shading the candle with his hand.
“Open the door,” replied a man outside; “it’s the officers from
Bow Street, as was sent to, today.”
Much comforted by this assurance, Brittles opened the door to
its full width, and confronted a portly man in a greatcoat; who
walked in, without saying anything more, and wiped his shoes on
the mat, as coolly as if he lived there.
“Just send somebody out to relieve my mate, will you, young
man?” said the officer; “he’s in the gig, a-minding the prad. Have
you got a coach ’us here, that you could put it up in, for five or ten
minutes?”
Brittles replying in the affirmative, and pointing out the
building, the portly man stepped back to the garden gate, and
helped his companion to put up the gig, while Brittles lighted
them, in a state of great admiration. This done, they returned to
the house; and, being shown into a parlour, took off their
greatcoats and hats, and showed like what they were.
The man who had knocked at the door was a stout personage of
middle height, aged about fifty, with shiny black hair, cropped
pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. The
other was a red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-
favoured countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose.
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“Tell your governor that Blathers and Duff is here, will you?”
said the stouter man, smoothing down his hair, and laying a pair of
handcuffs on the table. “Oh! Good-evening, master. Can I have a
word or two with you in private, if you please?”
This was addressed to Mr. Losberne, who now made his
appearance; that gentleman, motioning Brittles to retire, brought
in the two ladies, and shut the door.
“This is the lady of the house,” said Mr. Losberne, motioning
towards Mrs. Maylie.
Mr. Blathers made a bow. Being desired to sit down, he put his
hat on the floor, and taking a chair, motioned Duff to do the same.
The latter gentleman, who did not appear quite so much
accustomed to good society, or quite so much at his ease in it—one
of the two—seated himself, after undergoing several muscular
affections of the limbs, and forced the head of his stick into his
mouth, with some embarrassment.
“Now, with regard to this here robbery, master,” said Blathers.
“What are the circumstances?”
Mr. Losberne, who appeared desirous of gaining time,
recounted them at great length, and with much circumlocution.
Messrs. Blathers and Duff looked very knowing meanwhile, and
occasionally exchanged a nod.
“I can’t say, for certain, till I see the work, of course,” said
Blathers; “but my opinion at once is—I don’t mind committing
myself to that extent—that this wasn’t done by a yokel; eh, Duff?”
“Certainly not,” replied Duff.
“And, translating the word yokel for the benefit of the ladies, I
apprehend your meaning to be, that this attempt was not made by
a countryman?” said Mr. Losberne, with a smile.
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“That’s it, master,” replied Blathers. “This is all about the
robbery, is it?”
“All,” replied the doctor.
“Now, what is this, about this here boy that the servants are a-
talking on?” said Blathers.
“Nothing at all,” replied the doctor. “One of the frightened
servants chose to take it into his head, that he had something to do
with this attempt to break into the house; but it’s nonsense—sheer
absurdity.”
“Very easy disposed of, if it is,” remarked Duff.
“What he says is quite correct,” observed Blathers, nodding his
head in a confirmatory way, and playing carelessly with the
handcuffs, as if they were a pair of castanets. “Who is the boy?
What account does he give of himself? Where did he come from?
He didn’t drop out of the clouds, did he, master?”
“Of course not,” replied the doctor, with a nervous glance at the
two ladies. “I know his whole history; but we can talk about that
presently. You would like, first, to see the place where the thieves
made their attempt, I suppose!”
“Certainly,” rejoined Mr. Blathers. “We had better inspect the
premises first, and examine the servants afterwards. That’s the
usual way of doing business.”
Lights were then procured; and Messrs. Blathers and Duff,
attended by the native constable, Brittles, Giles, and everybody
else in short, went into the little room at the end of the passage
and looked out at the window; and afterwards went round by way
of the lawn, and looked in at the window; and after that, had a
candle handed out to inspect the shutter with; and after that, a
lantern to trace the footsteps with; and after that, a pitchfork to
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poke the bushes with. This done, amidst the breathless interest of
all beholders they came in again; and Mr. Giles and Brittles were
put through a melodramatic representation of their share in the
previous night’s adventures; which they performed some six times
over, contradicting each other, in not more than one important
respect, the first time, and in not more than a dozen the last. This
consummation being arrived at, Blathers and Duff cleared the
room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for
secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the
knottiest point in medicine, would be mere child’s play.
Meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a
very uneasy state; and Mrs. Maylie and Rose looked on, with
anxious faces.
“Upon my word,” he said, making a halt, after a great number
of very rapid turns, “I hardly know what to do.”
“Surely,” said Rose, “the poor child’s story, faithfully repeated
to these men, will be sufficient to exonerate him.”
“I doubt it, my dear young lady,” said the doctor, shaking his
head. “I don’t think it would exonerate him, either with them, or
with legal functionaries of a higher grade. What is he, after all,
they would say? A runaway. Judged by mere worldly
considerations and probabilities, his story is a very doubtful one.”
“You believe it, surely?” interrupted Rose.
“I believe it, strange as it is; and perhaps I may be an old fool
for doing so,” rejoined the doctor; “but I don’t think it is exactly
the tale for a practised police-officer, nevertheless.”
“Why not?” demanded Rose.
“Because, my pretty cross-examiner,” replied the doctor,
“because, viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points
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about it; he can only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those
that look well. Confound the fellows, they will have the why and
the wherefore, and will take nothing for granted. On his own
showing, you see, he has been the companion of thieves for some
time past; he had been carried to a police-office, on a charge of
picking a gentleman’s pocket; he has been taken away, forcibly,
from that gentleman’s house, to a place which he cannot describe
or point out, and of the situation Of which he has not the remotest
idea. He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who seem to have
taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and is put
through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very
moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very
thing that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a
blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him! As if on
purpose to prevent his doing any good for himself! Don’t you see
all this?”
“I see it, of course,” replied Rose, smiling at the doctor’s
impetuosity; “but still I do not see anything in it, to criminate the
poor child.”
“No,” replied the doctor; “of course not! Bless the bright eyes of
your sex! They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one
side of any question; and that is, always, the one which first
presents itself to them.”
Having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put
his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with
even greater rapidity than before.
“The more I think of it,” said the doctor, “the more I see that it
will occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in
possession of the boy’s real story. I am certain it will not be
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believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still
the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that
will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your
benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery.”
“Oh! what is to be done?” cried Rose. “Dear, dear! why did they
send for these people?”
“Why, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. “I would not have had
them here, for the world.”
“All I know is,” said Mr. Losberne, at last, sitting down with a
kind of desperate calmness, “that we must try and carry it off with
a bold face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse.
The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no
condition to be talked to any more; that’s one comfort. We must
make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours.
Come in!”
“Well, master,” said Blathers, entering the room, followed by
his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more.
“This warn’t a put-up thing.”
“And what the devil’s a put-up thing?” demanded the doctor
impatiently.
“We call it a put-up robbery, ladies,” said Blathers, turning to
them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the
doctor’s, “when the servants is in it.”
“Nobody suspected them, in this case,” said Mrs. Maylie.
“Wery likely not, ma’am,” replied Blathers; “but they might
have been in it, for all that.”
“More likely on that wery account,” said Duff.
“We find it was a town hand,” said Blathers, continuing his
report; “for the style of work is first-rate.”
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“Wery pretty indeed, it is,” remarked Duff, in an undertone.
“There was two of ’em in it,” continued Blathers; “and they had
a boy with ’em; that’s plain from the size of the window. That’s all
to be said at present. We’ll see this lad that you’ve got upstairs at
once, if you please.”
“Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?”
said the doctor, his face brightening, as if some new thought had
occurred to him.
“Oh! to be sure!” exclaimed Rose eagerly. “You shall have it
immediately, if you will.”
“Why, thank you, miss!” said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve
across his mouth; “it’s dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that’s
handy, miss; don’t put yourself out of the way, on our accounts.”
“What shall it be?” asked the doctor, following the young lady
to the sideboard.
“A little drop of spirits, master, if it’s all the same,” replied
Blathers. “It’s a cold ride from London, ma’am; and I always find
that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings.”
This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie,
who received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to
her, the doctor slipped out of the room.
“Ah!” said Mr. Blathers, not holding his wineglass by the stem,
but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his
left hand, and placing it in front of his chest; “I have seen a good
many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies.”
“That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers,”
said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague’s memory.
“That was something in this way, warn’t it?” rejoined Mr.
Blathers; “that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was.”
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“You always gave that to him,” replied Duff. “It was the Family
Pet, I tell you. Conkey hadn’t any more to do with it than I had.”
“Get out!” retorted Mr. Blathers; “I know better. Do you mind
that time when Conkey was robbed of his money, though? What a
start that was! Better than any novel-book I ever see!”
“What was that?” inquired Rose, anxious to encourage any
symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors.
“It was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been
down upon,” said Blathers. “This here Conkey Chickweed—”
“Conkey means Nosey, ma’am,” interposed Duff.
“Of course the lady knows that, don’t she?” demanded Mr.
Blathers. “Always interrupting, you are, partner! This here
Conkey Chickweed, miss, kept a public-house over Battlebridge
way, and he had a cellar, where a good many young lords went to
see cock-fighting, and badger-drawing, and that; and a wery
intellectual manner the sports was conducted in, for I’ve seen ’em
often. He warn’t one of the family at that time; and one night he
was robbed of three hundred and twenty-seven guineas in a
canvas bag, that was stole out of his bedroom in the dead of night,
by a tall man with a black patch over his eye, who had concealed
himself under the bed, and after committing the robbery, jumped
slap out of window, which was only a storey high. He was wery
quick about it. But Conkey was quick, too; for he was woke by the
noise, and darting out of bed, he fired a blunderbuss arter him,
and roused the neighbourhood. They set up a hue-and-cry,
directly, and when they came to look about ’em, found that
Conkey had hit the robber; for there was traces of blood, all the
way to some palings a good distance off; and there they lost ’em.
However, he had made off with the blunt; and, consequently, the
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name of Mr. Chickweed, licensed witler, appeared in the Gazette
among the other bankrupts; and all manner of benefits and
subscriptions, and I don’t know what all, was got up for the poor
man, who was in a wery low state of mind about his loss, and went
up and down the streets, for three or four days, a-pulling his hair
off in such a desperate manner that many people was afraid he
might be going to make away with himself. One day he come up to
the office, all in a hurry and had a private interview with the
magistrate, who, after a deal of talk, rings the bell, and orders Jem
Spyers in (Jem was a active officer), and tells him to go and assist
Mr. Chickweed in apprehending the man as robbed his house. ‘I
see him, Spyers,’ said Chickweed, ‘pass my house yesterday
morning.’ ‘Why didn’t you up and collar him!’ says Spyers. ‘I was
so struck all of a heap, that you might have fractured my skull with
a toothpick,’ says the poor man; ‘but we’re sure to have him; for
between ten and eleven o’clock at night he passed again.’ Spyers
no sooner heard this, than he put some clean linen and a comb, in
his pocket, in case he should have to stop a day or two; and away
he goes, and sets himself down, at one of the public-house
windows behind the little red curtain with his hat on, all ready to
bolt out, at a moment’s notice. He was smoking his pipe here, late
at night, when all of a sudden Chickweed roars out, ‘Here he is!
Stop thief! Murder!’ Jem Spyers dashes out; and there he sees
Chickweed, a-tearing down the street full cry. Away goes Spyers;
on goes Chickweed; round turns the people; everybody roars out,
‘Thieves!’ and Chickweed himself keeps on shouting, all the time,
like mad. Spyers loses sight of him a minute as he turns a corner;
shoots round; sees a little crowd; dives in; ‘Which is the man?’ ‘D—
me!’ says Chickweed, ‘I’ve lost him again!’ It was a remarkable
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occurrence, but he warn’t to be seen nowhere, so they went back
to the public-house. Next morning Spyers took his old place, and
looked out, from behind the curtain, for a tall man with a black
patch over his eyes, till his own two eyes ached again. At last, he
couldn’t help shutting ’em, to ease ’em a minute; and the very
moment he did so, he heard Chickweed a-roaring out, ‘Here he is!’
Off he starts once more, with Chickweed half-way down the street
ahead of him; and after twice as long a run as the yesterday’s one,
the man’s lost again! This was done, once or twice more, till one-
half the neighbours gave out that Mr. Chickweed had been robbed
by the devil, who was playing tricks with him arterwards; and the
other half, that poor Mr. Chickweed had gone mad with grief.”
“What did Jem Spyers say?” inquired the doctor, who had
returned to the room shortly after the commencement of the story.
“Jem Spyers,” resumed the officer, “for a long time said
nothing at all, and listened to everything without seeming to,
which showed he understood his business. But one morning, he
walked into the bar, and taking out his snuff-box, says,
‘Chickweed, I’ve found out who done this here robbery.’ ‘Have
you?’ said Chickweed. ‘Oh, my dear Spyers, only let me have
wengeance, and I shall die contented! Oh, my dear Spyers, where
is the villain?’ ‘Come!’ said Spyers, offering him a pinch of snuff,
‘none of that gammon! You did it yourself.’ So he had; and a good
bit of money he had made by it, too; and nobody would never have
found it out, if he hadn’t been so precious anxious to keep up
appearances, that’s more!” said Mr. Blathers, putting down his
wine-glass, and clinking the handcuffs together.
“Very curious, indeed,” observed the doctor. “Now, if you
please, you can walk upstairs.”
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