WHERE THE TRACKS LED TO.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.
It was indeed as Winny had said. I was as stunned by her words as though a heavy blow had actually fallen upon me, and for a few seconds could scarcely think, much less speak; but recovering a little from this confusion, I asked her for some explanation. I called it ‘explanation,’ when I spoke to her, but I felt her statement was true; their manner, their looks at parting, were sufficient to tell me all.
Godfrey Harleston had seen Winny going to and from business, and had contrived an introduction to her—this preliminary acquaintance was but slightly glanced at in her story—then, to show that his views were honourable, he had early proposed marriage, but had explained that he wished it kept a secret until some unpleasant matters which were troubling him were settled. This referred at first to the quarrels between his mother and himself, with Mr Thurles, and afterwards, to the affair of the forged bills, respecting which, to my surprise, he had spoken freely to Winny and given a tolerably correct account. Of the burglary he had said nothing, and until my speech, Winny knew nothing of it. She was startled at finding I was sent for by Mr Thurles; but when she learned it was not for the forgery—the messenger saying nothing about that—she was reassured. On that very evening Godfrey had told her that his difficulty was now settled, and, as naturally following upon this, he proposed now making their marriage known. They were talking on this subject when they met me.
All this Winny told—every word going to my heart—in a rapid, excited manner, which increased in force as she went on, until she finished with a wild declaration that she would go to Godfrey and warn him of the traps which were being set for him, of the danger which awaited him on the morrow. He was her husband—her honourable, guiltless, noble husband! she almost shrieked. It was her duty to warn him, and, if needful, to be with him.
I had a dreadful job to pacify her; and I was obliged to hold out hopes which I knew to be false, and to explain away all that I had said. That all I told her now would be proved false the very next day, I well knew, and perhaps it was cruel to deceive her; but what was I to do? I was nearly mad. I did not show it so much as Winny, but I believe I was as bad.
Never was man in a more painful position on this earth. It was impossible for me to draw back; I could not and would not do so; yet the consequences of going on were frightful. Ruin to my daughter—a blight on her life which could never be removed—this I should bring about; and to do it would kill me.
I never closed my eyes all night; and by the haggard looks of Winny in the morning, I was sure it had been the same with her. I tried to talk as though I was not thinking of the horrible position we were in; but of course it was a dead failure. I said that as she did not seem very well, she had perhaps better not go to business that morning. If I had known what her answer would be, I should probably have held my tongue.
‘Do you think, father,’ she exclaimed, ‘that I can attend to business or to any duty to-day? I shall wait your return here. Remember, it was by your advice that I did not, as I know I ought to have done, go to my husband last night and warn him. You said it would be all for the best if I did not do so. I shall wait here until you bring me the news which proves I was right in taking, and you in giving such advice.’
I went out to keep my appointment, as miserable and wretched a man as any who that day crawled through the streets of London. How I blamed myself for meddling in painful and disagreeable business which I ought to have been done with for ever, and how I vowed to keep clear of everything of the kind, if I could only get out of this scrape. I met Sam’s wife; a pale, care-worn, thinly clad little woman; without a trace, I was sure, of the habitual criminal in her spare features, although I daresay she knew more of Sam’s doings than the law would have looked favourably on.
‘O Mr Holdrey!’ she said—she knew me, it seemed, better than I knew her—‘I am so glad you have come.—But, lor! how bad you look, sir!’
I did not answer her; I could not.
‘He’s going to make a bolt of it,’ she went on; ‘he means sailing for America in a day or two. He got the money from the old lady last night; and I have seen him since I have been here this morning.’
‘Seen him?—seen’—— I began. I knew very well whom she meant, but I was obliged to say something. Yet, it was impossible, I thought, when I recalled the previous night and many other incidents of the case, that young Harleston could be thinking of going abroad.
‘Why, that precious Mr Godfrey,’ she answered. ‘We are only just in time. A pal—a friend, I mean, of poor Sam’s knows him, and has kept an eye on him, to oblige Sam; so he learnt enough to tell me this.’
‘Where did you see him?’ Goodness knows why I asked it, but it did as well as anything else I could think of.
‘He went into a house in that street,’ said Mrs Sam, pointing down a turning at the corner of which we stood. We had met in Gracechurch Street, as being half-way, she living over the water, and because I thought it just possible I might have to see Mr Thurles, after hearing what she had to say.
It was a shipping office, it appeared, into which he had gone. This might easily have been on business for Thurles & Company; yet it agreed so far with what the woman had said, although the place was not an American agency. I dreaded my visit to the Mansion House. I felt that anything would be welcome which might, even for a short time, postpone the awful business I had before me, so I proposed that we should watch until he came out, stationing ourselves in a court where we were not likely to be seen.
She readily agreed, and indeed had said much which I cannot stay to put down, which showed the bitterest animosity against the young man, whom she had seen several times, and who had evidently offended her. This, although of no great consequence, was to me a little strange, as, although I had only seen Godfrey Harleston twice, yet I should have said he was the last man in the world to deserve such hatred. Whatever his faults may have been, there was something open and pleasant in his manner at anyrate. However, Mrs Sam was very decided in her opinion, and while we waited at our post, gave utterance to a good many unflattering speeches regarding Mr Godfrey.
I had in my time been on the watch for six or eight hours at a stretch, and had never felt so uneasy as I did in the twenty minutes I passed in that entry in —— Street. My eyes now fairly ached with watching the never-ceasing streams of figures which came and went in the busy thoroughfare. More than one person came out of the house we were interested in, but I took no more notice of them than of the other strangers. I was looking only for one figure—a figure which I dreaded to see appear, as then I could make no further excuse for delay. Intently as I was watching the office, I thought I must for an instant have dozed, or lost consciousness in some way, for, suddenly, Mrs Sam pulled me sharply by the sleeve, and said: ‘There he is! He has just come out.—Don’t you see him?’ she added hurriedly, seeing me look confusedly from side to side. ‘You say you know him. Don’t you see him?—There—there!’ She pointed with her finger, as she almost angrily uttered these words.
‘No; I do not!’ I exclaimed, with equal sharpness. ‘Mr Harleston is not in sight, I am certain.’
‘Why, what do you mean?’ she cried, and again pointed across the road. ‘Don’t you see him just passing the public-house? He carries a small black bag.’
‘Aha! that—that man!’ I exclaimed. ‘Is that Mr Godfrey Harleston?’
‘Of course it is,’ she retorted. ‘I know him as well as I do you.’
Then she started back in alarm, and no wonder, for I burst out laughing, and ended by wringing the little woman’s hand with a force which brought tears to her eyes.
‘It’s all right!’ I exclaimed. ‘If that is your Godfrey Harleston, I can understand everything.—Hi!’—this was to a passing cab—‘Mansion House, my good fellow!—Now, jump in, Mrs Sam, and we will settle the business in no time.’
We rattled away. What a load was off my mind! How deep and cunning the trick, and yet how easy to understand, when once the clue was supplied! The man she identified as Godfrey Harleston was no other than Mr George Picknell, my friendly clerk, who had taken so much interest in me, and who had so constantly, although without any seeming intention, directed suspicion to the step-son of Mr Thurles; and if Sam had not been ‘shopped,’ or if Picknell had had the honesty to behave fairly to Sam’s wife, his scheme might have been successful—so far as he was concerned.
We told our story at the Mansion House; and the case being one of importance, Mr Picknell was arrested that very afternoon, as he sat at his desk in the office. If he had not been taken then, we should not have had him at all, for he had a ticket in his pocket for his passage to the Cape, by a vessel sailing the next day.
But before all these things had been done and found out, you may be sure I had hurried off home in a cab. I dashed up the steps, opened the door with my key, and then into the parlour, where Winny was sitting, half distracted with suspense and anxiety. But there must have been something in my face which told a tale, for before I had spoken a word, she rose, and with a laugh, which was a sob before it was finished, threw her arms round my neck and exclaimed: ‘My dear father! Thank heaven!’ She could say no more just then for sobbing and tears; but she knew somehow that all was well. We should have made a pretty picture, if any one could have seen us, for I was as bad as Winny; but we were both brimming over with happiness.
Yet there was a great deal to be accounted for, which at another time would have checked anything like pleasure; but I had got over the worst; the most fatal difficulty had been mastered, and I did not care about anything else.
Mr Godfrey—the real Godfrey—called upon me that afternoon, and much was explained then; while the examination in Picknell’s case supplied most of the rest. What was still obscure was cleared by Godfrey’s mother and by the confession of the unlucky young fellow who had forged the bills and was apprehended about this time. The poor creature was at death’s door, and never lived to take his trial.
I daresay, however, that every one can see pretty nearly what had happened, so I will be very brief. Godfrey Harleston had really taken a fancy for betting on horseraces. Picknell had told the truth in saying this. Most of what he said was true, but so mixed up and coloured that it was worse than a lie. This, of course, is common enough; all mischief-makers resort to this trick.
Well, young Godfrey had bad luck from the first; and Smithers—I forget whether I mentioned his name before, but this was the party who absconded—being his chief adviser, Harleston applied to him to obtain the money to meet some heavy losses. Smithers was as bad off as himself, and had no one to look to for help; while Godfrey, if he chose to make any emergency known, could always get assistance. He trusted to his luck to bring him round, however, without applying to his mother—most novices would have felt the same—so was ready to agree, when Smithers suggested bills at two months, which he could get discounted on his own signature—so Godfrey understood.
Harleston drew up the bills; and Smithers, being unable to get a shilling on his own name, put in a fictitious firm, depending on Godfrey getting the money to meet the bills in time. But, by an awful stroke of luck, the bills were rediscounted, and afterwards paid to Thurles & Company, where some accidental circumstance caused the recognition of Godfrey’s writing, and then inquiry soon proved that the accepting firm was a sham.
Old Thurles was delighted at this, and spoke too freely as to what he would do. Picknell was either in the room at the time when the merchant uttered his threats, or—as I should say was more likely—he listened and skulked till he found out enough to give him his cue. He saw at once how, if the young man had committed forgery, the documents proving his guilt would be a valuable property, and he determined to get them into his possession. But it was not easy to do this and keep suspicion from himself. If stolen from the safe in any ordinary manner and during the day, a clerk must have been suspected. Some little time before, Mr Godfrey had a more serious quarrel than usual with his step-father, and had left the office. It was not until after this that he knew forgery had been committed, but he was aware that the bills had come into the possession of Thurles & Company. His absence suggested a brilliant idea to Picknell, who had a rather large circle of acquaintance of the shadiest character, and was himself, indeed, under a very demure aspect, about as bad a fellow as the Newgate calendar could show. He found out Sam, who was quite willing to undertake so profitable and easy a piece of work as Picknell represented the breaking into the office to be.
The clerk had secured impressions in wax of the keys of the outer safe—he could not get at those which opened the interior one—and Sam had no difficulty in finding an artisan who would make duplicate keys from those patterns. While dealing with his ‘professional’ friend, a splendid piece of strategy suggested itself to the clerk. He saw how to screen himself and throw suspicion on the quarter where it was already only too likely to fall, so he assumed the name of Godfrey Harleston. A tolerably correct account of what had occurred as regarded the forgery, fully satisfied Sam of the expediency of his new friend’s proceedings, and convinced him that he ‘had got hold of a good thing.’
The burglary came off successfully, but with much less immediate profit than Sam had hoped for; however, he anticipated a harvest from the bills. Of course Picknell had to tell his confederate much of his plan in regard to these documents, because they were in the burglar’s possession, and he was not likely to give them up without some inducement.
Without loss of time—for he knew how dangerous a path he was treading—the clerk waited on Mrs Thurles, and claiming to represent those who had discounted bills forged by her son—the lady knew nothing of the burglary—so wrought upon her fears, that she paid him a handsome sum on account, and promised a great deal more when the bills should be given to her. Had the poor lady had the courage to speak openly to her son, she would have found how little he had to do with the forgery. He was uneasy about it, and had been trying to raise money elsewhere to pay the firm who had originally discounted the bills. This he had succeeded in doing, which led him to tell Winny he had at last got over the difficulty he had spoken of. The young dog had more to think about than even the bills at the time, for he had just been married to my Winny; at anyrate, his mother could see he was in trouble, and naturally feared the worst.
So the way was clear for Picknell; but he was so covetous and so thoroughly dishonourable, that he could not act fairly to anybody. He gave Sam the paltry two pounds, which aggravated the burglar more than if he had received nothing. This first sum from Mrs Thurles was obtained on the night when I tracked Picknell to the public-house in the mews, so you may guess how my appearance startled Sam. Picknell had meant to abscond the moment he got the money, and till then, he thought he could put Sam off with excuses, especially as the latter supposed he was dealing with Godfrey Harleston, and the name of Picknell had never been mentioned.
Sam found out that his accomplice was cheating him; then, being arrested, and fearing that his wife and child would be left destitute, he sent for me. Mrs Thurles got nearly all her money back; while Sam and Picknell were each tried at the same sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and were each sentenced to penal servitude; Sam’s time being much the longer.
Mr Thurles paid the reward, and I shared it with Mrs Sam, who went away, soon after, to some relatives in the north of England. I never heard any more of her. But before she went, she brought me a queer, old-fashioned silver jug, as a present to Winny—at the wish of Sam, she said. I did not want to take this; but the little woman declared, most earnestly, that it was her grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s, and honestly come by. She said, too, that Sam had talked so much about his gratitude to me for speaking up for him at the trial, that he would be disappointed if his gift was refused. I recollected Sam’s promise then, and accepted the present, which Winny has on her sideboard; and a gentleman who knows about such things has told her that the jug is very curious and valuable.
Poor Mrs Thurles was so delighted to find her son free, that she would have welcomed his wife if she had been an Eskimo. She took kindly to Winny; and I am proud to say that there is not a happier wife in London than my daughter.