“What a dickens is the man always whimpering about murder for? If business cannot be carried on without it, what would you have a gentleman to do?” Beggars’ Opera.
The scene has changed; and we must request the gentle reader to accompany us into a close dark alley, with no thoroughfare connecting it to the opener streets around, save two narrow and crooked passages scarcely three feet wide. The houses are high and old-fashioned, and front each other so closely, that from roof to roof an active man might spring. Their general appearance betokens fear or wretchedness; for, while some of the windows are so jealously blinded, as to prevent all chance of espionage from without, others are recklessly exposed to the eye of the passenger, as if it were intended to display the extent of the dirt and poverty within. The large brick dwelling at the bottom of the court is curiously situated. At either gable, it opens by a side door into one of the foul dark passages we have described; the front is to the court; and the back abuts upon one of those small and half-forgotten cemeteries, not larger than a modern drawing-room, which may still be seen, studding here and there the more ancient portions of that “mighty mass of wood, and brick, and mortar,” ycleped “the great metropolis.”
Within this dwelling, there was a semblance of opulence that formed a striking contrast to the squalid poverty that was perceptible in every other building around it. The rooms were crowded with ill-assorted furniture, and the walls covered with mirrors and pictures. On the tables and mantelpiece, clocks, china, and fancy-ornaments were incongruously heaped together; the whole looking liker a broker’s store-room than the private dwelling of a man in trade. The place was a receptacle for stolen property—or in thieves’ parlance, the house of “a fence.”
In a large apartment on the first floor the owner of this singular abiding-place was seated. He seemed a man of fifty, and his own appearance was as curious as the domicile he inhabited. To judge by the outline of his countenance, you would call him an Irishman, while its character and expression were decidedly that of a Jew. Indeed nothing could be less prepossessing than both; and the look of the man, taken altogether, was low, blackguard, and repulsive.
On the table beside which this ill-favoured gentleman was seated, there were lights, glasses, and decanters; a comfortable fire was blazing in the hearth, and window-shutters, plated with iron, were carefully secured with bolt and bar.
Mr. Brown, for so the master of the house was named, seemed occupied with business of no common interest; and to a letter, which he held open in his hand, frequent references were made. His actions were those of a man placed in a situation of perilous uncertainty; for he frequently rose from his chair and paced the room, muttering to himself disjointed sentences, and again returning to the table, to re-peruse an epistle which evidently contained matter of deep moment to the reader. Suddenly he rang the bell, and its summons was answered by a personage of remarkable exterior.
He was a hunchback, and so curiously distorted, that he seemed to be constructed of nothing but legs and arms. From his appearance you would guess him to be fifteen, but his face told you that he was at least five years older; and on every line and feature of that sinister countenance cunning and knavery were imprinted.
“Frank,” said the master of the hunchback, “who brought Mr. Sloman’s letter?”
“The red-haired man from the City-road, who proved our last alibi at the Bailey,” was the reply.
“Humph!” returned Mr. Brown, again glancing his eyes over the letter, and favouring the hunchback with occasional extracts from its contents,—“‘Matter of deepest importance,’—‘not a moment to be lost,’—‘Be with you punctually,’—‘Come through the burial-ground at nine.’ Have you unlocked the wicket, Frank?”