Singing to himself and shining on everyone, Jabez trotted home that evening in the seventh heaven of delight. A great trouble—the fear of an action for breach and publicity for his poetic effusions—had vanished, and he had found his hitherto repugnant lady-love an heiress blessed with a thousand golden charms.
Jabez was so polite and agreeable that evening at home that Georgina was quite astonished. She also noticed the sudden reappearance of his long-lost shininess.
She teased him; but it was no good—he shone. She contra-dieted him—he shone. She gave him a piece of dry cheese and some flat beer left from dinner for his supper—he shone. She turned the gas off at the meter and went to bed early, leaving him alone with the candle in the parlour, but still he shone. And after Georgina had retired, he pulled the guttering scrap of candle allowed him nearer to his elbow, produced a lead-pencil and a piece of paper, and commenced to compose an advertisement:
MR. JABEZ DUCK, for many years CONFIDENTIAL CLERK with Messrs. GRIGG & LIMPET, begs to inform the Nobility and Gentry he has OPENED a PRIVATE INQUIRY OFFICE. Investigations conducted with the Greatest Secrecy and Dispatch.’
To start a private inquiry office, have secrets poured into his ear, and to revel in an atmosphere of mystery, was the dream of his life.
Susan and her thousand would enable him to turn his dream into an absolute reality.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
MR. SETH PREENE EXECUTES A LITTLE COMMISSION.
Marston was supremely happy when he was with Ruth, but when he was alone he was perpetually haunted by fears and misgivings. Twenty times over he would have cast his share of the gold robbery away, if with it he could have got rid of Heckett. He had no fear of the others. Preene and Brooks were honourable men in the sense in which the word is understood by fine-art criminals. They were no more likely, even if their self-interest did not protect them, to round upon an accomplice, than the merchants and city magnates who meet together and float schemes for swindling the public are likely to denounce their co-conspirators. With these two worthies fraud was as much a business as account-cooking, secret promotion money, and lying prospectuses were to certain speculators whose dinners were once eaten by bankers and merchant-princes, and whose society was courted by the aristocracy. They had their code of morality. They swindled, but the nature of their business led them to swindle those who could generally afford to lose. Mr. Brooks was loud in his denunciation of the respectable gentlemen who preyed upon the poor, and who held out alluring baits for the small incomes of widows, curates, and retired officers.
Marston knew that so far as Brooks was concerned there was no fear, and Preene was too friendly to him ever to do him an injury. Besides, Preene could not betray him without injuring himself. His position was delicate in the extreme. He was secretly connected with the detective department, and it was his business always to be hand-and-glove with rogues. Marston had secured him long ago, struck his bargain, paid his price, and made him safe. Marston held the man’s fate in his hands. He alone of all the band knew Preene’s real position. A word from him would have cleared up the mystery of many a sudden arrest, of many a well-laid scheme which had been nipped in the bud.
Preene was a modern Jonathan Wild, but his double game was never suspected. The authorities had no idea that he ran with the hare, and the hare had not the slightest suspicion that he hunted with the hounds.