“Nothing,” I answered; “only I know no more about Nell than I do about the French. Isn’t she in the shop?”
“In the shop! My patience—she isn’t in the house, nor hasn’t been for hours. Her bed is cold; I doubt she never got into un, only topsy-turvied un a bit.”
“Nellie really gone!” I was beginning to grasp the situation. “Oh, Aunt Jane; she must have gone with Jack.”
“Who’s Jack, name o’ fortune? I heard tell of a Billy and a Tommy, but norra Jack.”
“Oh, this wasn’t a Pembroke Jack, but Mounseer Jacques Roux, Esq., an engineer.”
“A Mounseer!” Words failed my venerable relative; she sat down and went off into hysterics, which brought Aunt Rebecca to the rescue, and in the confusion I sidled down the stairs and escaped.
I made my way through the crowd to the Golden Prison, and here a light dawned, and many things became clear to me. A crowd of people were standing at what appeared to me to be a hole in the ground, about sixty yards from the wall of the prison. I edged myself through the lookers-on till I had reached the hole; it was one end of a subterranean passage, the other end of which doubtless emerged—but a sick qualm came over me, and to make matters worse at this moment I espied—and was seen by—Roche the turnkey. He was looking very small, but assumed an air of bluster when he perceived me.
“Arrest that young chap there,” he ordered his assistants. “He was a helping o’ they sneaking scoundrels; I see un.”
In another moment the two men had me in tow, and being also propelled by the crowd in a few minutes, I found myself inside the Golden Prison. I did not find the place at all entertaining this time. However, there were some magistrates there, and one of them, a Dr. Mansell, ordered the men to loose their hold while he questioned me.
I told all I knew, and at the end was relieved, but mortified to hear him say, “There is no occasion to detain him, the boy evidently knew nothing about it. He was a young ass, but he is not the first of us who has been befooled by a woman.”