“Now give us your hand, old feller,” said the ruffian-like individual, when they were safe inside the passage: “because the stairs is summut broke away, and the bannisters isn’t to be trusted. Lord! how you tremble! Why—what the hell are you afeard on?”
“Nothing—nothing, my good friend,” was the answer, delivered in a nervous tone: “only—it’s—it’s—so—very—very—dark.”
“Dark!” cried the ruffian, with a hoarse laugh: “why, it wery often is dark in a house at night-time, and where there’s no candle alight. But p’raps you’re afeard of ghosteses,” he continued, as he dragged rather than led the nervous old man down the crazy, rotting stairs towards the lower region of the place: “and if so, you’re in the right quarters to see a speret—for they do say the young gal which was murdered here, walks in her shroud;—but, for my part, I never see her—and I han’t got no fear of that sort.”
By the time these words were uttered, in a tone of coarse jocularity, the ruffian had conducted his companion to the bottom of the stairs; and, halting at that point, he struck a lucifer-match against the wall, and lighted a piece of candle which he took from his pocket.
He then led the way into the front kitchen of the house, bidding the old man close the door behind him.
The place was black all over with accumulated dust and dirt: the ceiling appeared as if it had been originally painted a sable hue; and the floor, broken in several parts, conveyed the same impression. The shelves above the dresser were in a most dilapidated condition; and the dense cob-webs clung to them, as well as to the corners of the ceiling, like masses of rotten rags. The shutters were closed; and over their entire surface were pasted sheets of thick brown paper—evidently to prevent the light of candles from peeping through their chinks and being noticed in the street. There was an old ricketty table in the middle of the kitchen: there were likewise two chairs, which, being made of a tough wood, had withstood the ravages of time; and an empty beer-barrel was placed upright near the table, as if it occasionally served as a third seat.
The ruffian stuck the candle in the neck of a bottle; and, opening one of the dresser-drawers, he drew forth a bottle and a couple of small tumblers:—then, placing himself on the barrel, he proceeded in a leisurely manner to light his pipe, while the old man—his companion—sank, nervous and trembling, into one of the Windsor-chairs.
The reader has no doubt already guessed that these two individuals were Vitriol Bob and Torrens;—and, if so, the surmise is correct.
The latter person needs no description; but the former character must be more elaborately dealt with on the present occasion. He was indeed, as Jack Rily had represented him, one of the greatest miscreants that ever disgraced humanity,—not only in reality, but also in personal appearance. Of tall stature, athletic frame, and muscular build, he possessed vast physical strength. He was about thirty-six years of age: his countenance was naturally ugly even to repulsiveness—but huge black whiskers meeting under his chin, rendered it positively ferocious;—and the small, dark, reptile-like eyes glared from beneath thick, overhanging brows. His lips were remarkably coarse and of a livid hue; and his nose, broken in the middle, had a deep indentation, giving an appearance of death’s-head flatness to the broad countenance. His apparel consisted of a seedy suit of black—a hat with very wide brims bent even to slouching—and a pair of heavy Wellington boots; and in his hand he carried a thick stick with a huge nob at one end and a massive ferrule at the other. This was his “life-preserver;” but he seldom had occasion to use it—for his proceedings were usually of the savage and diabolical nature described by the Doctor, and whence he derived the appellation of Vitriol Bob.
This terrible individual was well known to the police: but those functionaries trembled at the idea of molesting him. They would have experienced no such dread had his defensive weapons been confined to life-preservers or pistols: but there was something so horrible in the thought of having a bottle of burning, blinding fluid broken over the countenance, that the officers shuddered at the bare idea of tackling Vitriol Bob. Thus, whenever information was given of some nefarious deed which he had attempted or perpetrated, the police took very good care to search for him where they knew he was not to be found; and if they even met him in one of the bye-streets or obscure alleys on the Surrey side of the metropolis—the quarter which he chiefly honoured with his presence—they were suddenly seized with an inclination to look stedfastly into a picture-shop, or gaze up abstractedly at the sky, until he had passed.