"Fool that I was!" exclaimed Markham, now perceiving his imprudence in that respect: "I have left you to pursue a shadow, instead of depicting to you the substance. But surely the name of Anthony Tidkins——"
"The Resurrection Man, as they call him," hastily remarked one of the constables.
"The same," answered Markham.
"Why—he blew himself up, along with some others and a number of our men, last year, down in Bethnal Green," said the constable who had last spoken.
"No—he lives, he lives," exclaimed Richard, impatiently. "My God! I know him but too well."
"And it was after him that you gave the alarm just now in Tottenham Court Road?"
"It was. I knew him at once—I could not be mistaken: his voice, laden with a curse, still rings in my ears."
"Well, since the gentleman's so positive, I 'spose it must be so," said the constable: "we musn't sleep upon it, mates. Ten to one that Tidkins has taken to burrow in one of the low cribs about here; and he means to lie quiet for two or three days till the alarm's blown over. I know the dodges of these fellers. You two go the round of Plumptre Street; and me and this gentleman will just take a promiscuous look into the kens about here."
The two constables to whom these words were addressed, immediately departed upon the mission proposed to them, and Richard signified his readiness to accompany the officer who had thus settled the plan of proceedings.
"We'll go first to Rats' Castle, sir, if you please," said the policeman: "that is the most likely place for a run-away to take refuge in at random."