Speyer clutched him with a harder gripe, and shook him to and fro. Quick as lightning, Vinal struck him in the face. Speyer glared and grinned on his victim like an enraged tiger. For a moment, he shook him as a terrier shakes a rat; then flung him backward against the farther side of the room. Here, striking the wall, he fell helpless, among the window curtains and overturned chairs. Speyer would probably have followed up his attack; but at the instant, the servant, who, by a happy accident, was at the side door, in the near neighborhood of the keyhole, ran in in time to save Vinal from more serious discomfiture.
Speyer hesitated; turned from one to the other with murder in his look; then, slowly moving backwards, left the room, whence the servant's valor did not mount to the point of following him.
CHAPTER LXX.
| He is composed and framed of treachery, And fled he is upon this villany.—Much Ado about Nothing. |
Edward Meredith, the affianced bridegroom of Miss Fanny Euston, sailing on a smooth sea, under full canvas, towards the pleasing but perilous bounds of matrimony, was walking in the morning towards the post office, in the frame of mind proper to his condition. He passed that place of unrest where the Law hangs her blazons from every window, and approached the heart and brain of the city, the precinct sacred to commerce and finance. Here, gathered about a corner, he saw a crowd, elbowing each other with unusual vehemence. Meredith, with all despatch, crossed over to the opposite side. But here, again, his attention was caught by a singular clamor among the rabble of newsboys, as noisy and intrusive as a flight of dorr-bugs on a June evening. And, not far off, another crowd was gathered at the office of the Weekly Sink. Curiosity became too strong for his native antipathy. He saw an acquaintance, with a crushed hat, and a face of bewildered amazement, just struggling out of the press.
"What's the row?" demanded Meredith.
"Go and read that paper," returned the other, with an astonished ejaculation, of more emphasis than unction.
Meredith shouldered into the crowd, looked over the hats of some, between the hats of others, and saw, pasted to the stone door post, a placard large as the handbill of a theatre. Over it was displayed a sheet of paper, on which was daubed, in ink, the words, Astounding Disclosures!!! Crime in High Life!!!! And on the placard he beheld the names of his classmate Horace Vinal, and his friend Vassall Morton.
Meredith pushed and shouldered with the boldest, gained a favorable position, braced himself there, and ran his eye through the whole. Then, with a convulsive effort, he regained his liberty, beckoned a newsboy, and purchased the extra sheet of the Weekly Sink. Here, however, he learned very little. The editor, taught wisdom by experience, had tempered malice with caution. He spoke of the duty he owed to the public, his position as guardian and censor of the public morals, and affirmed that, in this capacity, he had that morning received through the post office the original of the letter of which a copy was printed on the placards posted in various parts of the city. With the letter had come also an anonymous note, highly complimentary to himself in his official capacity, a copy of which he subjoined. As for the letter, he did not think himself called upon to give it immediate publicity in his columns; but he would submit it for inspection to any persons anxious to see it, after which he should place it in the hands of the police.