Colonel Thorndyke's Secret

by G. A. Henty

Morning was breaking before the search was concluded. The detectives, accustomed as they were to visit the worst slums of London, were horrified at the crowding, the squalor, and the misery of the places they entered.

“My opinion. Mr. Chetwynd,” Gibbons growled, “is that the best thing to do would be to put a score of soldiers at the end of all these lanes, and then to burn the whole place down, and make a clean sweep of it. I never saw such a villainous looking crew in all my life. I have been in hopes all along that some of them would resist; it would have been a real pleasure to have let fly at them.”

“They are a villainous set of wretches, Gibbons, but they may not be all criminals.”

“Well; I don't know, sir; but I know that if I were on a jury, and any of the lot were in the dock, I should not want to hear any evidence against them; their faces are enough to hang them.”

At last the search was over, and they were glad indeed when they emerged from the lanes and breathed the pure air outside, for all the Englishmen felt sick at the poisonous air of the dens they had entered. The prisoners, as they were taken, had been sent off to the watch house.

“I begin to think that the story these fellows tell is a true one, Mr. Chetwynd,” the Lieutenant said, “and that they had nothing to do with carrying your friend off. In the first place, they all tell the same story: that in itself would not be much, as that might have been settled beforehand; but it is hardly likely that one of the lot would not have been ready to purchase his life by turning on the others. There is very little honor among thieves; and as they know that we have taken their mates—for no doubt we were watched as we marched them up the town—they would make sure that someone would turn traitor, and would think they might as well be beforehand. I fancy that the men, whoever they are, who hired this gang to attack you, carried out that part of the business themselves.”

“I am afraid that is so,” Dick agreed; “and I fear in that case that he is in even worse hands than if these ruffians here had taken him.”

“Well, sir, can you furnish us with any clew?”

“The only clew is that they were most probably dark men. That man who was killed was undoubtedly one of them. I should say that they would probably be got up as foreign sailors.”

“Well, that is something to go upon, at any rate. I will send round men at once to all the places by the quays where sailors board, and if three or four of them have been together at any place we are sure to hear of it, and the moment I have news I will send to your hotel.”