“You see, my friend,” said the sergeant, upon whom not one of D. Wragg’s changes of countenance was lost,—“you see, my friend, now that we are up so high, we may as well go up a little higher—save coming again, perhaps.”
D. Wragg muttered uneasily, and glanced right and left, and then the creaking stairs were ascended, when he moved slowly off.
“Stop him there, will you!” cried the sergeant, who saw through the little dealer’s design.
“What d’yer mean? what’s all this?” cried D. Wragg, struggling with the man, who caught the wrist of his coat in a tight grasp. “If you’re going to take a fellow up, take him up; but don’t get playing at fast and loose. Don’t you make no mistake, I ain’t agoin’ to stand this sorter thing. I ain’t got his dorg, as I’ve told you ’arf a dozen times; but some on you shall pay for it, so I tell you.”
D. Wragg’s evasion being stayed, and his small person forced to the front, he was one of those who filled up the landing, close by a couple of doors—one strongly padlocked, and the other cobwebbed and dirty, as if it had not been opened for years.
“Now then, where are the keys of these doors?” said the sergeant.
“Break ’em open while you are about it,” cried D. Wragg, in tones that bordered upon a howl. “But don’t you make no mistake; I protest against this here, once more. I ain’t agoin’ to have my house sacked like this here for nothing. I should have thought as them gents would ha’ stopped it all; but never mind, I don’t care. It shan’t go to the bottom without some on you hearin’ of it.”
“Hold your tongue, will you, and give up the keys,” said the sergeant who looked just a trifle less impassive than usual.
“What is it you all mean?” cried D. Wragg, excitedly, “what is it you are all thinking about? You don’t suppose as I’m giving up my respectable business of a nat’ralist to go in for burking and doctor’s work, do you? You don’t suppose as I know anything of the young chap as is gone. Don’t you make no mistake: I can see through it all. You’ve been crammed and filled up with all sorts o’ gammon; but I wonder at you, Sergeant Falkner, a-listening to what such a thing as that says.”
D. Wragg pointed as he spoke at Mr John Screwby, which gentleman had, from a scarcity of watchers, and from doubts as to the probability of his staying so long as he was wanted, been brought up from stage to stage, to stand now, shuffling from foot to foot, and staring first at the irate dealer, and then at the door which concealed the interior of the attic from his graze.