At eight o'clock that evening George Dallas, alias Paul Ward, as the police phrase had it, was arrested at Mr. Felton's lodgings, charged with the murder of Mr. Felton's son. George's agent had done his work well, and the notes changed at Amsterdam, which the old bookseller's death had released from their hiding-place and put in circulation, had furnished the clue to Mr. Tatlow's dexterous fingers. The notes bore Arthur Felton's initials; they had been paid to him by the Liverpool Bank; they were indorsed in full, with date too, by Paul Ward.
"And a case," said Mr. Tatlow, who had a turn for quotation, "neater, completer, in every feater, I don't think I ever was in."
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
AT THE TIDAL TRAIN.
"There's a job for you to-day, Jim," said the irreproachable Harris to Mr. James Swain, when he presented himself at half-past eight at Routh's house, according to his frequent custom.
"I didn't come after no jobs this mornin'," said Jim; "I come to see the missis."
"Ah, but you can't see her, she ain't up, and the job is particular wanted to be done."
Jim looked moody and discontent, but cheered up when Harris represented that he might see Mrs. Routh on his return. The "job" was the delivery of Routh's clothes and letters, as directed, at his chambers in Tokenhouse-yard. The boy was troubled in his mind, irresolute. George Dallas's sudden illness, the photograph he had seen, these things added to the perplexity he was in already. Perhaps he had better speak to Mrs. Routh first; he did not know; at all events, he might tell her what had occurred yesterday, without mentioning the portrait, and see what effect it had upon her. He had thought about it all, until, between his imperfect knowledge of facts, his untaught intelligence, and his genuine but puzzled good-will, he was quite bewildered. He had brought with him that morning, with a vague notion that it might perhaps be advisable to show it to Mrs. Routh, but a settled resolution to show it to Mr. Dallas, the object which he kept carefully secreted in the hole in the wall at home, and as he trudged away Citywards, carrying a small leather bag containing the required clothes and letters, he turned it over and over in his grimy pocket and grew more and more thoughtful and depressed.
Arrived at Tokenhouse-yard, the clerk took the bag from him, and suggested that he had better wait, in case Mr. Routh should require his further services. So Jim waited, and presently Routh came out into the passage. Jim's private opinion of Stewart Routh's character and disposition has been already stated; of his personal appearance he entertained an equally low one, and much opposed to the general sentiment. "An ill-looking, down-looking dog I call him," Jim had said to himself more than once; "more like the Pirate of the Persian Gulf, or the Bandit of Bokarer, I think, than anybody as I knows out of the pictures."
More ill-looking, more down-looking than ever Jim Swain thought Stewart Routh when he spoke to him that morning. His face was colourless, his eyes bloodshot, the glance troubled and wandering, his voice harsh and uneven. He gave Jim a brief order to meet him at the London-bridge railway-station the same evening at a quarter to six. "I shall have a message for you," said Routh. "Be punctual, remember." And then he turned away abruptly and went into his room, shutting the door roughly.