"Ah! and you shall find this place hell too, if you go on humbugging me much longer," returned the Resurrection Man, savagely. "You have only got yourself to thank for all this trouble that you're in. If you had behaved in a straightforward manner, all would have gone on right enough. My friend Banks here can tell you the same. But you tried to get the upper hand of me throughout the business."
"No—no," murmured the hag, still rocking herself.
"But I say yes—yes," answered the Resurrection Man. "In the first place you would tell me nothing about Catherine Wilmot's parentage: you kept it all close to yourself. I suspected you—I even told you so. I declared that 'if I caught you out in any of your tricks, I would hang you up to your own bedpost, as readily as I would wring the neck of your old cat.' And I will keep my word yet, if you refuse to give me the information I require."
"What will become of me? what will become of me!" moaned the old hag. "Alack! alack!"
"You'll very soon find out," answered Tidkins. "But I just want to prove to you that I am right in all I am doing with regard to you. In the first place you would speak to Katherine alone: that didn't look well. You said I might be a witness at a distance—or when the money was paid; but I knew that to be all humbug. However, I let you have your way at the beginning—if it was only to see how the young girl would receive you. Well, friend Banks drives us to Hounslow: we set off to the farm—we meet Katherine and another young lady—and this Miss Monroe throws cold water on the whole business. Still you won't speak before witnesses. We go back to the inn at Hounslow: we concoct the note to Kate; and friend Banks undertakes to deliver it, as it seemed he knew something of her. He managed to give it to her; and you, old woman, go off to meet her at seven. Now did you think I was so precious green as not to take advantage of the opportunity? Not I! I went after you—I crept round behind the fences near where you and Katherine met each other—and I heard every word that passed between you."
"Alack! alack!" moaned the old woman.
"Yes—I heard every thing," continued the Resurrection Man;—"enough to prove to me that the young girl would give half her fortune to learn the truth concerning her father and mother. I also understood pretty well that there is the name of Markham in the case; and I was struck by the manner in which you urged her to purchase your secret, when she informed you that Richard Markham—the Markham whom I know and hate—had been made a great lord. All you said in respect to the conditions on which your secret was to be sold didn't astonish me at all. It only confirmed me in the conviction that you had intended throughout to gammon me. You meant to make use of me as a tool to find out Katherine's address, and then to reserve for your own particular plucking the pigeon whose hiding-place I had detected. 'The man who was with me this morning, is a bad one,' said you: 'he is avaricious, and desires to turn my knowledge of this secret to a good account.'—And so I did, you old harridan; and so I mean to do now.—'He is a desperate man, and I dare not offend him,' you went on to say.—Egad! you've found out that you spoke pretty truly.—'He wants money; and money he must have.'—True again: and money I will have too. The girl tells you she is rich and anxious to purchase the secret; and when she asks you how much will satisfy me, you coolly tell her, 'A hundred pounds!'—A hundred devils! And then, in your gammoning, snivelling way, you demand of her the 'wherewith to make your few remaining days happy!'"
"Alas! I am a poor old soul—a poor old soul!" murmured the horrible crone, shaking her head. "Do with me what you will—kill me at once!"
"And what the devil good would your carcass be to us?" exclaimed the Resurrection Man.
"A workus coffin would be thrown away on it," added Mr. Banks.