CHAPTER XX. A MEETING BETWEEN MEN OF BUSINESS.
“What a dickens is the man always whimpering about murder for? If business cannot be carried on without it, what would you have a gentleman to do?” Beggars’ Opera.
The scene has changed; and we must request the gentle reader to accompany us into a close dark alley, with no thoroughfare connecting it to the opener streets around, save two narrow and crooked passages scarcely three feet wide. The houses are high and old-fashioned, and front each other so closely, that from roof to roof an active man might spring. Their general appearance betokens fear or wretchedness; for, while some of the windows are so jealously blinded, as to prevent all chance of espionage from without, others are recklessly exposed to the eye of the passenger, as if it were intended to display the extent of the dirt and poverty within. The large brick dwelling at the bottom of the court is curiously situated. At either gable, it opens by a side door into one of the foul dark passages we have described; the front is to the court; and the back abuts upon one of those small and half-forgotten cemeteries, not larger than a modern drawing-room, which may still be seen, studding here and there the more ancient portions of that “mighty mass of wood, and brick, and mortar,” ycleped “the great metropolis.”
Within this dwelling, there was a semblance of opulence that formed a striking contrast to the squalid poverty that was perceptible in every other building around it. The rooms were crowded with ill-assorted furniture, and the walls covered with mirrors and pictures. On the tables and mantelpiece, clocks, china, and fancy-ornaments were incongruously heaped together; the whole looking liker a broker’s store-room than the private dwelling of a man in trade. The place was a receptacle for stolen property—or in thieves’ parlance, the house of “a fence.”
In a large apartment on the first floor the owner of this singular abiding-place was seated. He seemed a man of fifty, and his own appearance was as curious as the domicile he inhabited. To judge by the outline of his countenance, you would call him an Irishman, while its character and expression were decidedly that of a Jew. Indeed nothing could be less prepossessing than both; and the look of the man, taken altogether, was low, blackguard, and repulsive.
On the table beside which this ill-favoured gentleman was seated, there were lights, glasses, and decanters; a comfortable fire was blazing in the hearth, and window-shutters, plated with iron, were carefully secured with bolt and bar.
Mr. Brown, for so the master of the house was named, seemed occupied with business of no common interest; and to a letter, which he held open in his hand, frequent references were made. His actions were those of a man placed in a situation of perilous uncertainty; for he frequently rose from his chair and paced the room, muttering to himself disjointed sentences, and again returning to the table, to re-peruse an epistle which evidently contained matter of deep moment to the reader. Suddenly he rang the bell, and its summons was answered by a personage of remarkable exterior.
He was a hunchback, and so curiously distorted, that he seemed to be constructed of nothing but legs and arms. From his appearance you would guess him to be fifteen, but his face told you that he was at least five years older; and on every line and feature of that sinister countenance cunning and knavery were imprinted.
“Frank,” said the master of the hunchback, “who brought Mr. Sloman’s letter?”
“The red-haired man from the City-road, who proved our last alibi at the Bailey,” was the reply.
“Humph!” returned Mr. Brown, again glancing his eyes over the letter, and favouring the hunchback with occasional extracts from its contents,—“‘Matter of deepest importance,’—‘not a moment to be lost,’—‘Be with you punctually,’—‘Come through the burial-ground at nine.’ Have you unlocked the wicket, Frank?”
“Not till I had your orders,” returned the attendant.
“Right, Frank; people can never be too guarded; but Sloman’s a safe hand, and we have done a good stroke of business together before now. It must be plate or jewels;—and yet I was talking to an old cracksman this very evening, and if there had been a smash last night of any consequence he would have been safe to know it and tell me. Unlock the wicket, Frank—and then slip over to the Fortune of War, and try if you can get any intelligence.”
The hunchback disappeared; and during his absence, Mr. Brown divided his attention pretty equally between the contents of Mr. Sloman’s epistle and those of the decanter at his elbow. In a quarter of an hour, the hunchback’s key was heard turning in the street-door lock,—and he presently announced, that, having made diligent inquiries from several professional gentlemen who were refreshing themselves in the back parlour of the Fortune of War, he was then and there assured, that nothing had been done the preceding evening but the usual theatrical business—with the exception of a silver coffee-pot, that had been abstracted from a west-end hotel.
Another quarter of an hour passed—a church-bell chimed—nine was sounded from the belfry; and, ere the clock ceased striking, steps were heard upon the stairs, and “the thing of legs and arms” announced “Mr. Sloman.”
The expected visitor was a large, corpulent, clumsy-looking nondescript, with a hooked nose, and light complexion, that rendered it impossible to decide whether he should be classed as Jew or Gentile.
At Mr. Brown’s invitation he took a chair, filled a glass, ventured a remark touching the present state of the weather, and ended with an eulogy on the wine.
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“It should be capital, for it comes directly from the cellar of a noble lord, who is considered to be as good a judge of port as any man in England,”—said Mr. Brown; “his head butler and I do business pretty extensively. He’s always hard up, his woman is so desperately extravagant; for actresses are always expensive cattle, as you know. I have recommended him to take a rib; but he can’t stand matrimony, he says,—at the west-end, it’s reckoned so infernally vulgar.”
“You got my letter,” said Mr. Sloman, with a significant look.
Mr. Brown nodded assent.
“We’re all alone?” inquired Mr. Sloman.
“Not a soul in the house, but Frank and the old housekeeper,” was the reply.
“Well,” rejoined the visitor, “let us go slap to business. We have done a little in our time, Mr. Brown, and I flatter myself to mutual satisfaction.”
Mr. Brown smiled affirmatively.
“Every transaction between us,” continued Mr. Sloman, “safe, honourable, and agreeable.”
“The last stolen bills were devilish awkward to manage,” observed Mr. Brown, “and things became so ticklish, that they were returned to the parties for three hundred. Not a rap more—no—upon my honour!”
“Nothing in the bill line,” observed Mr. Sloman, “at present.”
“Glad of it,” returned Mr. Brown. “Is it a crack?—plate, jewels, or—”
“Quite another line—In a word, a thousand’s offered—get the thing done, and we divide!”
Mr. Brown started. Two things occasioned this disturbance of constitutional self-possession; the first was the largeness of the consideration, and the second, an intimation that the business was in “a new line.”
“Who are the parties, and what’s the business?” was the inquiry.
“Of the one I know nothing; of the other, particulars are contained in this sealed paper. The party who communicates with me, forbade it to be opened until the thing was put in train.”
“Well, how the devil,” said Mr. Brown, “can I enter on a business that I know nothing of?”
“I only know generally,” returned Mr. Sloman, “what it is.”
“Go on,” said Mr. Brown impatiently.
“There is a person in the way—he must be removed;” said Mr. Sloman in a whisper.
“Murdered, of course,” observed the host.
“Upon my soul, Mr. Brown, I am quite surprised at the unprofessional nature of your remark. Do you see any thing particularly green about me, to lead you to suppose that I would make myself accessory before fact? I neither know the man, nor will know anything of the man; or what is to become of him, or what will become of him. I got this sealed note, and that there flimsy as retaining fee,” and he held up a sealed packet, and a bank note for a hundred pounds, both of which Mr. Brown took and examined most attentively.
“That’s sealed close enough,” he said, laying down the paper on the table; “and that’s genuine,” he added, after submitting the bank note to an investigation before the candle, to ascertain the authenticity of the water-mark. “Is the five safe?” he said, still playing with the hundred in his hand.
“I’ll freely deposit that hundred as security,” returned Mr. Sloman, “and now, in a word, is the thing in your line? Will you do it?”
“Do what?” responded Mr. Brown, with a look of innocent surprise.
“My dear Brown,” returned Mr. Sloman, “what the devil use in dodging with a friend?”
“It’s you that’s dodging,” replied the amiable host; “pray may I read this paper?”
“Read it, if you please, but tell me nothing of the contents.”
“You’re a deep-un,” Slowey and Mr. Brown again passed the bank note between the candle and his eye. “Undeniable!” he muttered, and next moment he retired to the corner of the apartment, at the special solicitation of Mr. Sloman; and then having broken the seal of the packet, Brown read the writing, while Sloman, in perfect ignorance of its import, drew the decanter closer, and as cocknies say, “assisted” himself liberally to the contents.
When the worthy owner of the house had read the scroll, the effect upon him seemed astounding. His frame appeared convulsed, the lip whitened, and the hand that held the paper seemed scarcely able to retain it. He read it again and again, and then, crumpling it in his grasp, returned to the table, filled a glass of brandy, and drained it to the bottom; an example faithfully followed by his excellent friend, Mr. Sloman.
“Well, Mr. B., what say you?”
“This simply—the business shall be done.”
“To the satisfaction of the parties concerned?” inquired Mr. Sloman.
“Yes; or you may keep the four hundred.”
“He is to be disposed of, so that he shall give no farther trouble. Remember that, Mr. Brown.”
“The grave is the best security for that,” returned the host.
“Stop, stop; don’t tell me any particulars. Only let the thing come off like a business transaction,—you understand me?”
“Perfectly responded Mr. Brown.
“And you undertake it?”
“I do,”—and in that understanding pocket this retainer and Mr. Brown put the bank note into his breast-pocket. “Come, as matters are arranged, let us have another bottle.”
“No, no, no,—I must return to the person waiting your reply.—He will be impatient.”
“Who are the parties, Sloman?—honour bright.”
“By heaven! I know no more of them than you do; nor, stranger still, does the agent who proposed the affair to me. Best assured the thing is ably planned, and there are deep ones at the bottom of it.”
“Ay, and I promise you that it shall be as ably executed,” responded Mr. Brown.
“To a gentleman of your experience,” said Mr. Sloman, with a bow, “it would be impertinent to offer advice. The fewer number of people employed in the job, (remember, I know nothing of it,) why the less chance there is of splitting.”
“Mr. Brown assented by a nod.
“To an honest tradesman, like yourself, or a lawyer of character, like me, any thing to compromise us would be detrimental.”
A parting glass was drunk,—and the payment, its mode and certainty, all being carefully arranged, the excellent gentlemen separated with a warm shake of the hand, protestations of mutual esteem, and a God bless you! Mr. Sloman was emancipated by the churchyard door; the hunchback locked the grating; and Mr. Brown, having interdicted all visitors for the night, excepting the favoured few who had the private entree of his domicile, sate down “alone in his glory.”
The step of the hunchback was heard no more, as he had dived into the lower regions which he inhabited. Mr. Brown looked suspiciously about him for a moment, and satisfied that he was in perfect loneliness and security, he burst into a passionate soliloquy, and strange, the language it was uttered in was in Irish!
“Who says that he who waits for vengeance will not sooner or later find a time? Ha! the hour at last is come, when that heart, proud man, which I cannot reach myself, shall bleed profusely through another’s. Let me look back. I remember well the moment when the jury returned my conviction, and the judge, to strike terror into others, sentenced me to eternal banishment, and ordered me to be transported from the dock. My prosecutor stood leaning against the bench, and returned my glance of impotent revenge, with one of supercilious disdain, as a lion would look upon a cur. Thirteen long years I dragged out in slavery—and such slavery, to one, who like me, had known the comforts which appertains to a gentleman’s dwelling! I escaped—reached England—fortune has smiled upon me, and I am wealthy—no matter how the money came—and none suspect me—none know me as a returned transport save one, and with her the secret’s safe. I never can be detected here for, fortunately for me, it was believed I failed in my escape, and was drowned attempting it. Has wealth engrossed my thoughts—has money made me happy? No, no,—vengeance, vengeance, haunt my very dreams! But it was not to be obtained—I dared not venture near the man I hate—the attempt would have been too perilous—I should be known, and if discovered, without the power of inflicting injury, I should be myself the victim, and my ruin would gratify the man I loath. Heavens! can it be true, and is the hour of vengeance come at last? It is! it is! Denis O’Halloran, before a third night pass, the worm you despised and spurned in your hour of triumph, shall sting you to the soul! Now for the means. That Hebrew barterer in blood, who has changed his name and calls himself a Christian—he gave a necessary caution. I’ll follow it—the fewer employed in such a deed the better. Ha, I have it! The body-snatchers—ay—they are the men. I can manage it through Frank.—He was one of them, but the labour was too severe for him. That devil-boy has in that puny frame-work, the ferocity of a tiger, and the cunning of a fiend; he loves mischief for itself, and doats upon a deed of blood. Yes,—the resurrectionists are the men; and they so readily manage to rid themselves of the carrion afterwards. There are three of them—surely enough—all young men, and two of them were pugilists. He is described as tall, active, and powerful, and his father’s son will not be wanting in the hour of danger;—but what is one man to three?—Hark! the street-bell rings—I expect nobody to night!—Hush, here comes the boy.”
As he spoke the hunchback entered, and announced that “the gipsy’’ was passing, and wished to speak to Mr. Brown.
“Saints and angels! the very person that I want! Show her up. Ay—we need a decoy—in every mischief, woman can be usefully employed.”
The announced one entered Mr. Brown’s great chamber, and addressed him with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.
“I leave town to-morrow,” she began—
“I doubt it,” was the reply.
“Why?” asked the gipsy, sharply.’
“The reason you shall know presently. Mary,” he continued, “have you forgotten events that happened nineteen years ago?”
“Can they ever be forgotten, Hacket?—my own disgrace—my brother’s murder.”
“And yet, Mary, you have not the reason to recollect them that I have. You were never banished.”
“Was I not worse than banished?” returned the gipsy. “See what my life has been since I was disgraced and driven from my native land—with one passing gleam of happiness, a scene of guilt, and crime, and misery. Once my wandering career was stayed; I was loved, and raised from poverty; I was sheltered, protected, educated. My wayward destiny had found a home at last; and the evening of a troubled life promised to end in peace and quiet. Accident in a moment robbed me of him on whom my future fate depended—and I was again cast upon the world, when I had experienced enough of happiness only to estimate its loss more acutely. Have not misery and suffering been my companions since? I have felt the indignity of a gaol; I have been the inmate of a madhouse; I am now a half-crazed wanderer. Homeless and friendless I’ll live; and when the spirit passes, no holy lip shall breathe a prayer for the soul’s repose of a nameless outcast, who probably will perish on a dung-hill.”
“And what would you give for vengence on him whose fickle love caused you this misery and shame? Listen, Mary; before three suns go down in ocean, vengeance shall be ours!”
“How? speak, Hacket?”
“Denis O’Halloran shall be childless—through the son’s heart I’ll reach the father’s.—Attend!”—and Hacket rapidly detailed the outline of the foul conspiracy.
“With lips apart, and eyes fixed intensely on the narrator’s countenance, Mary Halligan listened in silence. Suddenly the street-bell rang once more, and Haeket was called away, leaving the gipsy alone.
“And so the son’s to be slaughtered to break the father’s heart,” she muttered,—“and he thinks that I am savage as himself, and that I will aid him in his deed of blood. Alas! he little knows that woman’s first love can never be obliterated. Five and twenty years have passed. I saw him recently; for the impulse was irresistible, and I crossed the sea to gratify the wish. Time had blanched his hair, the stoop of years had slightly bent his lofty carriage; and an empty sleeve told that he had been mutilated on the battle field. He passed me carelessly; but when I spoke, turned, as if the voice that fell upon his ear had been once familiar. He replied to me in kind accents, and gave me some silver as he walked away. Did I see him then as he was? Oh, no; I only saw the bold and handsome soldier, who, in the mountain glen, taught me first to love; and could I harm him because he trifled with a heart that never loved another; and, like an infant’s toy, threw it from him when the newness of the gift was over? No; Denis O’Hallo-ran, thy boy shall be preserved; or she whom you wooed, and won, and deserted, will perish in the effort. Ha! I hear the tiger’s foot upon the stair; and now to deceive him.”
All that the scoundrel proposed, the gipsy warmly assented to—and I was placed under instant espionage. The thing of legs and arms, ycleped Frank, watched my outgoings from the hotel.—Hacket, through the hunchback’s agency, settled with the resurrection men the price of my destruction—and all required, was a fitting opportunity to accomplish it.
Two modes presented themselves—secret murder or open violence. The first was infinitely preferable, had my habits been irregular, and that consequently I could have been seduced into some of the convenient slaughter-houses, with which the metropolis then abounded. Places there were enough; but the difficulty was, how should I be gotten there? Women were employed, but Isidora proved a counter-charm. Scented billets, couched in ardent language, reached me daily; but the assignations were disregarded. Could letters be credited upon ladies’ hearts, I had done prodigious execution but I acted like “a man of snow,” and out-josephed Joseph. To Mr. Hartley I even submitted these amatory effusions, and in his company I actually kept two or three appointments. It was observed, probably from some blinded window, that another person was in my company, and that no attempt could be made upon me with success; and like Hotspur’s spirits “none did come, though we did call for them.” Unknown to each other, Hacket and I played a deep and desperate game, the stake was life, and—as the cards turned up—I won it.
Why that a regular Emeralder like me, whose native soil is known to be favourable to the growth of gallantry as it is unfriendly to that of reptiles, should play deal-adder to the call of beauty in the streets, the following chapter may possibly account for.