CHAPTER C.
Learmont’s Visit to the Chequers.—The Sleeping Smith.
By nine o’clock, according to his appointment with Andrew Britton, Learmont was in the park. His face was dreadfully pale—his limbs shook under him as he gladly availed himself of one of the wooden seats on which to rest his wearied and exhausted frame.
“When will this end?” he muttered. “Four nights now without repose—I am sinking into the grave; yet this last night, with its feverish dreams, and awful spectral visitations, has been much the worst I ever passed. Surely it must have arisen from my great anxiety just now concerning Jacob Gray, and when he is dead I shall have some peace. Yes, then, surely, I shall feel much relieved, but not till then—not till then. ’Tis the time, and yet Andrew Britton comes not. Dare he refuse to obey my summons? Or is he sleeping off some deep drunkenness of last evening, and deaf to time? The sot! I cannot do without him in this matter, for Gray may be armed, or he may even procure assistance. We must be in force sufficient to make sure work. Let me think. Yes—yes. ’Twere far better to kill him in his own abode than in mine. Of what use is his confession to him, unless placed somewhere where it may be easily found? None whatever. I shall be able easily to lay my hand upon it, and when I have that document once fairly in my grasp, I shall feel myself again. I and Britton will go at midnight, and make our way into the house as best we can. No lock can stand the practised skill of the smith; and, from the ancient grudge he has to Jacob Gray, he will enter into this affair with a good will. I am sure he will. Moreover, I can inflame his passion ere we go.”
Learmont began to get very impatient, as Britton did not make his appearance; and, after waiting a full hour beyond the specified time, he rose from the seat, and, with a bitter execration on his lips, he walked slowly in the direction in which Britton must come in proceeding from the Chequers.
Still the squire met him not, and finally, he left the park, by Storey’s Gate, and walked on until he came within sight of the ancient hotel in which the unconscious Britton was lying fast asleep, with no great prospect of arousing himself for some hours to come.
Learmont paused as he said,—
“Now, if I thought there was no chance of being known, I would call upon the savage smith, and at once ascertain the cause of this broken appointment. Let me consider—I have not seen him for a week—perchance he is ill—perchance dead. The latter would be a blessed release, if Jacob Gray preceded him, and he left no damning evidence behind, a matter in which I have always had my doubts as regarded Britton. Surely none at this low pot-house can know me? I think I may venture—the stake I have in hand is worth the risk. Yes, I will make inquiry, for if Jacob Gray dies not to-night, I shall have another night of misery—oh! I shall sleep well when I am assured that he sleeps never again to awaken.”
Learmont, however, still lingered, ere he could make up his mind to call upon the drunken smith, at the Chequers, for he was most fearful that such an act, trifling as it was, might form a link in the chain of evidence against him, should any accidental circumstances occur to fix suspicion upon him, after Gray’s murder should have been achieved.
“And yet,” he reasoned, “what can I do? Stay, a thought strikes me—I can send some one with an inquiry, and then shape my own conduct by the answer. Ah, yon poor beggar-woman, with her squalid children, will, for the promise of an alms, do my errand.”
He walked up to a miserable looking object, who was shivering upon a door-step, with some wretched-looking children around her. The moment he showed an intention of speaking to her, she commenced a piteous appeal for charity.
“Oh, sir—kind sir,” she said, “bestow a trifle upon a starving widow, and her wretched children—my husband was a waterman, sir, he was murdered on the Bishop’s walk, at Lambeth, and since then, we have been starving.”
Learmont reeled from the woman as she spoke, and he felt that him she spoke of was the man who had met so cruel a death from his hand.
“Not her—not her;” he muttered. “I must go myself—a cursed chance to meet her—now I shall dream of that, too, I suppose—curse on the dreams—methinks I hear that man’s gasping screams, as he fell upon the snow, after I had run him through; but I must not torture myself thus—I will go to the Chequers—a sudden faintness has come over my heart—I will take a cup of wine there, and make my inquires cautiously.”
The woman’s voice sunk into a low wail of anguish and despair, as she saw Learmont turn away, and then bursting into tears, she sobbed over her famishing children, in all the bitterness of a mother’s grief.
“God help us—God help us,” she cried, “and Heaven have mercy on your father’s murderer.”
Learmont walked hastily towards the Chequers, and early as it was, sounds of mirth and revelry were issuing from it. Bond, the butcher, was waiting for Britton to rise, and amusing himself by chanting Bacchanalian songs the while, and drinking deeply. His roaring voice arrested Learmont’s steps, and he wondered who it could be that so rivalled even the lungs of Britton, as he heard the following strains:—
“Up, to the skies
Let the goblet rise,
We heed nor wind nor weather;
We moisten each lip
With the wine sip,
And we clank our cans together.
Clank—clank—clank.
“Drink, drink to the vine,
’Tis a goddess fine,
There ne’er was such another;
Its fruit rich and rare,
Will banish all care,
And all bad feelings smother.
Clank—clank—clank.
“Fill, fill to the brim,
A bumper to him,
Who leaves in his glass no drain;
He knows not a strife,
But so calm his life
Glides on without a pain.
Clank—clank—clank.”
Learmont stepped into the dingy, dark passage, and making his way up to the bar, he, in an assumed voice, said,—
“A cup of your best wine, landlord.”
The wine was placed before him, and then he said in a careless tone,—
“Has Master Britton risen yet?”
“Oh, dear, no, your worship,” said the landlord. “He won’t be up for a good hour or two yet. He went out in his chair last evening, and came home all over bruises from a tumble. Oh, such a man as he is—but perhaps your worship knows him?”
“No, but I have heard of him.”
“Ah, all Westminster has heard of him. He drinks hugely. He is fast asleep now in his attic. He won’t be in any other room, because he says he should have to murder somebody for treading heavy over his head, if he was lower down in the house. A strange fancy, your worship—a strange fancy.”
“Indeed it is.”
A violent pull from the parlour bell now induced the landlord to rush from his bar to answer it, with the exclamation of,—
“That’s Master Bond, I’ll warrant. He’s as bad as Britton, every bit, only he helps him to drink a vast quantity of liquor.”
“In the attic,” muttered Learmont to himself, as he glanced round him, and saw that he was alone, and the staircase leading to the upper part of the house immediately before him. “I will go and see him. My business brooks no delay.”
He accordingly ascended the stairs, and was half way up before the landlord came back.
“Well, I never,” exclaimed the host; “fairly done out of a cup of the best wine in the house. He looked a very respectable man, too, though no beauty. Who would have thought he’d have gone off without paying in this minute? The villain!”
The landlord walked to the door, and looked up and down the street; then he came back, shaking his head, as he said,—
“How he must have run, too, for he ain’t to be seen anywhere. Well, if I catch him again, I’ll be even with him, though he is a lanky. Two yards of bad stuff, he is—a vagabond. To cheat me! He might as well rob a church!”
Learmont had just about as much idea of bilking the landlord out of payment for his wine as he had of robbing a church; but his mind had been by far too intent upon his own object to think of the money at all.
With hasty strides he ascended the dark, narrow staircase, of the old Chequers, and seeing a half-open door on the topmost landing, he pushed it wide open, and entering a room saw Andrew Britton, perfectly dressed, lying in a deep sleep across the bed.