station, and say,—“There goes Shuckleford, the clever lawyer, who first exposed the Select Agency Corporation, don’t you know?”Don’t you know? What a question to ask respecting S.S.!At the corner of Shy Street he alighted, and sauntered gently down the street, keeping a sharp look-out on both sides of him, without appearing to regard anything but the pavement.Humph! The odd numbers were on the left side, so S.S. would walk on the right, and get a good survey of Number 13 from a modest distance.What, thought he, would the precious Cruden Reginald (ha! ha!) think if he knew who was walking down the other side of the road?Ah! he was getting near it now. Here was 17, a baker’s; 15, a greengrocer’s; and 13—eh? a chemist’s? Ah, yes, he noticed that the first floors of all the shops were let for offices, and the first floor of the chemist’s shop was the place he wanted.He could see through the grimy window the top rail of a chair-back and the corner of a table, on which stood an inkpot and a tattered directory. No occupant of the room was visible; doubtless he found it prudent to keep away from the window; or he might possibly have seen the figure of S.S. advancing down the street.Samuel crossed over. No name was on the chemist’s side-door, but it stood ajar, and he pushed it open and peered up the gloomy staircase. There was a name on the door at the top, so he crept stealthily up the stairs to decipher the word “Medlock” in dim characters on the plate.“Medlock!” Ho! ho! He was getting warm now. Not only was his man going about with his own name turned inside out, but he had the effrontery to stick up the name of one of his own directors on his door!Samuel knew Mr Medlock—whom didn’t he know? He had been introduced to him by Durfy, and had supped with him once at the Shades. A nice, pleasant-spoken gentleman, who had made some very complimentary little speeches about Samuel in Samuel’s own hearing. This was the man whose name Cruden had borrowed for his door-plate, in the hope of further mystifying the public as to his own personality!Ah! ah! He might mystify the public, but there was one whose initials were S.S. whom it would need a cleverer cheat than Cruden Reginald, Esquire, to mystify!He listened for a moment at the door, and, hearing no sound, made bold to enter. Had Reginald been in, he was prepared to represent that, being on a chance visit to Liverpool, he had been unable to pass the door of an old neighbour without giving him a friendly call.But he was not put to this shift, for the room was empty. “Gone out to his dinner, I suppose,” said Sam to himself. “Well, I’ll take a good look round while I am here.”Which he proceeded to do, much to his own satisfaction, but very little to his information, for scarcely a torn-up envelope was to be found to reward the spy for his trouble. The only thing that did attract his attention as likely to be remotely useful was a fragment of a pink paper with the letters “gerskin” on it—a relic Love would have recognised as part of the cover of an old favourite, but which to the inquiring mind of the lawyer appeared to be a document worth impounding in the interests of justice.As nobody appeared after the lapse of half an hour, Samuel considered his time was being wasted, and therefore withdrew. He looked into the chemist’s shop as he went down, but the chemist was not at home; so he strolled into the greengrocer’s next door, and bought an orange, which he proceeded to consume, making himself meanwhile cunningly agreeable to the lady who presided over the establishment.“Fine Christmas weather,” said he, looking up in the middle of a prolonged suck.“Yes,” said the lady.“Plenty of customers?”She shrugged her shoulders. Sam might interpret that as he liked.“I suppose you supply the Corporation next door?” said Sam, digging his countenance once more into the orange.“Eh?” said the lady.“The—what’s-his-name?—Mr Reginald—I suppose he deals with you?”“He did, if you want to know.”“I thought so—a friend of mine, you know.”“Oh, is he?” said the lady, finding words at last, and bridling up in a way that astonished her cross-examiner; “then the sooner you go and walk off after him the better!”“Oh, very well,” said Sam. “He’s not at home just now, though.”“Oh, ain’t he?” said the woman, “that’s funny!”“Why, what do you mean?”“Oh, nothing—what should I? If you’re a friend of his, you’d better take yourself off! That’s what I mean.”“All right; no offence, old lady. Perhaps he’s come in by this time.”The lady laughed disagreeably. The Corporation had bought coals of her three months ago.Samuel returned to the office, but it was as deserted as ever. He therefore resolved to try what his blandishments could do with the chemist’s boy downstairs in the way of obtaining information.That young gentleman, as the reader will remember, had been a bosom friend of Love in his day, and was animated to some extent by the spirit of his comrade.“Hullo, my man!” said Sam, walking into the shop. “Governor’s out, then?”“Yus.”“Got any lollipops in those bottles?”“Yus.”“Any brandy-balls?”“No.”“Any acid-drops?”“Yus.”“I’ll take a penn’orth, then. I suppose you don’t know when the gentleman upstairs will be back?”The boy stopped short in his occupation and stared at Sam.“What gentleman?” he asked.“Mr Medlock, is it? or Reginald, or some name like that?”“Oh yus, I do!” said the boy, with a grin.“When?”“Six months all but a day. That’s what I reckon.”“Six months! Has he gone away, then?”“Oh no—he was took off.”“Took off—you don’t mean to say he’s dead?”“Oh, ain’t you a rum ’un! As if you didn’t know he’s been beaked.”“Beaked! what’s that?”The boy looked disgusted at the fellow’s obtuseness.“’Ad up in the p’lice-court, of course. What else could I mean?”Samuel jumped off his stool as if he had been electrified.“What do you say?” said he, gaping wildly at the boy.“Go on; if you’re deaf, it’s no use talkin’ to you. He’s been up in the p’lice-court,” said he, raising his voice to a shout. “Yesterday—there you are—and there’s your drops, and you ain’t give me the penny for them.”Samuel threw down the penny, and, too excited to take up the drops, dashed out into the street.What! yesterday—while he was lounging about town, fancying he had the game all to himself. Was ever luck like his?He rushed to a shop and bought a morning paper. There, sure enough, was a short notice of yesterday’s proceedings, and you might have knocked S.S. down with a feather as he read it.“Anyhow,” said he to himself, crumpling up the paper in sheer vexation, “they won’t be able to do without me, I’ll take care of that. I can tell them all about it—but catch me doing it now, the snobs, unless they’re civil.”With which valiant determination he swung himself into another cab, and ordered the man to drive to the head police-station.The inspector was not in, but his second-in-command was, and to him, much against his will, Samuel had to explain his business.“Well, what do you know about the prisoner?” asked the official.“Oh, plenty. You’d better subpoena me for the next examination,” said Sam.The sub-inspector smiled.“You’re like all the rest of them,” he said, “think you know all about it. Come, let’s hear what you’ve got to say, young fellow; there’s plenty of work to be done here, I can tell you, without dawdling our time.”“Thank you,” said Sam, “I’d sooner tell the magistrate.”“Go and tell the magistrate then!” shouted the official, “and don’t stay blocking up the room here.”This was not what Samuel expected. There was little chance of the magistrate being more impressed with his importance than a sub-inspector. So he felt the only thing for it was to bring himself to the unpleasant task of showing his cards after all.“The fact is—” he began.“If you’re going to say what you know about the case, I’ll listen to you,” said the sub-inspector, interrupting him, “if not, go and talk in the street.”“I am going to say what I know,” said the crestfallen Sam.“Very well. It’s a pity you couldn’t do it at first,” said the official, getting up and standing with his back turned, warming his hands at the fire.Under these depressing circumstances Samuel began his story, showing his weakest cards first, and saving up his trumps as long as he could. The sub-inspector listened to him impassively, rubbing his hands, and warming first one toe and then the other in the fender.At length it was all finished, and he turned round.“That’s all you know?”“Yes—at present—I expect to discover more, though, in a day or two.”“Just write your name and address on one of those envelopes,” said the sub-inspector, pointing to a stationery case on his table.Sam obeyed, and handed the address to the official.“Very well,” said the latter, folding the paper up without looking at it, and putting it into his waistcoat pocket, “if we want you, we’ll fetch you.”“I suppose I had better put my statement down in writing?” said Samuel, making a last effort at pomposity.“Can if you like,” said the sub-inspector, yawning, “when you’ve nothing else to do.”And he ended the conference by calling to a constable outside to tell 190 C he might come in.Grievously crestfallen, Samuel withdrew, bemoaning the hour when he first heard the name of Cruden, and was fool enough to dirty his hands with a “big job.” What else was he to expect when once these official snobs took a thing up? Of course they would put every obstacle and humiliation in the way of an outsider that jealousy could suggest. He had very little doubt that this sub-inspector, the moment his back was turned, would sit down and make notes of his information, and then take all the credit of it to himself. Never mind, they were bound to want him when the trial came on, and wouldn’t he just show up their tricks! Oh no! S.S. wasn’t going to be flouted and snubbed for nothing, he could tell them, and so they’d discover.It was no use staying in Liverpool, that was clear. The Liverpool police should have the pleasure of fetching him all the way from London when they wanted him; and possibly, with Durfy’s aid, he might succeed in getting hold of another trump-card meanwhile to turn up when they least expected it.The journey south next day was less blithe and less occupied with theLaw Timesthan the journey north had been. But as he got farther away from inhospitable Liverpool his spirits revived, and before London was reached he was once more in imagination “the clever lawyer, Shuckleford, don’t you know, who gave the Liverpool police a slap in the face over that Agency Corporation business, don’t you know.”Two “don’t you knows” this time!On reaching home, any natural joy he might be expected to feel on being restored to the bosom of his family was damped by the discovery that his mother was that very moment in next door relieving guard with Miss Crisp at the bedside of Mrs Cruden.“What business has she to do it when I told her not?” demanded Sam wrathfully of his sister.“She’s not bound to obey you,” said Jemima; “she’s your mother.”“She is. And a nice respectable mother, too, to go mixing with a lot of low, swindling jail-birds! It’s sickening!”“You’ve no right to talk like that, Sam,” said Jemima, flushing up; “they’re as honest as you are—more so, perhaps. There!”“Go it; say on,” said Samuel. “All I can tell you is, if you don’t both of you turn the Cruden lot up, I’ll go and live in lodgings by myself.”“Why should we turn them or anybody up for you, I should like to know?” said Jemima, with a toss of her head. “What have they done to you?”“You’re an idiot,” said Sam, “or you wouldn’t talk bosh. Your dear Reginald—”“Well, what about him?” said Jemima, her trembling lip betraying the inward flutter with which she heard the name.“How would you like to know your precious Reginald was this moment in prison?”“What!” shrieked Jemima, with a clutch at her brother’s arm.He was glad to see there was some one he could make “sit up,” and replied, with brutal directness,—“Yes—in prison, I tell you; charged with swindling and theft ever since he set foot in Liverpool. There, if that’s not reason enough for turning them up, I give you up. You can tell mother so, and say I’m down at the club, and she’d better leave supper up for me; do you hear?”Jemima did not hear. She sat rocking herself in her chair, and sobbing as if her heart would break. Vulgar young person as she was, she had a heart, and, quite apart from everything else, the thought of the calamity which had befallen the fatherless family was in itself enough to move her deep pity; but when to that was added her own strange but constant affection for Reginald himself, despite all his aversion to her, it was a blow that fell heavily upon her.She would not believe Reginald was guilty of the odious crimes Sam had so glibly catalogued; but guilty or not guilty, he was in prison, and it is only due to the honest, warm-hearted Jemima to say that she wished a hundred times that wretched evening that she could be in his place.But could nothing be done? She knew it was no use trying to extract any more particulars from Samuel. As it was, she guessed only too truly that he would be raging with himself for telling her so much. Her mother could do nothing. She would probably fly with the news to Mrs Cruden’s bedside, and possibly kill her outright.Horace! She might tell him, but she was afraid. The news would fall on him like a thunderbolt, and she dreaded being the person to inflict the blow. Yet he ought to knew, even if it doubled his misery and ended in no good to Reginald. Suppose she wrote to him.At that moment a knock came at the door, followed by the entrance of Booms in all the gorgeousness of his evening costume. He frequently dropped in like this, especially since Mrs Cruden’s illness, to hear how she was, and to inquire after Miss Crisp; and this was his errand this evening.“No better, I suppose?” said he, dolefully, sitting down very slowly by reason of the tightness of his garments.“Yes, the doctor says she’s better; a little, a very little,” said Jemima.“Andshe, of course she’s quite knocked up?” said he, with a groan.“No. Miss Crisp’s taking a nap, that’s all; and mother’s keeping watch next door.”Booms sat very uncomfortably, not knowing what fresh topic to discourse on. But an inspiration seized him presently.“Oh, I see you’re crying,” he said. “You’re in trouble, too.”“So I am,” said Jemima.“Something I’ve done, I suppose?” said Booms.“No, it isn’t. It’s about—about the Crudens.”“Oh, of course. What about them?”“Well, isn’t it bad enough they have this dreadful trouble?” said Jemima; “but it isn’t half the trouble they really are in.”“You know I can’t understand what you mean when you talk like that,” said Booms.“Will you promise, if I tell you, to keep it a secret?”“Oh, of course. I hate secrets, but go on.”“Oh, Mr Booms, Mr Reginald is in prison at Liverpool, on a charge—a false charge, I’m certain—of fraud. Isn’t it dreadful? And Mr Horace ought to know of it. Could you break it to him?”“How can I keep it a secret and break it to him?” said Mr Booms, in a pained tone. “Oh yes, I’ll try, if you like.”“Oh, thank you. Do it very gently, and be sure not to let my mother, or his, or anybody else hear of it, won’t you?”“I’ll try. Of course every one will put all the blame on me if it does spread.”“No, I won’t. Do it first thing to-morrow, won’t you, Mr Booms?”“Oh yes”; and then, as if determined to be in time for the interview, he added, “I’d better go now.”And he departed very like a man walking to the gallows.Shuckleford returned at midnight, and found the supper waiting for him, but, to his relief, neither of the ladies.He wrote the following short note before he partook of his evening meal:—“Dear D.,—Come round first thing in the morning. The police have dished us for once, but we’ll be quits with them if we put our heads together. Be sure and come. Yours, S. S.”After having posted this eloquent epistle with his own hand at the pillar-box he returned to his supper, and then went, somewhat dejected, to bed.

It was just as well for Horace’s peace of mind, during his time of anxious watching, that two short paragraphs in the morning papers of the following day escaped his observation.

“At — police-court yesterday, two men named Medlock and Shanklin were brought before the magistrate on various charges of fraud connected with sham companies in different parts of the country. After some formal evidence they were remanded for a week, bail being refused.”

“A youth named Reginald was yesterday charged at Liverpool with conspiracy to defraud by means of fictitious circulars addressed in the name of a trading company. He was remanded for three days without bail, pending inquiries.”

It so happened that it fell to Booms’s lot to cut the latter paragraph out. And as he was barely aware of the existence of Cruden’s brother, and in no case would have recognised him by his assumed name, the news, even if he read it, could have conveyed no intelligence to his mind.

Horace certainly did not read it. Even when he had nothing better to do, he always regarded newspapers as a discipline not to be meddled with out of office hours. And just now, with his mother lying in a critical condition, and with no news day after day of Reginald, he had more serious food for reflection than the idle gossip of a newspaper.

The only other person in London whom the news could have interested was Samuel Shuckleford. But as he was that morning riding blithely in the train to Liverpool, reading theLaw Times, and flattering himself he would soon make the public “sit up” to a recognition of his astuteness, he saw nothing of them.

He found himself on the Liverpool platform just where, scarcely three months ago, Reginald had found himself that dreary afternoon of his arrival. But, unlike Reginald, it cost the young ornament of the law not a moment’s hesitation as to whether he should take a cab or not to his destination. If only the cabman knew whom he had the honour to carry, how he would touch up his horse!

“Shy Street. Put me down at the corner,” said Samuel, swinging himself into the hansom.

So this was Liverpool. He had never been there before, and consequently it was not to be wondered at that the crowds jostling by on the pavement, without so much as a glance in his direction, neither knew him nor had heard of him. He could forgive them, and smiled to think how different it would be in a few days, when all the world would point at him as he drove back to the station, and say,—

“There goes Shuckleford, the clever lawyer, who first exposed the Select Agency Corporation, don’t you know?”

Don’t you know? What a question to ask respecting S.S.!

At the corner of Shy Street he alighted, and sauntered gently down the street, keeping a sharp look-out on both sides of him, without appearing to regard anything but the pavement.

Humph! The odd numbers were on the left side, so S.S. would walk on the right, and get a good survey of Number 13 from a modest distance.

What, thought he, would the precious Cruden Reginald (ha! ha!) think if he knew who was walking down the other side of the road?

Ah! he was getting near it now. Here was 17, a baker’s; 15, a greengrocer’s; and 13—eh? a chemist’s? Ah, yes, he noticed that the first floors of all the shops were let for offices, and the first floor of the chemist’s shop was the place he wanted.

He could see through the grimy window the top rail of a chair-back and the corner of a table, on which stood an inkpot and a tattered directory. No occupant of the room was visible; doubtless he found it prudent to keep away from the window; or he might possibly have seen the figure of S.S. advancing down the street.

Samuel crossed over. No name was on the chemist’s side-door, but it stood ajar, and he pushed it open and peered up the gloomy staircase. There was a name on the door at the top, so he crept stealthily up the stairs to decipher the word “Medlock” in dim characters on the plate.

“Medlock!” Ho! ho! He was getting warm now. Not only was his man going about with his own name turned inside out, but he had the effrontery to stick up the name of one of his own directors on his door!

Samuel knew Mr Medlock—whom didn’t he know? He had been introduced to him by Durfy, and had supped with him once at the Shades. A nice, pleasant-spoken gentleman, who had made some very complimentary little speeches about Samuel in Samuel’s own hearing. This was the man whose name Cruden had borrowed for his door-plate, in the hope of further mystifying the public as to his own personality!

Ah! ah! He might mystify the public, but there was one whose initials were S.S. whom it would need a cleverer cheat than Cruden Reginald, Esquire, to mystify!

He listened for a moment at the door, and, hearing no sound, made bold to enter. Had Reginald been in, he was prepared to represent that, being on a chance visit to Liverpool, he had been unable to pass the door of an old neighbour without giving him a friendly call.

But he was not put to this shift, for the room was empty. “Gone out to his dinner, I suppose,” said Sam to himself. “Well, I’ll take a good look round while I am here.”

Which he proceeded to do, much to his own satisfaction, but very little to his information, for scarcely a torn-up envelope was to be found to reward the spy for his trouble. The only thing that did attract his attention as likely to be remotely useful was a fragment of a pink paper with the letters “gerskin” on it—a relic Love would have recognised as part of the cover of an old favourite, but which to the inquiring mind of the lawyer appeared to be a document worth impounding in the interests of justice.

As nobody appeared after the lapse of half an hour, Samuel considered his time was being wasted, and therefore withdrew. He looked into the chemist’s shop as he went down, but the chemist was not at home; so he strolled into the greengrocer’s next door, and bought an orange, which he proceeded to consume, making himself meanwhile cunningly agreeable to the lady who presided over the establishment.

“Fine Christmas weather,” said he, looking up in the middle of a prolonged suck.

“Yes,” said the lady.

“Plenty of customers?”

She shrugged her shoulders. Sam might interpret that as he liked.

“I suppose you supply the Corporation next door?” said Sam, digging his countenance once more into the orange.

“Eh?” said the lady.

“The—what’s-his-name?—Mr Reginald—I suppose he deals with you?”

“He did, if you want to know.”

“I thought so—a friend of mine, you know.”

“Oh, is he?” said the lady, finding words at last, and bridling up in a way that astonished her cross-examiner; “then the sooner you go and walk off after him the better!”

“Oh, very well,” said Sam. “He’s not at home just now, though.”

“Oh, ain’t he?” said the woman, “that’s funny!”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing—what should I? If you’re a friend of his, you’d better take yourself off! That’s what I mean.”

“All right; no offence, old lady. Perhaps he’s come in by this time.”

The lady laughed disagreeably. The Corporation had bought coals of her three months ago.

Samuel returned to the office, but it was as deserted as ever. He therefore resolved to try what his blandishments could do with the chemist’s boy downstairs in the way of obtaining information.

That young gentleman, as the reader will remember, had been a bosom friend of Love in his day, and was animated to some extent by the spirit of his comrade.

“Hullo, my man!” said Sam, walking into the shop. “Governor’s out, then?”

“Yus.”

“Got any lollipops in those bottles?”

“Yus.”

“Any brandy-balls?”

“No.”

“Any acid-drops?”

“Yus.”

“I’ll take a penn’orth, then. I suppose you don’t know when the gentleman upstairs will be back?”

The boy stopped short in his occupation and stared at Sam.

“What gentleman?” he asked.

“Mr Medlock, is it? or Reginald, or some name like that?”

“Oh yus, I do!” said the boy, with a grin.

“When?”

“Six months all but a day. That’s what I reckon.”

“Six months! Has he gone away, then?”

“Oh no—he was took off.”

“Took off—you don’t mean to say he’s dead?”

“Oh, ain’t you a rum ’un! As if you didn’t know he’s been beaked.”

“Beaked! what’s that?”

The boy looked disgusted at the fellow’s obtuseness.

“’Ad up in the p’lice-court, of course. What else could I mean?”

Samuel jumped off his stool as if he had been electrified.

“What do you say?” said he, gaping wildly at the boy.

“Go on; if you’re deaf, it’s no use talkin’ to you. He’s been up in the p’lice-court,” said he, raising his voice to a shout. “Yesterday—there you are—and there’s your drops, and you ain’t give me the penny for them.”

Samuel threw down the penny, and, too excited to take up the drops, dashed out into the street.

What! yesterday—while he was lounging about town, fancying he had the game all to himself. Was ever luck like his?

He rushed to a shop and bought a morning paper. There, sure enough, was a short notice of yesterday’s proceedings, and you might have knocked S.S. down with a feather as he read it.

“Anyhow,” said he to himself, crumpling up the paper in sheer vexation, “they won’t be able to do without me, I’ll take care of that. I can tell them all about it—but catch me doing it now, the snobs, unless they’re civil.”

With which valiant determination he swung himself into another cab, and ordered the man to drive to the head police-station.

The inspector was not in, but his second-in-command was, and to him, much against his will, Samuel had to explain his business.

“Well, what do you know about the prisoner?” asked the official.

“Oh, plenty. You’d better subpoena me for the next examination,” said Sam.

The sub-inspector smiled.

“You’re like all the rest of them,” he said, “think you know all about it. Come, let’s hear what you’ve got to say, young fellow; there’s plenty of work to be done here, I can tell you, without dawdling our time.”

“Thank you,” said Sam, “I’d sooner tell the magistrate.”

“Go and tell the magistrate then!” shouted the official, “and don’t stay blocking up the room here.”

This was not what Samuel expected. There was little chance of the magistrate being more impressed with his importance than a sub-inspector. So he felt the only thing for it was to bring himself to the unpleasant task of showing his cards after all.

“The fact is—” he began.

“If you’re going to say what you know about the case, I’ll listen to you,” said the sub-inspector, interrupting him, “if not, go and talk in the street.”

“I am going to say what I know,” said the crestfallen Sam.

“Very well. It’s a pity you couldn’t do it at first,” said the official, getting up and standing with his back turned, warming his hands at the fire.

Under these depressing circumstances Samuel began his story, showing his weakest cards first, and saving up his trumps as long as he could. The sub-inspector listened to him impassively, rubbing his hands, and warming first one toe and then the other in the fender.

At length it was all finished, and he turned round.

“That’s all you know?”

“Yes—at present—I expect to discover more, though, in a day or two.”

“Just write your name and address on one of those envelopes,” said the sub-inspector, pointing to a stationery case on his table.

Sam obeyed, and handed the address to the official.

“Very well,” said the latter, folding the paper up without looking at it, and putting it into his waistcoat pocket, “if we want you, we’ll fetch you.”

“I suppose I had better put my statement down in writing?” said Samuel, making a last effort at pomposity.

“Can if you like,” said the sub-inspector, yawning, “when you’ve nothing else to do.”

And he ended the conference by calling to a constable outside to tell 190 C he might come in.

Grievously crestfallen, Samuel withdrew, bemoaning the hour when he first heard the name of Cruden, and was fool enough to dirty his hands with a “big job.” What else was he to expect when once these official snobs took a thing up? Of course they would put every obstacle and humiliation in the way of an outsider that jealousy could suggest. He had very little doubt that this sub-inspector, the moment his back was turned, would sit down and make notes of his information, and then take all the credit of it to himself. Never mind, they were bound to want him when the trial came on, and wouldn’t he just show up their tricks! Oh no! S.S. wasn’t going to be flouted and snubbed for nothing, he could tell them, and so they’d discover.

It was no use staying in Liverpool, that was clear. The Liverpool police should have the pleasure of fetching him all the way from London when they wanted him; and possibly, with Durfy’s aid, he might succeed in getting hold of another trump-card meanwhile to turn up when they least expected it.

The journey south next day was less blithe and less occupied with theLaw Timesthan the journey north had been. But as he got farther away from inhospitable Liverpool his spirits revived, and before London was reached he was once more in imagination “the clever lawyer, Shuckleford, don’t you know, who gave the Liverpool police a slap in the face over that Agency Corporation business, don’t you know.”

Two “don’t you knows” this time!

On reaching home, any natural joy he might be expected to feel on being restored to the bosom of his family was damped by the discovery that his mother was that very moment in next door relieving guard with Miss Crisp at the bedside of Mrs Cruden.

“What business has she to do it when I told her not?” demanded Sam wrathfully of his sister.

“She’s not bound to obey you,” said Jemima; “she’s your mother.”

“She is. And a nice respectable mother, too, to go mixing with a lot of low, swindling jail-birds! It’s sickening!”

“You’ve no right to talk like that, Sam,” said Jemima, flushing up; “they’re as honest as you are—more so, perhaps. There!”

“Go it; say on,” said Samuel. “All I can tell you is, if you don’t both of you turn the Cruden lot up, I’ll go and live in lodgings by myself.”

“Why should we turn them or anybody up for you, I should like to know?” said Jemima, with a toss of her head. “What have they done to you?”

“You’re an idiot,” said Sam, “or you wouldn’t talk bosh. Your dear Reginald—”

“Well, what about him?” said Jemima, her trembling lip betraying the inward flutter with which she heard the name.

“How would you like to know your precious Reginald was this moment in prison?”

“What!” shrieked Jemima, with a clutch at her brother’s arm.

He was glad to see there was some one he could make “sit up,” and replied, with brutal directness,—

“Yes—in prison, I tell you; charged with swindling and theft ever since he set foot in Liverpool. There, if that’s not reason enough for turning them up, I give you up. You can tell mother so, and say I’m down at the club, and she’d better leave supper up for me; do you hear?”

Jemima did not hear. She sat rocking herself in her chair, and sobbing as if her heart would break. Vulgar young person as she was, she had a heart, and, quite apart from everything else, the thought of the calamity which had befallen the fatherless family was in itself enough to move her deep pity; but when to that was added her own strange but constant affection for Reginald himself, despite all his aversion to her, it was a blow that fell heavily upon her.

She would not believe Reginald was guilty of the odious crimes Sam had so glibly catalogued; but guilty or not guilty, he was in prison, and it is only due to the honest, warm-hearted Jemima to say that she wished a hundred times that wretched evening that she could be in his place.

But could nothing be done? She knew it was no use trying to extract any more particulars from Samuel. As it was, she guessed only too truly that he would be raging with himself for telling her so much. Her mother could do nothing. She would probably fly with the news to Mrs Cruden’s bedside, and possibly kill her outright.

Horace! She might tell him, but she was afraid. The news would fall on him like a thunderbolt, and she dreaded being the person to inflict the blow. Yet he ought to knew, even if it doubled his misery and ended in no good to Reginald. Suppose she wrote to him.

At that moment a knock came at the door, followed by the entrance of Booms in all the gorgeousness of his evening costume. He frequently dropped in like this, especially since Mrs Cruden’s illness, to hear how she was, and to inquire after Miss Crisp; and this was his errand this evening.

“No better, I suppose?” said he, dolefully, sitting down very slowly by reason of the tightness of his garments.

“Yes, the doctor says she’s better; a little, a very little,” said Jemima.

“Andshe, of course she’s quite knocked up?” said he, with a groan.

“No. Miss Crisp’s taking a nap, that’s all; and mother’s keeping watch next door.”

Booms sat very uncomfortably, not knowing what fresh topic to discourse on. But an inspiration seized him presently.

“Oh, I see you’re crying,” he said. “You’re in trouble, too.”

“So I am,” said Jemima.

“Something I’ve done, I suppose?” said Booms.

“No, it isn’t. It’s about—about the Crudens.”

“Oh, of course. What about them?”

“Well, isn’t it bad enough they have this dreadful trouble?” said Jemima; “but it isn’t half the trouble they really are in.”

“You know I can’t understand what you mean when you talk like that,” said Booms.

“Will you promise, if I tell you, to keep it a secret?”

“Oh, of course. I hate secrets, but go on.”

“Oh, Mr Booms, Mr Reginald is in prison at Liverpool, on a charge—a false charge, I’m certain—of fraud. Isn’t it dreadful? And Mr Horace ought to know of it. Could you break it to him?”

“How can I keep it a secret and break it to him?” said Mr Booms, in a pained tone. “Oh yes, I’ll try, if you like.”

“Oh, thank you. Do it very gently, and be sure not to let my mother, or his, or anybody else hear of it, won’t you?”

“I’ll try. Of course every one will put all the blame on me if it does spread.”

“No, I won’t. Do it first thing to-morrow, won’t you, Mr Booms?”

“Oh yes”; and then, as if determined to be in time for the interview, he added, “I’d better go now.”

And he departed very like a man walking to the gallows.

Shuckleford returned at midnight, and found the supper waiting for him, but, to his relief, neither of the ladies.

He wrote the following short note before he partook of his evening meal:—

“Dear D.,—Come round first thing in the morning. The police have dished us for once, but we’ll be quits with them if we put our heads together. Be sure and come. Yours, S. S.”

After having posted this eloquent epistle with his own hand at the pillar-box he returned to his supper, and then went, somewhat dejected, to bed.

Chapter Twenty One.Reginald finds himself “Dismissed with a Caution.”There is a famous saying of a famous modern poet which runs—“Sudden the worst turns the best to the brave.”And so it was with Reginald Cruden when finally the whole bitter truth of his position broke in upon his mind. If the first sudden shock drove him into the dungeon of Giant Despair, a night’s quiet reflection, and the consciousness of innocence within, helped him to shake off the fetters, and emerge bravely and serenely from the crisis.He knew he had nothing to be proud of—nothing to excuse his own folly and shortsightedness—nothing to flatter his self-esteem; but no one could accuse him of dishonour, or point the finger of shame in his way. So he rose next morning armed for the worst.What that would be he could not say, but whatever it was he would face it, confident in his own integrity and the might of right to clear him.He endeavoured, in a few words, to explain the position of affairs to Love, who was characteristically quick at grasping it, and suggesting a remedy.“That there Medlock’s got to be served, and no error!” he said. “I’ll murder ’im!”“Nonsense!” said Reginald; “you can’t make things right by doing wrong yourself. And you know you wouldn’t do such a thing.”“Do I know? Tell you I would, gov’nor! I’d serve him just like that there ’Pollyon in the book. Or else I’d put rat p’ison in his beer, and—my! wouldn’t it be a game to see the tet’nus a-comin’ on ’im, and—”“Be quiet,” said Reginald; “I won’t allow you to talk like that. It’s as bad as theTim Tigerskindays, Love, and we’ve both done with them.”“You’re right there!” said the boy, pulling hisPilgrim’s Progressfrom his pocket. “My! don’t I wish I had the feller to myself in the Slough o’ Despond! Wouldn’t I ’old ’is ’ead under! Oh no, not me! None o’ yer Mr ’Elpses to give ’im a leg out, if I knows it!”“Perhaps he’ll get punished enough without us,” said Reginald. “It wouldn’t do us any good to see him suffering.”“Wouldn’t it, though? Would me, I can tell yer!” said the uncompromising Love.It was evidently hopeless to attempt to divert his young champion’s mind into channels of mercy. Reginald therefore, for lack of anything else to do, suggested to him to go on with the reading aloud, a command the boy obeyed with alacrity, starting of his own accord at the beginning of the book. So the two sat there, and followed their pilgrim through the perils and triumphs of his way, each acknowledging in his heart the spell of the wonderful story, and feeling himself a braver man for every step he took along with the valiant Christian.The morning went by and noon had come, and still the boy read on, until heavy footsteps on the stairs below startled them both, and sent a quick flush into Reginald’s cheeks.It needed no divination to guess what it meant, and it was almost with a sigh of relief that he saw the door open and a policeman enter.He rose to his feet and drew himself up as the man approached.“Is your name Cruden Reginald?” said the officer.“No; it’s Reginald Cruden.”“You call yourself Cruden Reginald?”“I have done so; yes.”“Then I must trouble you to come along with me, young gentleman.”“Very well,” said Reginald, quietly. “What am I charged with?”“Conspiracy to defraud, that’s what’s on the warrant. Are you ready now?”“Yes, quite ready. Where are you going to take me?”“Well, we shall have to look in at the station on our way, and then go on to the police-court. Won’t take long. Bound to remand you, you know, for a week or something like that, and then you’ll get committed, and the assizes are on directly after the new year, so three weeks from now will see it all over.”The man talked in a pleasant, civil way, in a tone as if he quite supposed Reginald might be pleased to hear the programme arranged on his behalf.“We’d better go,” said Reginald, moving towards the door.His face was very white and determined. But there was a tell-tale quiver in his tightly-pressed lips which told that he needed all his courage to help him through the ordeal before him. Till this moment the thought of having to walk through Liverpool in custody had not entered into his calculations, and he recoiled from it with a shiver.“I needn’t trouble you with these,” said the policeman, taking a pair of handcuffs from his pocket; “not yet, anyhow.”“Oh no. I’ll come quite quietly.”“All right. I’ve my mate below. You can walk between. Hulloa!”This last exclamation was addressed to Master Love, who, having witnessed thus much of the interview in a state of stupefied bewilderment, now recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to make a furious dash at the burly policeman.“Do you hear? Let him be; let my governor go. He ain’t done nothink to you or nobody. It’s me, I tell yer. I’ve murdered dozens, do you ’ear? and robbed the till, and set the Manshing ’Ouse o’ fire, do you ’ear? You let ’im go. It’s me done it!”And he accompanied the protest with such a furious kick at the policeman’s leg that that functionary grew very red in the face, and making a grab at the offender, seized him by the collar.“Don’t hurt him, please,” said Reginald. “He doesn’t mean any harm.”“Tell you it’s me,” cried the boy, trembling in the grasp of the law, “me and that there Medlock. My gov’nor ain’t done it.”“Hush, be quiet, Love,” said Reginald. “It’ll do no good to make a noise. It can’t be helped. Good-bye.”The boy fairly broke down, and began to blubber piteously.Reginald, unmanned enough as it was, had not the heart to wait longer, and walked hurriedly to the door, followed by the policeman. This movement once more raised the faithful Love to a final effort.“Let ’im go, do you ’ear?” shouted he, rushing down the stairs after them. “I’ll do for yer if you don’t. Oh, guv’nor, take me too, can’t yer?”But Reginald could only steel his heart for once, and feign not to hear the appeal.The other policeman was waiting outside, and between his two custodians he walked, sick at heart, and faltering in courage, longing only to get out of the reach of the curious, critical eyes that turned on him from every side, and beyond the sound of that pitiful whimper of the faithful little friend as it followed him step by step to the very door of the police-station.At the station Mr Sniff awaited the party with a pleasant smile of welcome.“That’s right,” said he to Reginald, encouragingly; “much better to come quietly, looks better. Look here, young fellow,” he added, rather more confidentially, “the first question you’ll be asked is whether you’re guilty or not. Take my advice, and make a clean breast of it.”“I shall say not guilty, which will be the truth.”Mr Sniff, as the reader has been told, had already come to the same conclusion. Still, it being the rule of his profession always to assume a man to be guilty till he can prove himself innocent, he felt it was no business of his to assist the magistrate in coming to the decision by stating what hethought. All he had to do was to state what heknew, and meanwhile, if the prisoner choose to simplify matters by pleading guilty, well, why shouldn’t he?“Please yourself about that. Have you made your entries, Jones? The van will be here directly. See you later on,” added he, nodding to Reginald.Reginald waited there for the van like a man in a dream. People came in and out, spoke, laughed, looked about them, even mentioned his name. But they all seemed part of some curious pageant, of which he himself formed not the least unreal portion. His mind wandered off on a hundred little insignificant topics. Snatches of thePilgrim’s Progresscame into his mind, half-forgotten airs of music crossed his memory, the vision of young Gedge as he last saw him fleeted before his eyes. He tried in vain to collect his thoughts, but they were hopelessly astray, leaving him for the time barely conscious, and wholly uninterested in what was taking place around him.The van came at last, a vehicle he had often eyed curiously as it rumbled past him in the streets. Little had he ever dreamed of riding one day inside it.The usual knot of loungers waited at the door of the police-court to see the van disgorge its freight. Sometimes they had been rewarded for their patience by the glimpse of a real murderer, or wife-kicker, or burglar, and sometimes they had had their bit of fun over a “tough customer,” who, if he must travel at her Majesty’s expense, was determined to travel all the way, and insisted on being carried by the arms and legs across the pavement into the tribunal of justice. There was no such fun to be got out of Reginald as he stepped hurriedly from the van, and with downcast eyes entered by the prisoners’ door into the court-house.A case was already in progress, and he had to wait in a dimly-lit underground lobby for his summons. The constable who had arrested him was still beside him, and other groups, mostly of police, filled up the place. But he heeded none, longing—oh! how intensely—to hear his name called and to know the worst.Presently there was a bustle near the door, and he knew the case upstairs was at an end.“Six months,” some one said.Some one else whistled softly.“Whew—old Fogey’s in one of his tantrums, then. He’d have only got three at Dark Street.”Then some one called the name “Reginald,” and the policeman near him said “Coming.” Then, turning to the prisoner, he said,—“Fogey’s on the bench to-day, and he’s particular. Look alive.”Reginald found himself being hurried to the door through a lane of officials and others towards the stairs.“Your turn next, Grinder,” he heard some one say as he passed. “Ten-minutes will do this case.”To Reginald the stairs seemed interminable. There was a hum of voices above, and a shuffling of feet as of people taking a momentary relaxation in the interval of some performance. Then a loud voice cried, “Silence—order in the court, sit down, gentlemen,” and there fell an unearthly stillness on the place.“To the right,” said the policeman, coming beside him, and taking his arm as if to direct him.He was conscious of a score of curious faces turned on him, of some one on the bench folding up a newspaper and adjusting his glasses, of a man at a table throwing aside a quill pen and taking another, of a click of a latch closing behind him, of a row of spikes in front of him. Then he found himself alone.What followed he scarcely could tell. He was vaguely aware of some one with Mr Sniff’s voice making a statement in which his (Reginald’s) own name occurred, another voice from the bench breaking in every now and then, and yet another voice from the table talking too, accompanied by the squeaking of a pen across paper. Then the constable who had arrested him said something, and after the constable some one else.Then followed a dialogue in undertone between the bench and the table, and once more Mr Sniff’s voice, and at last the voice from the bench, a gruff, unsympathetic voice, said,—“Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?”The question roused him. It was intended for him, and he awoke to the consciousness that, after all, he had some interest in what was going on.He raised his head and said,—“I’m not guilty.”“You reserve your defence, then?”“Tell him yes,” said the policeman.“Yes, sir.”“Very well, then. I shall remand you for three days. Bring him up again on Friday.”And the magistrate took up his newspaper, the clerk at the table laying down his pen; the bustle and shuffling of feet filled the room, and in another moment Reginald was down the staircase, and the voice he had heard before called,—“Remand three days. Now then, Grinder, up you go—”In all his conjectures as to what might befall him, the possibility of being actually sent to prison had never entered Reginald’s head. That he would be suspected, arrested, taken to the police-station, and finally brought before a magistrate, he had foreseen. That was bad enough, but he had steeled his resolution to the pitch of going through with it, sure that the clearing of his character would follow any inquiry into the case.But to be lodged for three days as a common felon in a police cell was a fate he had not once realised, and which, when its full meaning broke upon him, crushed the spirit out of him.He made no resistance, no protest, no complaint as they hustled him back into the van, and from the van to the cell which was to be his dreary lodging for those three days. He felt degraded, dishonoured, disgraced, and as he sat hour after hour brooding over his lot, his mind, already overwrought, lost its courage and let go its hope.Suppose he really had done something to be ashamed of? Suppose he had all along had his vague suspicions of the honesty of the Corporation, and yet had continued to serve them? Suppose, with the best of intentions, he had shut his eyes wilfully to what he might and must have seen? Suppose, in fact, his negligence had been criminal? How was he ever to hold up his head again and face the world like an honest man, and say he had defrauded no man?And then there came up in terrible array that long list of customers to the Corporation whom he had lured and enticed by promises he had never taken the trouble to inquire into to part with their money. And the burden of their loss lay like an incubus on his spirit, till he actually persuaded himself he was guilty.I need not sadden the reader with dwelling on the misery of those three days. Any one almost could have endured them better than Reginald. He began a letter to Horace, but he tore it up when half-written. He drew up a statement of his own defence, but when fact after fact appeared in array on the paper it seemed more like an indictment than a defence, and he tore it up too.At length the weary suspense was over, and once more he found himself in the outer air, stepping with almost familiar tread across the pavement into the van, and taking his place among the waiters in the dim lobby at the foot of the police-court stairs.When at last he stood once more in the dock none of his former bewilderment remained to befriend him. It was all too real this time. When some one spoke of the “prisoner” he knew it meant himself, and when they spoke of fraud he knew they referred to something he had done. Oh, that he could see it all in a dream once more, and wake up to find himself on the other side!“Now, Mr Sniff, you’ve got something to say?” said the magistrate.“Yes, your worship,” replied Mr Sniff, not moving to the witness-box, but speaking from his seat. “We don’t propose to continue this case.”“What? It’s a clear case, isn’t it?” said the magistrate, with the air of a man who is being trifled with.“No, your worship. There’s not evidence enough to ask you to send the prisoner to trial.”“Then I’d better sentence him myself.”“I think not, your worship. Our evidence only went to show that the prisoner was in the employment of the men who started the company. But we have no evidence that he was aware that the concern was fraudulent, and as he does not appear to have appropriated any of the money, we advise dismissing the case. The real offenders are in custody, and have practically admitted their guilt.”The magistrate looked very ill-tempered and offended. He did not like being told what he was told, especially by the police, and he had a righteous horror of cases being withdrawn from his authority.He held a snappish consultation with his clerk, which by no means tended to pacify him, for that functionary whispered his opinion that as the case had been withdrawn there was nothing for it but for his worship to dismiss the case.Somebody, at any rate, should smart for his injured feelings, and as he did not know law enough to abuse Mr Sniff, and had not pretext sufficient to abuse his clerk, he gathered himself for a castigation of the prisoner, which should not only serve as a caution to that youth for his future guidance, but should also relieve his own magisterial mind.“Now, prisoner,” began he, setting his spectacles and leaning forward in his seat, “you’ve heard what the officer has said. You may consider yourself fortunate—very fortunate—there is not enough evidence to convict you. Don’t flatter yourself that a breakdown in the prosecution clears your character. In the eyes of the law you may be clear, but morally, let me tell you, you are far from being so. It’s affectation to tell me you could live for three months the centre of a system of fraud and yet have your hands clean. You must make good your account between your own conscience and the hundreds of helpless, unfortunate poor men and women you have been the means of depriving of their hard-earned money. You have already been kept in prison for three days. Let me hope that will be a warning to you not to meddle in future with fraud, if you wish to pass as an honest man. If you touch pitch, sir, you must expect to be denied. Return to paths of honesty, young man, and seek to recover the character you have forfeited, and bear in mind the warning you have had, if you wish to avoid a more serious stain in the future. The case is dismissed.”With which elegant peroration the magistrate, much relieved in his own mind, took up his newspaper, and Reginald was hurried once more down those steep stairs a free man.“Slice of luck for you, young shaver!” said the friendly policeman, slipping off the handcuffs.“Regular one of Sniff’s little games!” said another standing near; “he always lets his little fish go when he’s landed his big ones! To my mind it’s a risky business. Never mind.”“You can go when you like now,” said the policeman to Reginald; “and whenever we come across a shilling for a drink we’ll drink your health, my lad.”Reginald saw the hint, and handed the policeman one of his last shillings. Then, buttoning his coat against the cold winter wind, he walked out, a free man, into the street.

There is a famous saying of a famous modern poet which runs—

“Sudden the worst turns the best to the brave.”

And so it was with Reginald Cruden when finally the whole bitter truth of his position broke in upon his mind. If the first sudden shock drove him into the dungeon of Giant Despair, a night’s quiet reflection, and the consciousness of innocence within, helped him to shake off the fetters, and emerge bravely and serenely from the crisis.

He knew he had nothing to be proud of—nothing to excuse his own folly and shortsightedness—nothing to flatter his self-esteem; but no one could accuse him of dishonour, or point the finger of shame in his way. So he rose next morning armed for the worst.

What that would be he could not say, but whatever it was he would face it, confident in his own integrity and the might of right to clear him.

He endeavoured, in a few words, to explain the position of affairs to Love, who was characteristically quick at grasping it, and suggesting a remedy.

“That there Medlock’s got to be served, and no error!” he said. “I’ll murder ’im!”

“Nonsense!” said Reginald; “you can’t make things right by doing wrong yourself. And you know you wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“Do I know? Tell you I would, gov’nor! I’d serve him just like that there ’Pollyon in the book. Or else I’d put rat p’ison in his beer, and—my! wouldn’t it be a game to see the tet’nus a-comin’ on ’im, and—”

“Be quiet,” said Reginald; “I won’t allow you to talk like that. It’s as bad as theTim Tigerskindays, Love, and we’ve both done with them.”

“You’re right there!” said the boy, pulling hisPilgrim’s Progressfrom his pocket. “My! don’t I wish I had the feller to myself in the Slough o’ Despond! Wouldn’t I ’old ’is ’ead under! Oh no, not me! None o’ yer Mr ’Elpses to give ’im a leg out, if I knows it!”

“Perhaps he’ll get punished enough without us,” said Reginald. “It wouldn’t do us any good to see him suffering.”

“Wouldn’t it, though? Would me, I can tell yer!” said the uncompromising Love.

It was evidently hopeless to attempt to divert his young champion’s mind into channels of mercy. Reginald therefore, for lack of anything else to do, suggested to him to go on with the reading aloud, a command the boy obeyed with alacrity, starting of his own accord at the beginning of the book. So the two sat there, and followed their pilgrim through the perils and triumphs of his way, each acknowledging in his heart the spell of the wonderful story, and feeling himself a braver man for every step he took along with the valiant Christian.

The morning went by and noon had come, and still the boy read on, until heavy footsteps on the stairs below startled them both, and sent a quick flush into Reginald’s cheeks.

It needed no divination to guess what it meant, and it was almost with a sigh of relief that he saw the door open and a policeman enter.

He rose to his feet and drew himself up as the man approached.

“Is your name Cruden Reginald?” said the officer.

“No; it’s Reginald Cruden.”

“You call yourself Cruden Reginald?”

“I have done so; yes.”

“Then I must trouble you to come along with me, young gentleman.”

“Very well,” said Reginald, quietly. “What am I charged with?”

“Conspiracy to defraud, that’s what’s on the warrant. Are you ready now?”

“Yes, quite ready. Where are you going to take me?”

“Well, we shall have to look in at the station on our way, and then go on to the police-court. Won’t take long. Bound to remand you, you know, for a week or something like that, and then you’ll get committed, and the assizes are on directly after the new year, so three weeks from now will see it all over.”

The man talked in a pleasant, civil way, in a tone as if he quite supposed Reginald might be pleased to hear the programme arranged on his behalf.

“We’d better go,” said Reginald, moving towards the door.

His face was very white and determined. But there was a tell-tale quiver in his tightly-pressed lips which told that he needed all his courage to help him through the ordeal before him. Till this moment the thought of having to walk through Liverpool in custody had not entered into his calculations, and he recoiled from it with a shiver.

“I needn’t trouble you with these,” said the policeman, taking a pair of handcuffs from his pocket; “not yet, anyhow.”

“Oh no. I’ll come quite quietly.”

“All right. I’ve my mate below. You can walk between. Hulloa!”

This last exclamation was addressed to Master Love, who, having witnessed thus much of the interview in a state of stupefied bewilderment, now recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to make a furious dash at the burly policeman.

“Do you hear? Let him be; let my governor go. He ain’t done nothink to you or nobody. It’s me, I tell yer. I’ve murdered dozens, do you ’ear? and robbed the till, and set the Manshing ’Ouse o’ fire, do you ’ear? You let ’im go. It’s me done it!”

And he accompanied the protest with such a furious kick at the policeman’s leg that that functionary grew very red in the face, and making a grab at the offender, seized him by the collar.

“Don’t hurt him, please,” said Reginald. “He doesn’t mean any harm.”

“Tell you it’s me,” cried the boy, trembling in the grasp of the law, “me and that there Medlock. My gov’nor ain’t done it.”

“Hush, be quiet, Love,” said Reginald. “It’ll do no good to make a noise. It can’t be helped. Good-bye.”

The boy fairly broke down, and began to blubber piteously.

Reginald, unmanned enough as it was, had not the heart to wait longer, and walked hurriedly to the door, followed by the policeman. This movement once more raised the faithful Love to a final effort.

“Let ’im go, do you ’ear?” shouted he, rushing down the stairs after them. “I’ll do for yer if you don’t. Oh, guv’nor, take me too, can’t yer?”

But Reginald could only steel his heart for once, and feign not to hear the appeal.

The other policeman was waiting outside, and between his two custodians he walked, sick at heart, and faltering in courage, longing only to get out of the reach of the curious, critical eyes that turned on him from every side, and beyond the sound of that pitiful whimper of the faithful little friend as it followed him step by step to the very door of the police-station.

At the station Mr Sniff awaited the party with a pleasant smile of welcome.

“That’s right,” said he to Reginald, encouragingly; “much better to come quietly, looks better. Look here, young fellow,” he added, rather more confidentially, “the first question you’ll be asked is whether you’re guilty or not. Take my advice, and make a clean breast of it.”

“I shall say not guilty, which will be the truth.”

Mr Sniff, as the reader has been told, had already come to the same conclusion. Still, it being the rule of his profession always to assume a man to be guilty till he can prove himself innocent, he felt it was no business of his to assist the magistrate in coming to the decision by stating what hethought. All he had to do was to state what heknew, and meanwhile, if the prisoner choose to simplify matters by pleading guilty, well, why shouldn’t he?

“Please yourself about that. Have you made your entries, Jones? The van will be here directly. See you later on,” added he, nodding to Reginald.

Reginald waited there for the van like a man in a dream. People came in and out, spoke, laughed, looked about them, even mentioned his name. But they all seemed part of some curious pageant, of which he himself formed not the least unreal portion. His mind wandered off on a hundred little insignificant topics. Snatches of thePilgrim’s Progresscame into his mind, half-forgotten airs of music crossed his memory, the vision of young Gedge as he last saw him fleeted before his eyes. He tried in vain to collect his thoughts, but they were hopelessly astray, leaving him for the time barely conscious, and wholly uninterested in what was taking place around him.

The van came at last, a vehicle he had often eyed curiously as it rumbled past him in the streets. Little had he ever dreamed of riding one day inside it.

The usual knot of loungers waited at the door of the police-court to see the van disgorge its freight. Sometimes they had been rewarded for their patience by the glimpse of a real murderer, or wife-kicker, or burglar, and sometimes they had had their bit of fun over a “tough customer,” who, if he must travel at her Majesty’s expense, was determined to travel all the way, and insisted on being carried by the arms and legs across the pavement into the tribunal of justice. There was no such fun to be got out of Reginald as he stepped hurriedly from the van, and with downcast eyes entered by the prisoners’ door into the court-house.

A case was already in progress, and he had to wait in a dimly-lit underground lobby for his summons. The constable who had arrested him was still beside him, and other groups, mostly of police, filled up the place. But he heeded none, longing—oh! how intensely—to hear his name called and to know the worst.

Presently there was a bustle near the door, and he knew the case upstairs was at an end.

“Six months,” some one said.

Some one else whistled softly.

“Whew—old Fogey’s in one of his tantrums, then. He’d have only got three at Dark Street.”

Then some one called the name “Reginald,” and the policeman near him said “Coming.” Then, turning to the prisoner, he said,—

“Fogey’s on the bench to-day, and he’s particular. Look alive.”

Reginald found himself being hurried to the door through a lane of officials and others towards the stairs.

“Your turn next, Grinder,” he heard some one say as he passed. “Ten-minutes will do this case.”

To Reginald the stairs seemed interminable. There was a hum of voices above, and a shuffling of feet as of people taking a momentary relaxation in the interval of some performance. Then a loud voice cried, “Silence—order in the court, sit down, gentlemen,” and there fell an unearthly stillness on the place.

“To the right,” said the policeman, coming beside him, and taking his arm as if to direct him.

He was conscious of a score of curious faces turned on him, of some one on the bench folding up a newspaper and adjusting his glasses, of a man at a table throwing aside a quill pen and taking another, of a click of a latch closing behind him, of a row of spikes in front of him. Then he found himself alone.

What followed he scarcely could tell. He was vaguely aware of some one with Mr Sniff’s voice making a statement in which his (Reginald’s) own name occurred, another voice from the bench breaking in every now and then, and yet another voice from the table talking too, accompanied by the squeaking of a pen across paper. Then the constable who had arrested him said something, and after the constable some one else.

Then followed a dialogue in undertone between the bench and the table, and once more Mr Sniff’s voice, and at last the voice from the bench, a gruff, unsympathetic voice, said,—

“Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?”

The question roused him. It was intended for him, and he awoke to the consciousness that, after all, he had some interest in what was going on.

He raised his head and said,—

“I’m not guilty.”

“You reserve your defence, then?”

“Tell him yes,” said the policeman.

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well, then. I shall remand you for three days. Bring him up again on Friday.”

And the magistrate took up his newspaper, the clerk at the table laying down his pen; the bustle and shuffling of feet filled the room, and in another moment Reginald was down the staircase, and the voice he had heard before called,—

“Remand three days. Now then, Grinder, up you go—”

In all his conjectures as to what might befall him, the possibility of being actually sent to prison had never entered Reginald’s head. That he would be suspected, arrested, taken to the police-station, and finally brought before a magistrate, he had foreseen. That was bad enough, but he had steeled his resolution to the pitch of going through with it, sure that the clearing of his character would follow any inquiry into the case.

But to be lodged for three days as a common felon in a police cell was a fate he had not once realised, and which, when its full meaning broke upon him, crushed the spirit out of him.

He made no resistance, no protest, no complaint as they hustled him back into the van, and from the van to the cell which was to be his dreary lodging for those three days. He felt degraded, dishonoured, disgraced, and as he sat hour after hour brooding over his lot, his mind, already overwrought, lost its courage and let go its hope.

Suppose he really had done something to be ashamed of? Suppose he had all along had his vague suspicions of the honesty of the Corporation, and yet had continued to serve them? Suppose, with the best of intentions, he had shut his eyes wilfully to what he might and must have seen? Suppose, in fact, his negligence had been criminal? How was he ever to hold up his head again and face the world like an honest man, and say he had defrauded no man?

And then there came up in terrible array that long list of customers to the Corporation whom he had lured and enticed by promises he had never taken the trouble to inquire into to part with their money. And the burden of their loss lay like an incubus on his spirit, till he actually persuaded himself he was guilty.

I need not sadden the reader with dwelling on the misery of those three days. Any one almost could have endured them better than Reginald. He began a letter to Horace, but he tore it up when half-written. He drew up a statement of his own defence, but when fact after fact appeared in array on the paper it seemed more like an indictment than a defence, and he tore it up too.

At length the weary suspense was over, and once more he found himself in the outer air, stepping with almost familiar tread across the pavement into the van, and taking his place among the waiters in the dim lobby at the foot of the police-court stairs.

When at last he stood once more in the dock none of his former bewilderment remained to befriend him. It was all too real this time. When some one spoke of the “prisoner” he knew it meant himself, and when they spoke of fraud he knew they referred to something he had done. Oh, that he could see it all in a dream once more, and wake up to find himself on the other side!

“Now, Mr Sniff, you’ve got something to say?” said the magistrate.

“Yes, your worship,” replied Mr Sniff, not moving to the witness-box, but speaking from his seat. “We don’t propose to continue this case.”

“What? It’s a clear case, isn’t it?” said the magistrate, with the air of a man who is being trifled with.

“No, your worship. There’s not evidence enough to ask you to send the prisoner to trial.”

“Then I’d better sentence him myself.”

“I think not, your worship. Our evidence only went to show that the prisoner was in the employment of the men who started the company. But we have no evidence that he was aware that the concern was fraudulent, and as he does not appear to have appropriated any of the money, we advise dismissing the case. The real offenders are in custody, and have practically admitted their guilt.”

The magistrate looked very ill-tempered and offended. He did not like being told what he was told, especially by the police, and he had a righteous horror of cases being withdrawn from his authority.

He held a snappish consultation with his clerk, which by no means tended to pacify him, for that functionary whispered his opinion that as the case had been withdrawn there was nothing for it but for his worship to dismiss the case.

Somebody, at any rate, should smart for his injured feelings, and as he did not know law enough to abuse Mr Sniff, and had not pretext sufficient to abuse his clerk, he gathered himself for a castigation of the prisoner, which should not only serve as a caution to that youth for his future guidance, but should also relieve his own magisterial mind.

“Now, prisoner,” began he, setting his spectacles and leaning forward in his seat, “you’ve heard what the officer has said. You may consider yourself fortunate—very fortunate—there is not enough evidence to convict you. Don’t flatter yourself that a breakdown in the prosecution clears your character. In the eyes of the law you may be clear, but morally, let me tell you, you are far from being so. It’s affectation to tell me you could live for three months the centre of a system of fraud and yet have your hands clean. You must make good your account between your own conscience and the hundreds of helpless, unfortunate poor men and women you have been the means of depriving of their hard-earned money. You have already been kept in prison for three days. Let me hope that will be a warning to you not to meddle in future with fraud, if you wish to pass as an honest man. If you touch pitch, sir, you must expect to be denied. Return to paths of honesty, young man, and seek to recover the character you have forfeited, and bear in mind the warning you have had, if you wish to avoid a more serious stain in the future. The case is dismissed.”

With which elegant peroration the magistrate, much relieved in his own mind, took up his newspaper, and Reginald was hurried once more down those steep stairs a free man.

“Slice of luck for you, young shaver!” said the friendly policeman, slipping off the handcuffs.

“Regular one of Sniff’s little games!” said another standing near; “he always lets his little fish go when he’s landed his big ones! To my mind it’s a risky business. Never mind.”

“You can go when you like now,” said the policeman to Reginald; “and whenever we come across a shilling for a drink we’ll drink your health, my lad.”

Reginald saw the hint, and handed the policeman one of his last shillings. Then, buttoning his coat against the cold winter wind, he walked out, a free man, into the street.

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