"Do. You really seem very ill, my poor lad," observed Crankey Jem, attentively surveying Holford's countenance, which was sadly changed. "If you have got no money left, my little store is at your service, as far as it goes; and you need not think of working in any way till you are better. I can easily make another boat or two more during the week; and so you shall not want for either medicine or good food."
"You are very kind to me, Jem," said Holford, wiping away a tear. "If it hadn't been for you I don't know what I should have done. You have supplied me with the means of getting a lodging and——"
"And you served me well by tracing the villain Tidkins to his nest in Globe Lane," interrupted the returned transport. "I have watched about that neighbourhood every night since you followed him there, and have seen something that has made me hesitate a little before I pay him the debt of vengeance I owe him. Now that he is in my power, I don't care about waiting a while. Besides, if I can find him out in something that would send him to the gibbet, I would sooner let him die that way—as a dog, with a halter round his neck—than kill him outright with my dagger."
"And you suspect——" began Holford.
"Yes—yes: but no matter now," cried Jem, hastily. "You are not in the right mood to-day to listen to me: but, either I am very much mistaken, or murder has been committed within the last few days at that house in Globe Town. At all events, I saw a person taken by force into the place one night; and that person has never come out again since."
"How do you know?" said Holford. "You only watch about the neighbourhood by night."
"And is it likely that a person who was conveyed into that house by force during the night, would be allowed to walk quietly out in the day-time?" demanded Crankey Jem. "No such thing! Tidkins is not the chap to play such a game. The person I speak of was blindfolded—I could see it all as plain as possible, for the moon was bright, though I kept in the shade. Now, being blindfolded," continued Jem, "it was to prevent her——"
"What? was the person a woman?" cried Holford, his interest in Jem's conversation somewhat increasing, in spite of the absorbing nature of his own reflections.
"Yes. And, as I was saying, the blindfolding was of course to prevent her knowing whereabouts she was: so it isn't likely that Tidkins would let her go away again in the broad day-light."
"Neither does it seem probable that he took her there to make away with her," said Holford; "for, as the dead tell no tales, there was not any use in binding her eyes."