A Little World

Times had been what he termed “hardish” lately. Buoyed up by the hope of obtaining the reward, he had fallen into the habit, while hope lasted, of boasting among his companions of the luck about to fall to his share. That luck, though, had never been his; and the failure of several little adventures had also tended to lower Mr Screwby’s banking account. Hence, then, he had been on the look out for an unconsidered trifle or two.

The opportunity was excellent – the hour was late. A glance up and down the street had shown him that there was not a soul in sight, while as to the houses, for the most part the lights were now in the upper stories.

Mr John Screwby’s teeth glistened brightly, and with rapid action he stepped forward, at the same time softly turning up his cuffs as if to strike.

It was a chance and no mistake, he thought. Nothing could have happened better – cash, a watch and chain, and a bit of revenge, all at one swoop. For if it had not been for this swell, the old gentleman would have written his cheque for the reward, and it would have been cashed, and there would have been an end of it.

A quarter – one half of the street had been traversed, and Screwby told himself that it was time to close. He gave another glance behind him – all right. If he had only had a mate now, how easy the job would have been. But then a mate would have wanted half the proceeds, and there might have been a row afterwards, and a split, so that it was better so.

Hunting – sporting of any kind – pooh! what could they be to such sport as this – so exciting, and dashed with a tinge of danger? And then the game was so profitable!

Mr Screwby licked his lips as, with head down and hands held in true pedestrian fashion, he pressed on.

Now was the time, he felt. He had closed to within a yard – a dash in and it would be done – the arm thrown round the victim’s neck, a sharp twist, a kick at his legs, and he would be down upon the pavement, which would effectually stun him. Then a little rapid manipulation, and all would be right.

“Now for it, then!” he resolutely exclaimed, and he raised his arm.

Is there, or is there not, some instinct of coming danger – some strange, ethereal, electric wire of sympathy, along which, as rapidly as thought, speeds the warning “Look out!” What do psychologists say? Some are for, some against the possibility of such influences: take, then, your own experience and judge. See how often, as if feeling the wind of the coming peril, people have been known to swerve aside, or halt, or hurry on, or stay away scores of times, and escape. Instances innumerable might be cited of where the preyer has been balked of his quarry, even as here, when, just as Screwby was in the act of making his spring, Harry turned and faced his enemy, and both stood for a brief minute without moving.

The next moment Screwby drew back to gather force, then, with fingers crooked like a beast’s talons, he leaped at Harry’s throat, but only to receive full upon that flat and ugly nose a tremendous blow sent right from a desperate man’s shoulder.

In itself the stroke seemed hard enough to have made the organ flat; but, joined to it, there was the force with which Screwby was making at his destined prey – the two forces added forming a total whose result was a dull, unpleasant-sounding thud – a heavy, drunken stagger – and then Mr John Screwby seemed to collapse, his legs doubling beneath him, his whole body assuming a wavy motion, and he was upon the pavement in a curious heap, emitting as he went down a groan that sounded as if the collapse were total.

“’Ullo! what’s up now?” greeted Harry’s ears, as he stood binding a handkerchief around his bleeding knuckles, and gazing at his fallen assailant.

Harry turned to find that a policeman had made his appearance.

“This man attacked me, and I struck him down,” replied Harry.

“Then you must come on, and enter the charge,” said the constable. “Now, then rouse up here,” he continued, giving Mr Screwby a shake which made his bull head tap the pavement in a most unpleasant manner, till in a confused fashion he rose to his knees, and then stood up, staring hard at the proximate area railings, as if he were in doubt as to where he was, and evidently took the iron bars for those of a very different place. A moment later, though, he saw more clearly his position, and, thrusting the constable back, he darted off, and would have escaped, but for the appearance of another officer from round the corner – the shouts of his fellow galvanising him into activity.

Then there was a rush, a struggle, and the rending off of buttons, the loud bang of a heavy hat falling upon the pavement, and but for the coming up of Harry and the other constable, Mr Screwby would once more have been on the way to his den. The reinforcements, though, prevailed, and the next instant the ruffian was prone upon his back, and swearing powerfully.

This time the ignominious bracelets of the ill-doer were produced, and a sharp “click, click” told that they were ornamenting the wrists for which they were destined.

“I’d put a pair round his legs if I had my will,” growled the first constable. “What d’yer mean by falling in that ere way?”

The man took a great cotton handkerchief from his hat, and with it mopped his head hard, for he was tightly buttoned up in his coarse, heavy greatcoat.

“Yer might ha’ known you’d ha’ been ketched without coming these games,” he growled again, taking it as a deep offence against his own dignity that the culprit had tried to escape after being “took.”

But Mr Screwby did not condescend to reply with words. His responses were all looks, and those of a class that the second constable, who had found a dent in his hat, stigmatised as “gallows;” but whether deserving of that appellation or no, they were sufficiently evil, heightened as they were by a stained countenance and eyes swollen sufficiently to startle any one who met their gaze.

Mr John Screwby was caught and handcuffed, but he was not caged; but lay upon the pavement sullen and heavy, refusing to hearken to the voice of the charmer when requested to rise; even a playful tap or two from a staff, and a sharp twist of the handcuffs had no effect; the result being that one constable had to seek the station for more help, and Mr Screwby rode off in triumph, his chariot being a stretcher, and the paean of praise the mutterings and growlings of the perspiring police.

It was too late for there to be much of a popular gathering; such as there was, though, was decidedly of a sympathetic cast. Fortunately the station was near at hand, in which place of security Harry saw his assailant safely lodged, and then sought his temporary home, wondering the while whether a similar attack had caused the disappearance of Lionel Redgrave, and also whether the man was taken who could bring the affair to light.

Volume Three – Chapter Fifteen.

“Coming Events.”

The morning dawned before Harry Clayton fell asleep. After an early walk, he met Sir Richard at breakfast, to find him pale, but calm and composed.

It was very evident to the young man that the father was losing hope, and that he was having a hard struggle to resign himself to what had fallen to his lot. Two months had now elapsed, and not the faintest trace of a clue by which Lionel could be traced had been found.

“I have been thinking, Clayton,” said Sir Francis, as they sat over their meal, “that it would be cruel and unjust on my part to retain you here any longer. You have your career mapped out, and every day that I keep you is to your injury.”

“Never mind that, Sir Francis,” said Harry. “I am as deeply interested in the search as yourself, and I cannot give up hope so easily. When I feel despair creeping upon me I will give up – not before. But you are better this morning?”

“More resigned, Clayton – more resigned,” said the old man, sadly. “It is time to try and bear it.”

Harry reminded him that the sergeant was still hopeful, and also told him of the man’s last words; but Sir Francis only shook his head sadly. He grew more interested, though, when Harry related his adventures of the past night, and also laid bare a few of his thoughts; but they seemed to make no lasting impression; and soon after, leaving the room, Harry made his way anxiously to the police court, for the feeling grew stronger that he had at last run the villain to earth – this man whom he had recognised on the previous night as the informer, and also as the low-browed scoundrel who had watched them at the bird-dealer’s.

Might not this be poor Lionel’s destroyer? It was mere suspicion, but might he not have committed some foul deed, with Lionel Redgrave for victim, even as he had essayed on the previous night, for it was by the narrowest shade that he had himself escaped. Poor Lionel was perhaps caught in one of the vile purlieus of Decadia, and had been dragged away and hidden after being plundered; while to divert suspicion, with extra cunning – where no suspicion existed – this scoundrel had essayed to lay the blame upon the house of Wragg.

Suspicions these, certainly; but as Harry walked on, from being shadowy they gradually grew more solid and firm, so that he eagerly waited at the court the turn of Mr John Screwby, whose vile countenance, when placed in the dock, wore anything but an improved aspect, with the addition of a damaged nose and a pair of hideously discoloured eyes.

The case was plain enough as far as the attempt was concerned. Suspicion of other matters, of course, could not be raised. But there were several little ugly facts brought forward respecting Mr John Screwby’s character – touching six months’ imprisonment for this, three months’ imprisonment for that, a year for something else, – altogether a total of four years for different offences that the warders of different prisons could declare to. Consequently, as Mr Screwby’s name stank in the nostrils of the law, he was remanded, with the certain prospect of being committed for trial at the next hearing.

Weary and unsettled, Harry strolled down the next evening to Decadia. The first face he encountered was that of D. Wragg, who was seated behind his counter with the shutters up, and the gas turned down very low.

“Oh, yes! you can go up,” said the little man, gloomily; “but don’t you make no mistake, and think I ain’t so sharp as I should be, because I’ve seemed a bit queer lately. It was all through a drop o’ drink, and I shouldn’t ha’ taken that if it hadn’t been along o’ that friend o’ yours. Cuss him! what did he want to go losing dorgs for, and come here bringing mis’ry into a pore man’s home?”

D. Wragg ended his speech almost with a whine, wiping away two or three maudlin drink-begotten tears; when, seeing from the man’s state that it would be of little avail to remind him of the cause of Lionel’s first visit, Harry ascended to find Canau sitting up in bed, holding one of Janet’s hands in his.

“Aha!” he said, softly; “then you have come again. What news of your friend? None? Aha! I suspect D. Wragg once, and he trapped me like one of his pigeons; but there – he is innocent; he has no secrets but about wretched dogs. He is not bad, but he is little – little at heart. He has no soul for a great crime. He hides away dogs in holes and cupboards and corners, and we hear mysterious cries, and think them dreadful, here in this house, and the good Madame Vink faints away. Then I go looking – to find what? Ma foi! dogs – dogs – dogs. Nothing more. There was nothing to find.”

“Are you an arch-traitor?” thought Harry for a moment, as he sat gazing at the injured man. “If your heart could be laid bare, would it disclose anything?” The sad calm look upon the little Frenchman’s face disarmed him, though, the next instant, and he felt half angry at the flash of suspicion, as Canau continued —

“We have strange ideas all of us; and we all suspect one another. I have often think D. Wragg knows where your poor foolish friend has gone, and he think the same of me; and the work-people outside say it is a judgment on me that I am struck down, and that it will save me from what they call ‘scragg.’ But no, no! I shall not be hung at Vieux Bailee. But they are sots– fools all.”

Harry sat by the bed half-disposed to tell of Screwby’s attack, but he refrained.

“Monsieur,” said Canau, after a pause, “I think I shall be the better for this hurt. It has made me think of how I have let myself drift – drift away, when I ought to have fought, and been something better. There is only one thing that I have kept of the past, when I was another man, and that is my music. Janet, my child, when I am well, we will go from here and live otherwise: I have not been just to you. But D. Wragg has been good to me, and a friend when I was in despair with life; still I must change. Yes, we will go and live away from this wretched place. Pah! how could I have kept you here so long? Only let me get well, for I shall not die of this hurt. I wish that you too were glad and happy as I feel. Poor Janet, too, would be glad of heart did she know that your friend was found, and the old man his father at peace.”

Janet listened eagerly as Harry spoke of the inutility of their search, and then the poor girl shrank back; but attention was drawn from her by a sharp cry of pain from Canau.

“Shall I fetch a doctor?” said Harry earnestly.

“No, no; I shall be better – well directly. The pain is sometimes sharp. But ah, bah! it is nothing. I shall live – I shall be well soon. I do not trouble myself at all. But hark! Mon Dieu! listen! Is there fresh trouble in the house? They will not search again – I cannot have it! Monsieur, I am weak.”

Harry, as he started up, gazed curiously at the injured man, for there was a strange dread in his tones that again raised suspicion. But there was evidently something important on the wing. Amidst a good deal of noise, there arose the sound of voices in loud altercation; and as he opened the door D. Wragg could easily be heard as he exclaimed —

“Don’t you make no mistake now; I’m not going to have my place searched again; so now, then!”

“Ah-h-h! Ma foi!” ejaculated Canau, and a spasm sent its trace across his features, while Janet, wild-eyed and strained, held tightly by his hand.

“There is something coming now!” thought Harry, and his heart beat painfully as D. Wragg’s voice was again heard.