Suspicions these, certainly; but as Harry walked on, from being shadowy they gradually grew more solid and firm, so that he eagerly waited at the court the turn of Mr John Screwby, whose vile countenance, when placed in the dock, wore anything but an improved aspect, with the addition of a damaged nose and a pair of hideously discoloured eyes.
The case was plain enough as far as the attempt was concerned. Suspicion of other matters, of course, could not be raised. But there were several little ugly facts brought forward respecting Mr John Screwby’s character—touching six months’ imprisonment for this, three months’ imprisonment for that, a year for something else,—altogether a total of four years for different offences that the warders of different prisons could declare to. Consequently, as Mr Screwby’s name stank in the nostrils of the law, he was remanded, with the certain prospect of being committed for trial at the next hearing.
Weary and unsettled, Harry strolled down the next evening to Decadia. The first face he encountered was that of D. Wragg, who was seated behind his counter with the shutters up, and the gas turned down very low.
“Oh, yes! you can go up,” said the little man, gloomily; “but don’t you make no mistake, and think I ain’t so sharp as I should be, because I’ve seemed a bit queer lately. It was all through a drop o’ drink, and I shouldn’t ha’ taken that if it hadn’t been along o’ that friend o’ yours. Cuss him! what did he want to go losing dorgs for, and come here bringing mis’ry into a pore man’s home?”
D. Wragg ended his speech almost with a whine, wiping away two or three maudlin drink-begotten tears; when, seeing from the man’s state that it would be of little avail to remind him of the cause of Lionel’s first visit, Harry ascended to find Canau sitting up in bed, holding one of Janet’s hands in his.
“Aha!” he said, softly; “then you have come again. What news of your friend? None? Aha! I suspect D. Wragg once, and he trapped me like one of his pigeons; but there—he is innocent; he has no secrets but about wretched dogs. He is not bad, but he is little—little at heart. He has no soul for a great crime. He hides away dogs in holes and cupboards and corners, and we hear mysterious cries, and think them dreadful, here in this house, and the good Madame Vink faints away. Then I go looking—to find what? Ma foi! dogs—dogs—dogs. Nothing more. There was nothing to find.”
“Are you an arch-traitor?” thought Harry for a moment, as he sat gazing at the injured man. “If your heart could be laid bare, would it disclose anything?” The sad calm look upon the little Frenchman’s face disarmed him, though, the next instant, and he felt half angry at the flash of suspicion, as Canau continued—
“We have strange ideas all of us; and we all suspect one another. I have often think D. Wragg knows where your poor foolish friend has gone, and he think the same of me; and the work-people outside say it is a judgment on me that I am struck down, and that it will save me from what they call ‘scragg.’ But no, no! I shall not be hung at Vieux Bailee. But they are sots—fools all.”
Harry sat by the bed half-disposed to tell of Screwby’s attack, but he refrained.
“Monsieur,” said Canau, after a pause, “I think I shall be the better for this hurt. It has made me think of how I have let myself drift—drift away, when I ought to have fought, and been something better. There is only one thing that I have kept of the past, when I was another man, and that is my music. Janet, my child, when I am well, we will go from here and live otherwise: I have not been just to you. But D. Wragg has been good to me, and a friend when I was in despair with life; still I must change. Yes, we will go and live away from this wretched place. Pah! how could I have kept you here so long? Only let me get well, for I shall not die of this hurt. I wish that you too were glad and happy as I feel. Poor Janet, too, would be glad of heart did she know that your friend was found, and the old man his father at peace.”