It was just as well for Horace’s peace of mind, during his time of anxious watching, that two short paragraphs in the morning papers of the following day escaped his observation.
“At — police-court yesterday, two men named Medlock and Shanklin were brought before the magistrate on various charges of fraud connected with sham companies in different parts of the country. After some formal evidence they were remanded for a week, bail being refused.”
“A youth named Reginald was yesterday charged at Liverpool with conspiracy to defraud by means of fictitious circulars addressed in the name of a trading company. He was remanded for three days without bail, pending inquiries.”
It so happened that it fell to Booms’s lot to cut the latter paragraph out. And as he was barely aware of the existence of Cruden’s brother, and in no case would have recognised him by his assumed name, the news, even if he read it, could have conveyed no intelligence to his mind.
Horace certainly did not read it. Even when he had nothing better to do, he always regarded newspapers as a discipline not to be meddled with out of office hours. And just now, with his mother lying in a critical condition, and with no news day after day of Reginald, he had more serious food for reflection than the idle gossip of a newspaper.
The only other person in London whom the news could have interested was Samuel Shuckleford. But as he was that morning riding blithely in the train to Liverpool, reading the Law Times, and flattering himself he would soon make the public “sit up” to a recognition of his astuteness, he saw nothing of them.
He found himself on the Liverpool platform just where, scarcely three months ago, Reginald had found himself that dreary afternoon of his arrival. But, unlike Reginald, it cost the young ornament of the law not a moment’s hesitation as to whether he should take a cab or not to his destination. If only the cabman knew whom he had the honour to carry, how he would touch up his horse!
“Shy Street. Put me down at the corner,” said Samuel, swinging himself into the hansom.
So this was Liverpool. He had never been there before, and consequently it was not to be wondered at that the crowds jostling by on the pavement, without so much as a glance in his direction, neither knew him nor had heard of him. He could forgive them, and smiled to think how different it would be in a few days, when all the world would point at him as he drove back to the station, and say,—
“There goes Shuckleford, the clever lawyer, who first exposed the Select Agency Corporation, don’t you know?”