Chapter D: Wragg (3)

"Don't interrupt, sir! Hush!" exclaimed Purkis pompously, as if he were frowning down a pack of boys, and making the chattering young dogs shake in their leather breeches; while gazing mournfully at him, as if he knew all now, Tim Ruggles, with his face full of wrinkles, waited to hear more.

"I knew the step, sir," said Purkis, "and I could see the figure turn all round at once, sir, without moving its head; and then, in my lair, I watched and watched with my heart beating fierce, for I knew that the time was come for me to vindicate innocence, and to--to--er--er--wait Mr Ruggles, sir. And I did wait, Mr Ruggles, sir, till I heard the church-door shut softly, when all was so still that I couldn't help thinking it might be fancy."

"And it was fancy, Mr Purkis, wasn't it?" exclaimed Tim, eagerly.

"No, sir, it warn't fancy," said Purkis, austerely, as he waved Tim back with the slipper. It was all true as true; and I slapped my knees and rubbed my hands, and then I looked up towards the old organ and nodded at it; for I thought of the vally of what I'd found out, sir, to a good man, and no end of a family of children. And then, when I thought I'd waited long enough not to be seen, I went and knocked up Mr Timson, our churchwarden; fetched him out of bed, for it was one o'clock and past; and when he got down to me in his dressing-gown, he began a bullying me like anything; for he thought, you know, I'd come boxing with my Christmas-piece.

"But, `gently, sir,' I says; `don't be rash--don't be hasty.' `Hasty!' he says: `I'll report you to Mr Grey. Get out, sir, you're drunk: I can smell rum here.' `And a good thing, too,' I says, `for keeping cold out when you're watching poor-boxes at night in a empty church?' `What?' he says, `what did you say, Purkis?' he says. For answer, sir, I laid a finger solemn-like against one side of my nose, and looks at him out of the corners of my eyes. `Purkis,' he says, `Purkis: you don't mean as you have found it out?' `But I do, sir,' I says; and then I told him all, and he begged my pardon; and then, if he didn't go into fits of delight, hopping about `I always said as it wasn't Pellet,' he kept on saying. Then he danced round the room, with his little bare legs popping out of the bottom of his dressing-gown, and he slapped me on the back over and over again. `Poor old Pellet!' he says; `I'm glad: out and out glad!' Then he called me a trump, which, though it was well meant, didn't sound respectful to a man in my position in life, and beadle of St Runnle's for all the years as I've been.

"But I didn't show no temper, sir, for he meant well, as I said before; and he gets out something in an ugly little bottle, as he poured into two of the wretchedest little glasses you ever see; but when you come to taste it, my! it was just like what he called it; `gold water,' he said it was, and he chuckled and danced as he poured it out. 'Pon my word, sir, it was like swallowing melted sovereigns."

Tim groaned, but remained patient and motionless.

"Then, sir," continued Purkis, "I went away a happy man, promising that I'd be with him next morning--no, it wasn't, though, it was the same morning--to run down with him to see the vicar, as was in the country.

"`Do you mean to report me, sir?' I says. `Don't be a fool, Purkis,' he says. `I want you to tell him with your own lips.'"

"Tell him what, sir?--tell him what?" said Tim, piteously.

"That I'd seen--"

"Stop--stop!" exclaimed Tim, imploringly, as if, now that it had come to the point, and he was about to have that which he already knew corroborated, he could not bear it. "I don't think I can quite take it yet; but there!--yes--please go on."

"That I'd seen her, sir, as I could swear to, go to the poor-boxes one after another, and take something out, just like Mrs Purkis emptying the till, and then steal off, sir, so still that you could hardly hear her, only for the clicking of the key in the lock, and then she was gone."

"_She_ was--_she_ was gone?" faltered Tim.

"Yes, sir; she was. Dark as it was, I could make out all I have said; and then it puzzled me that we should never have settled it upon her before, when we found the money missing. But, you see, she was always so prim, and clean, and neat, and respectable."

"Always, Mr Purkis, sir," said Tim; "always."

"And no one never would have thought it of her," said Purkis.

"No, sir; no one," responded Tim, and then, sinking his voice to a whisper, he looked anxiously round the shop, dropping his hat, and then starting as he caught Purkis by one of his buttons--"Who was it, sir?-- who was it?" he said, in a voice hardly above his breath.

"Why, you don't want me to tell you, I'm sure, sir?" said Purkis, stoutly.

"Oh yes, I do!--oh yes, I do!" groaned Tim.

"Then," said the beadle, "I'll tell you!" When there came the words "O Joseph!" plainly heard from the inner room, pointing to the fact that Mrs Purkis had been listening the whole time. But her lord heeded not the soft appeal, but, leaning forward, he placed a hand upon Tim's shoulder, his lips close to his ear, and whispered the words.

With a cry, the little tailor caught up his hat and dashed out of the shop, then, after silencing the irritated bell, Mr Purkis gave one of his customer-seeking looks up and down the street, but it was only to see poor Tim Ruggles disappear round the corner.

"I knowed you'd commit yourself, Joseph," whimpered Mrs Purkis, standing at the inner door, and rolling her arms tightly in her apron.

"My dear," said Mr Purkis pompously, "it was only my dooty!"

Volume 3, Chapter XVII.

JOHN BROWN.

"It's all against rule and regulation, and that sort of thing," said the sergeant, as he and Harry Clayton were being jolted over the stones in a Hansom cab; "but ours is a particular case. The old gentleman's there long before this, sir. He seemed to revive like magic as soon as ever I told him the news. He just hid his face for a few moments, and then said quite sharp, `Go and fetch Mr Clayton, and bring him after me,' telling me, of course, where you were gone; and here I am, sir."

"But it seems so strange," said Clayton. "I can't understand it."

"Strange, sir! 'Pon my soul, sir, if you'll excuse me for saying so, I'm quite ashamed of myself. Thought I was up to more than that. And yet, here's all the wind taken out of my sails, and I'm nowhere."

Harry nodded, for he wanted to think, but the sergeant rattled on--

"It's always the way with your biggest puzzles, sir: the way to find them out is the simplest way--the way that's so easy that you never even give it a thought if it occurs to you. Perhaps you remember that chap in the story, sir, as wanted to keep a certain dockyment out of the way of the foreign detectives--French police--over the water--secret police, I think they call themselves; not that there's one of them who can hold a candle to our fellows. Spies, perhaps, would be the better name for them. Well, he knew that as soon as he was out, they'd search the place from top to bottom. Well, what does he do? Hide it in the most secret place he could think of? Not he; for places that he could think of as being the safest, perhaps they might think of too. He was too foxy, sir; and he just folds it up like a letter, sticks it in a dirty old envelope, and pops it into the card-rack over the chimney-piece,--plain, for all folk to see; and, as a matter of course, they never so much as look at it. That's just been the case with the young squire here; he's been stuck up in the card-rack over the chimney-piece, chock before my eyes, and I've been shutting 'em up close so as not to see him, when he's been as good as asking me to look. There, sir! I haven't patience with myself; and I'm going to ask to be put on the sooperannuation list, along with the pensioners as I call 'em. Mysterious disappearance! why, it wasn't anything of the sort, sir. But here we are!"

The cab was checked as he spoke, and alighting before a great gloomy looking building, the sergeant led the way up a flight of stone steps, and into a hall, where a liveried porter saluted him with a nod.

"Here, bring us the book again, Tomkins," said the sergeant; and the porter reached a large folio from a desk, and placed it before the sergeant upon a side-table.

"Here you are, sir," said the sergeant, eagerly, as he turned back some leaves, till he came to one which bore the date of Lionel's disappearance. "Now, look here!"

He pointed to an entry in the accident register; for they were in the entrance-hall of a large hospital.

"Look at that, sir," said the sergeant again; "and tell me what you think of it."

Harry Clayton bent over the book, and read--

"Brown, John, stableman, run over by a cab. Severe concussion of the brain."

"Now, sir, what do you make of that?"

"Nothing at all," said Clayton, blankly.

"No more did I, sir. I wasn't looking after John Brown, a stableman; but Lionel Redgrave, Esq. But that wasn't all. I've seen this case-- I've been to the bedside, and then I didn't think anything of it. I was so clever."

"But does that relate to him?"

"To be sure it does, sir. I tell you it's easy enough, now one can see through it; but I couldn't put that and that together before. Name never struck me a bit, when it ought to have been the very key to it all. He was knocked down, and run over by a cab, when out on his larks. Got his hair cut short, and his mustacher shaved off. There's his clothes too, up-stairs--reg'lar stableman's suit--masquerading things-- such togs for a gent like him to wear! Poor chap, it was a bad case, though, for he was nearly killed. Well, of course, they brought him here, and asked him his name, when, just being able to speak, he says the very last thing that was in his poor head, before the sense was knocked out of it, and all its works were brought to a stand still. `What's your name?' they says; and as I said before, he answers the very last thing as was in his head before he was stopped short, and that was the name of the place he had been to--Brownjohn Street; and, saying it, no doubt, very feebly, they didn't hear any more than the Brownjohn, so they put him down as Brown, and his Christian name after it, as is their custom, John--Brown, John; and here he's lain insensible to this day. But come on up, sir."

Following an attendant, Harry and the sergeant were ushered into a long, whitewashed ward, where, on either side, in their iron bedsteads, lay sufferers from the many accidents constantly occurring in the London streets. Here was a man who had fallen from a scaffold; there one who had had his arm crushed by machinery, and, all around, suffering enough to affect the stoutest heart. The sergeant, though, had no eye for these, and swiftly leading the way down the centre, he conducted Harry to where, weak, pale, and helpless, on his bed of suffering, lay Lionel Redgrave,--his hair shaven from his temples, and the large surgical bandages about his head adding greatly to the cadaverous expression of his countenance.

There was not the slightest doubt of his having suffered severely--it was written too plainly on his face; but he seemed now to be perfectly sensible, and as Clayton approached, he tried feebly to hold out his hand, whispering as he did so, the one word--

"Harry!"

Sir Francis sat holding the other hand, anxiously watching his son's face, and hardly reassured by the house-surgeon's declaration that, with anything like care, the young man was now out of danger.

"Don't speak to him, Clayton," said Sir Francis. "Don't talk, my dear boy. Pray remember your condition."

"All right," was the reply, but in very feeble tones. "Seems as if I had been to sleep, and only just woke up. Confounded Hansom!--over me in a moment--Martin's Lane--remember no more."

"Yes, yes, we know all," said Sir Francis; "but for my sake now be silent."

"I must put in a word, too," said the house-surgeon, approaching. "I think he has borne as much as will be beneficial for one day. I must ask you to leave now. To-morrow he will be better able to bear a visit."

"Another ten minutes," pleaded Sir Francis. "Not one instant more. We will not talk."

The surgeon bowed his head, when Harry, after warmly pressing the young man's hand--for he somehow felt thoroughly at ease within his own breast--retired with the surgeon and the detective to another part of the ward.

"Curious case this, sir, eh?" said the sergeant.

"Well, yes," said the surgeon. "But what a strange whim! We had not the most remote idea but that he was some young groom out of place. I judged the latter from the whiteness of his hands, and I must really do our young friend the credit of saying that he thoroughly looked his part."

"I believe you, sir," said the sergeant, "for I was took in,--as reg'lar as I was ever took in before. But they will do this sort of thing, these young gents, with nothing else upon their hands. I don't wonder at it. Must be a miserable life!"

The last remark was made so seriously, and in such perfect good faith, that the surgeon and Harry Clayton exchanged glances, smiling the while.

"I hope," said the latter, "that he will soon be fit to be removed."

"Well, before long," said the surgeon. "Ten days or so. Not sooner-- bad case rather. It was only this morning that he became sensible; and I don't think that even now he fairly realises the length of time that he has been lying there."

"But this must be a most unusual case," said Clayton. "Surely you never had a suspension of the faculties for so long?"

"Oh yes!" said the surgeon. "Such things do happen. Concussion of, or pressure upon the brain from a fracture, gives us at times some exceedingly interesting studies. In this case, the horse must have struck your friend full on the temple, and I wonder that he was not killed."

Then, according to the custom of his _confreres_, the surgeon proceeded to dilate upon the number of eighths of an inch higher or lower which would have been sufficient for the blow to have caused death. But he was interrupted in his discourse by the approach of Sir Francis, who now came up, watch in hand.

"The ten minutes are at an end, and I thank you, sir," he said. "I am indeed most grateful for your skilful treatment of my son. How can I ever disburden myself of the obligation?"

"Oh! if you come to that, easily enough," laughed the surgeon, who fully believed, and held unflinchingly to the faith, that his hospital was the best in London, sparing no pains to let every one know that it was also one of the poorest. "We don't want such patients as your son here, Sir Francis Redgrave; and you may depend in future upon receiving our yearly report, with, I hope, your name down as one of our donors."

Sir Francis shook hands warmly, saying nothing, but thinking the more deeply; and then, bidding farewell to the sergeant at the door, he was accompanied by Clayton back to their temporary home.

They had not been back long though, before there was a step on the stair, and Mr Stiff, the landlord, came up to announce a visitor.

"Who?" said Sir Francis.

"That there little jigging man, sir, as Mr Lionel used to buy his dogs of in--"

"Tell him that I am unwell--that I cannot see him," exclaimed Sir Francis; and Mr Stiff took his departure, but only to return at the end of five minutes.

"Well, Mr Stiff?"

"I can't get rid of him, please, Sir Francis. He says he should be so glad if you'd see him only for a minute. He won't detain you more, and he's in a terrible way about your saying you can't."

"Well, show him up," said Sir Francis, who was not in the humour to refuse anything in the gladness and thankfulness which now filled his heart.

"Shall I see him?" said Clayton, offering to relieve Sir Francis of the task.

"No; perhaps it is something about poor Lionel. I will see him."

The next minute there was the peculiar thumping noise of D. Wragg's feet in the passage, but Sir Francis found time to say a few words before the dealer readied the room.

"Is not this the curious-looking man at the house we searched?"

"The same," said Harry.

"Ah, yes!--I forgot," said Sir Francis; "these troubles have tried me. But here he is."

Sir Francis was right, for the noise increased, the door was thrown open, and the next moment, in a tremendous state of excitement, D. Wragg stood confessed.

Volume 3, Chapter XVIII.