[CHAPTER XXVI]
“EUDÆMON”
NIGHT-WALKERS—A “NICE JOB”—CLEARING THE PLATE-BASKET—JUST IN TIME—DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL—FIRST LOVE—A RAT BEHIND THE ARRAS—ON THE TRAIL—AN EFFECTUAL OPIATE
It was a soft dark night—such a night as is peculiar to our temperate climate towards the close of autumn. There was no moon, and not a star to be seen, yet was it not pitch dark, save under the gigantic trees or in the close shrubberies that surrounded Newton-Hollows. A man could see about ten yards before him, and one bound on an evil errand, by cat-like vigilance and circumspection, might have made out the figure of an honest man at that distance, and remained himself unseen. The night-wind sighed gently through the half-stripped hedges; and the fragrance of the few remaining autumnal flowers floated lightly on the breeze. It was a beautiful night for the purpose. “Quite providential,” Mr. Fibbes said, as, clad in a long great-coat, he stumbled up the dark lane that led from Newton station to General Bounce’s residence. His companion made no answer; Tom Blacke was pre-occupied and nervous. It may be that the stillness of the hour, the soothing tendency of all around him, brought back too painfully the innocent days of the past—it may be that he contemplated with some misgivings the hazardous undertaking of the immediate future. Mr. Fibbes, however, allowed no such gloomy reflections to influence his spirits, and the pair proceeded in silence, save where the latter, stumbling in some unseen rut, anathematised the slovenly finish of “these here country roads,” and sighed for the gas-lit pavement of his beloved London. Once Tom halted, grasping his comrade’s arm with a low “Hush!” and whispering in his ear, “that there was a step behind them, walking when they walked, and stopping when they stopped.”
“Hecho,” replied Mr. Fibbes, accounting for the phenomenon by natural causes, but prefixing a superfluous aspirate to the name of the invisible nymph. “Hecho,” said he; “I’ve often knowed it so—’specially at night. But, Tom, what’s up, man? blessed if you ain’t a-shakin’ all over,—have a drain, man, have a drain!” and the never-failing remedy was forthwith produced in a goodly case-bottle from the great-coat pocket. Nor did the doctor neglect his own prescription, and much refreshed the twain proceeded on their way. A slight difficulty occurred in scaling the park-railings, Mr. Fibbes affirming with many oaths that nothing but his weight and the age of his nether garments saved him from being impaled there for life; and the tremendous disturbance occasioned by a panic-stricken cock-pheasant compelled a halt of several minutes’ duration, lest the inmates of the Hall should have been aroused by the vociferous rooster. All was at length still—the church clock at Guyville chimed the half-hour after one. The night grew more cloudy, and the wind died away into a low, moaning whisper. The pair stole across the lawn, like two foul shades returning to the nether world. A heavy foot-mark crushed Blanche’s last pet geranium into the mould. Tom shook like an aspen leaf, much to the covert indignation of Mr. Fibbes, and they reached the scullery window unheard and unsuspected.
“Gently, now!” Why does Tom shake so, and even Mr. Fibbes, with his bull strength and iron nerves, feel so ill at ease, so willing even now to go back a guiltless trespasser, and leave the job undone? But no—it has been boasted of in anticipation at their flash resorts; what would the professionals think? Why, the very detectives would sneer to learn that “Leary Tom” and “the Battersea Big ’un” had been frightened at their own shadows, and after a long journey into the country had returned bootyless to London, the sleepers undisturbed—the “crib uncracked.” “Gently, again!”—a jackdaw on the roof brings their hearts into their mouths; were it not for the case-bottle they would “drop it” even now. Another pause, and Mr. Fibbes, summoning all his energies, proceeds to act. Gently and stealthily he produces the brown paper, and the treacle with which it is to be smeared. Lightly he applies it to the selected pane, Tom turning the dark-lantern deftly on the job. How ghastly the white face on which a chance ray happens to gleam! Warily—gradually—the heavy hand presses harder, harder still, and the glass gives way; but the faithful treacle absorbs every stray fragment, and not a particle reaches the ground either without or within. Fortune favours the rogues; the shutters have not been put up. They are in for it now, and both gather confidence, Mr. Fibbes assuming the initiative. A large dirty hand gropes through the broken pane, and the hasp of the window is moved cautiously back; but with all their care it gives a slight click, and again they pause and listen with beating hearts. “The grease,” whispers Mr. Fibbes to his confederate, and the sashes being plentifully smeared with that application, the window opens noiselessly to the top. Admittance thus gained to the body of the place, our housebreakers are now fairly embarked on their enterprise. Their shoes are pulled off and stowed away in their pockets. The centre-bit is got in readiness, and Mr. Fibbes feels the edge of his long knife with a grim sense of dogged, bloodthirsty resolution. All is, however, in their favour. The scullery door is left open, and they reach the passage on the ground-floor without the slightest noise or hindrance. And here we may remark for the benefit of those who are affected by nervous apprehensions of their houses being “burglariously entered and their property feloniously abstracted,” to use the beautiful language of the law—that there is no precautionary measure better worth observing than that of carefully locking on the outside the door of every room on the ground-floor, and leaving the key in the lock. There are three things, it is said, of which the housebreaker has a professional horror—a little dog loose, an infant unweaned, and a sick person in extremis. The first is an abomination seldom permitted where there is anything worth stealing; the second, a misfortune which Nature kindly suffers only to exist at considerable intervals; the third, a calamity to which we may hope not to be subjected very often in a lifetime. In the absence, then, of these unwelcome defences, every door secured as above makes an additional fortification against the enemy. The thief having perhaps effected a skilful and elaborate entrance into your dining-room, where he finds no booty but an extinguished lamp and a volume of family prayers, must commit a fresh burglary before he can reach your study, or wherever you keep your small stock of ready money for household expenses; and though he came in at the window, reversing the usual order of things with an unwelcome visitor, he finds it no easy matter to get out at the door. The probability is he will hardly work through three solid inches of mahogany, for he cannot conveniently pick the lock, if the key is left in it, without some little noise. Thus (although to the damage of your upholstery) you get an additional chance of being aroused, and a few minutes more time to betake yourself to your weapons, whether they consist of an unloaded blunderbuss, a twelve-barrelled revolver (out of order), or a hand-candlestick and a short brass poker. In the meantime, your placens uxor, uttering piercing shrieks out at the window, alarms the country for miles round, and, what is more to the purpose, frightens the robber out of his wits, who decamps incontinently, leaving no further marks of his visit than a window-frame spoilt, an inkstand or a jar of curry-powder upset, and a small box of lucifer-matches, his own property, and seized on by you as the spolia opima of this bloodless victory.
Stealthily, noiselessly, like the tiger on his velvet footfall, our two ruffians glide along the passage towards the butler’s sleeping-room, where the plate is kept. Small need have they of the dark lantern, so accurately have they studied the plan of the house, so apt are they in their nefarious trade. But they have reckoned without their host upon that official’s absence at Bubbleton; the late arrivals from Africa have kept him at home. However, he has been celebrating their return so cordially that, as far as being aroused and making an alarm goes, he might as well be a hundred miles off. They pass the lantern twice or thrice across his sleeping, open-mouthed face, and Fibbes feels the edge of his knife once more, with devilish ferocity, ere the centre-bit is brought into play, and a hole bored in the plate-cupboard, which soon makes the robbers masters of its contents. That receptacle is emptied, and its treasures transferred to the blue bag, with astonishing silence and celerity. The adepts, growing bold with impunity, almost regret the deep slumbers of the inmates, sufficiently attested by the prolonged snores resounding from that portion of the basement where the other male servants repose, and arguing that the jollifications of the evening have not been confined to the somnolent butler alone: had the garrison been more on the alert, think the invaders, there would have been more satisfaction in foiling them, and it would have been a “more creditable job” altogether. Hush! is that a footfall along the passage? They stop and listen intently. The kitchen clock ticks loudly throughout the darkness, but other sound is there none. They resume their labours. By this time the plate is packed; the great object of the foray has been attained—melted silver tells no tales—and there is nothing further to be done than to strip the drawing-room of such portable articles as are worth the carrying, and so decamp in triumph. Up the back-stairs they steal. The General hates a door to slam, in which aversion we cordially agree with him; and the green-baize one communicating with the offices revolves noiselessly on its hinges. So they glide through without hindrance, and on past that statue the nudity of which had shocked Tom’s sense of propriety on a previous occasion. Mr. Fibbes, who is of a facetious humour when under excitement, seizes the dark-lantern, and turns its glare full upon this work of art, with a high-seasoned joke. They reach the drawing-room door; for the space of a minute they listen intently; prolonged snores from the direction of the General’s apartment pervade the house; other sounds there are none. Cautiously the lock is turned, and the door thrown quickly open, that no creaking hinge may betray them by its moan. A gleam of light well-nigh blinds them, accustomed to the darkness of the passages through which they have been groping; and Mr. Fibbes, who enters first, starts back, paralysed for a moment by the unexpected apparition of a female figure robed in white, and shining like some unearthly being in the strong light of his lantern turned full upon the place she occupies. The figure starts up, and utters a long piercing shriek. There is no time for deliberation; Tom hisses a frightful oath into his confederate’s ear, and the big ruffian gripes Blanche’s white throat in one hand, whilst the other gropes in his dress for the long knife. Already the blade quivers aloft in the candle-light. Crash!—a terrific blow levels the villain to the floor. Tom, turning madly to escape, finds himself in the powerful grasp of Frank Hardingstone, who shakes him as a terrier would shake a rat—Frank’s extremely airy costume being highly favourable to such muscular exertions. Bells peal all over the house; lights are seen glancing along the passages; female voices rise shrill and high, in scream and sob and voluble inquiry. Charlie and Mary Delaval meet on the stairs, and he only exclaims, “What is it? Thank God, you are safe!” The General rushes tumultuously down in a scanty cotton garment, disclosing the greater portion of a pair of extremely sturdy supporters, and in which, crowned with a red nightcap, and armed moreover with a short brass poker, he presents the appearance of some ancient Roman of “the baser sort,” inciting his brother-plebeians to an agrarian tumult. “Guard, turn out!” shouts the General, in a voice of thunder. “Murder, thieves! Let me get at ’em; only let me get at ’em!” And he bursts into the drawing-room, where he beholds Frank still shaking Tom Blacke, who is by this time nearly strangled; Blanche in a “dead faint” on the sofa; Mr. Fibbes’ huge body extended senseless on the floor, and standing over him, apparently ready to knock him to shivers again the very instant he should show the slightest symptom of vitality, our old friend, rough, honest, undaunted Hairblower!
“Drum-head court-martial!” exclaimed the General, as he struggled hastily into a somewhat warmer costume than that which he had worn during the brunt of the action—“drum-head court-martial at three in the morning. Zounds! I only wish I was in India, I’d have ’em hanged in front of the house before breakfast-time. Frank—hollo!—march the prisoners into my study, under escort, my boy, and be d——d to them. No, I will not swear,” and the General took his place at his study-table, with all the pomp and circumstance of a district court-martial, as the hapless housebreakers, with their arms pinioned behind them, and guarded by the whole male strength of the establishment, were paraded before him, Hairblower bringing up the rear, and keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr. Fibbes, as if only watching his opportunity for an insubordinate movement on the part of that individual to knock him down again. Mr. Fibbes maintained a dogged silence throughout; save once, when he muttered a complimentary remark, containing the figurative expression, “white-livered son of a ----,” supposed to be explanatory of the state of prostration in which he saw his fellow-prisoner. Tom Blacke was utterly unnerved; he cried, and shook, and staggered like a man with the palsy, and would have gone down on his knees to the General, had he not been forcibly held up by the two tall footmen, who seemed to mistrust even the slightest movement as preparatory to a fresh outbreak of ferocity. “This once,” pleaded the wretched coward, “forgive me this once, General, for the sake of my poor wife—Miss Blanche’s maid she was, sir—only this once, and I’ll confess all—the forgery and everything—you might transport me for life, but you won’t be hard upon me, General—this job wasn’t my doing, ’twas him that set me on it; ’twas his plan, I’ll swear,” pointing to Mr. Fibbes, whose countenance was expressive of intense contempt and disgust. “Well,” muttered that gentleman, as if this was indeed a climax, “well, I am ——,” something which he certainly was not, however much the mode of life he affected might eventually lead to such a consummation. “Forgery!” exclaimed the General, “what? Zounds! here’s something of importance! swear him—no, he’s on his trial—take his words down in writing—forgery indeed!—here’s a pretty discovery!” As Blacke became more composed, out it all came—how his wife had forged Mrs. Kettering’s name, and obtained the legacy, and got the will proved, through that knowledge of the law which he was always ready to turn to evil account—the whole confession, which was indeed full and satisfactory, for he was frightened into telling the truth, closing with another earnest appeal for mercy, and another denunciation of his dogged confederate.