Interlopers

Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs

and buttons who attended the last Coroner’s Inquest at

the Sol’s Arms, reappear in the precincts with surprising

swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly fetched by the active and

intelligent beadle), and institute perquisitions through the court,

and dive into the Sol’s parlour, and write with ravenous little pens

on tissue-paper. Now do they note down, in the watches of the

night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane was yesterday, at

about midnight, thrown into a state of the most intense agitation

and excitement by the following alarming and horrible discovery.

Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be remembered, that

some time back a painful sensation was created in the public

mind, by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring on the

first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general

marine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate

habits, far advanced in life, named Krook; and how by a

remarkable coincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest,

which it may be recollected was held on that occasion at the Sol’s

Arms, a well-conducted tavern, immediately adjoining the

premises in question, on the west side, and licensed to a highly

respectable landlord, Mr James George Bogsby. Now do they

show (in as many words as possible), how during some hours of

yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was observed by the

inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical occurrence which

forms the subject of that present account transpired; and which

odour was at one time so powerful, that Mr Swills, a comic

vocalist, professionally engaged by Mr J. G. Bogsby, has himself

stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M. Melvilleson, a

lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise engaged by

Mr J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called Harmonic

Assemblies or Meetings, which it would appear are held at the

Sol’s Arms, under Mr Bogsby’s direction, pursuant to the Act of

George the Second, that he (Mr Swills) found his voice seriously

affected by the impure state of the atmosphere; his jocose

expression, at the time, being, “that he was like an empty post-

office, for he hadn’t a single note in him.” How this account of Mr

Swills is entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females

residing in the same court, and known respectively by the names

of Mrs Piper and Mrs Perkins; both of whom observed the foetid

effluvia, and regarded them as being emitted from the premises in

the occupation of Krook, the unfortunate deceased. All this and a

great deal more, the two gentlemen, who have formed an amicable

partnership in the melancholy catastrophe, write down on the

spot; and the boy population of the court (out of bed in a moment)

swarm up the shutters of the Sol’s Arm’s parlour, to behold the

tops of their heads while they are about it.

The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night,

and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the ill-

fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued

from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with

a bed at the Sol’s Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts

it door, all night; for any kind of public excitement makes good for

the Sol, and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being

treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a

little money left it unexpectedly. Thus, night at length with slow-

retreating steps departs, and the lamplighter going his rounds, like

an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire

that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus, the day cometh,

whether or no.

And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that

the court has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have

fallen drowsily on tables, and the heels that lie prone on hard

floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the

very court itself looks worn and jaded. And now the

neighbourhood waking up, and beginning to hear of what has

happened, comes streaming in, half dressed, to ask questions; and

the two policemen and the helmet (who are far less impressible

externally than the court) have enough to do to keep the door.

“Good gracious, gentlemen!” says Mr Snagsby, coming up.

“What’s this I hear!”

“Why, it’s true,” returns one of the policemen. “That’s what it

is. Now move on here, come!”

“Why, good gracious, gentlemen,” says Mr Snagsby, somewhat

promptly backed away, “I was at this door last night betwixt ten

and eleven o’clock, in conversation with the young man who

lodges here.”

“Indeed?” returns the policeman. “You will find the young man

next door, then. Now move on here, some of you.”

“Not hurt, I hope?” says Mr Snagsby.

“Hurt? No. What’s to hurt him!”

Mr Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this, or any other question, in his troubled mind, repairs to the Sol’s Arms, and finds

Mr Weevle languishing over tea and toast; with a considerable

expression on him of exhausted excitement, and exhausted

tobacco-smoke.

“And Mr Guppy likewise!” quoth Mr Snagsby. “Dear, dear,

dear! What a fate there seems in all this! And my lit—” Mr

Snagsby’s power of speech deserts him in the formation of the

words “my little woman.” For, to see that injured female walk into

the Sol’s Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the

beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit,

strikes him dumb.

“My dear,” says Mr Snagsby, when his tongue is loosened, “will

you take anything? A little—not to put too fine a point upon it—

drop of shrub?”

“No,” says Mrs Snagsby.

“My love, you know these two gentlemen?”

“Yes!” says Mrs Snagsby; and in a rigid manner acknowledges

their presence, still fixing Mr Snagsby with her eye.

The devoted Mr Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes

Mrs Snagsby by the hand, and leads her aside to an adjacent cask.

“My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray

don’t do it.”

“I can’t help my look,” says Mrs Snagsby, “and if I could I

wouldn’t.”

Mr Snagsby with his cough of meekness, rejoins,—“Wouldn’t

you really, my dear?” and meditates. Then coughs his cough of

trouble, and says, “This is a dreadful mystery, my love!” still

fearfully disconcerted by Mrs Snagsby’s eye.

“It is,” returns Mrs Snagsby, shaking her head, “a dreadful mystery.”

“My little woman,” urges Mr Snagsby, in a piteous manner,

“don’t for goodness sake, speak to me with that bitter expression,

and look at me in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not

to do it. Good lord, you don’t suppose that I would go

spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?”

“I can’t say,” returns Mrs Snagsby.

On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr Snagsby

“can’t say,” either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he

may have had something to do with it. He has had something—he

don’t know what—to do with so much in this connection that is

mysterious, that it is possible he may even be implicated, without

knowing it, in the present transaction. He faintly wipes his

forehead with his handkerchief, and gasps.

“My life,” says the unhappy stationer, “would you have any

objections to mention why, being in general so delicately

circumspect in your conduct, you come into a Wine Vaults before

breakfast?”

“Why do you come here?” inquires Mrs Snagsby.

“My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which

has happened to the venerable party who has been—combusted.”

Mr Snagsby has made a pause to suppress a groan. “I should then

have related them to you, my love, over your French roll.”

“I dare say you would. You relate everything to me, Mr

Snagsby.”

“Every—my lit—?”

“I should be glad,” says Mrs Snagsby, after contemplating his

increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, “If you would

come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr Snagsby,than anywhere else.”

“My love, I don’t know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready

to go.”

Mr Snagsby casts his eyes forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs.

Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction

with which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs

Snagsby from the Sol’s Arms. Before night his doubt whether he

may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the

catastrophe which is the talk of the whole neighbourhood, is

almost resolved into certainty by Mrs Snagsby’s pertinacity in that

fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are so great, that he entertains

wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice, and requiring

to be cleared, if innocent, and punished with the utmost rigour of

the law, if guilty.

Mr Weevle and Mr Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step

into Lincoln’s Inn to take a little walk about the square, and clear

as many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk

may.

“There can be no more favourable time than the present,

Tony,” says Mr Guppy, after they have broodingly made out the

four sides of the square, “for a word or two between us, upon a

point on which we must, with very little delay, come to an

understanding.”

“Now, I tell you what, William G.!” returns the other, eyeing his

companion with a bloodshot eye. “If it’s a point of conspiracy, you

needn’t take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that,

and I ain’t going to have any more. We shall have you taking fire

next, or blowing up with a bang.”

This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr Guppy that his voice quakes, as he says in a moral way, “Tony, I

should have thought that what we went through last night, would

have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as

you lived.” To which Mr Weevle returns, “William, I should have

thought it would have been a lesson to you never to conspire any

more as long as you lived.” To which Mr Guppy says, “Who’s

conspiring?” To which Mr Jobling replies, “Why, you are!” To

which Mr Guppy retorts, “No, I am not.” To which Mr Jobling

retorts again, “Yes, you are!” To which Mr Guppy retorts, “Who

says so?” To which Mr Jobling retorts, “I say so!” To which Mr

Guppy retorts, “Oh, indeed!” To which Mr Jobling retorts, “Yes,

indeed!” And both being now in a heated state, they walk on

silently for a while, to cool down again.

“Tony,” says Mr Guppy, then, “if you heard your friend out,

instead of flying at him, you wouldn’t fall into mistakes. But your

temper is hasty, and you are not considerate. Possessing in

yourself, Tony, all that is calculated to charm the eye—”

“Oh! Blow the eye!” cries Mr Weevle, cutting him short. “Say

what you have got to say!”

Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr

Guppy only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the

tone of injury in which he recommences:

“Tony, when I say there is a point on which we must come to an

understanding pretty soon, I say so quite apart from any

conspiring, however innocent. You know it is professionally

arranged beforehand, in all cases that are tried, what facts the

witnesses are to prove. Is it, or is it not, desirable that we should

know what facts we are to prove, on the inquiry into the death of

this unfortunate old Mo—gentleman?” (Mr Guppy was going to say, Mogul, but thinks gentleman better suited to the

circumstances.) “What facts? The facts.”

“The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are—” Mr Guppy tells

them off on his fingers—“what we knew of his habits; when you

saw him last; what his condition was then; the discovery that we

made; and how we made it.”

“Yes,” said Mr Weevle. “Those are about the facts.”

“We made the discovery, in consequence of his having, in his

eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o’clock at night,

when you were to explain some writing to him, as you had often

done before, on account of his not being able to read. I, spending

the evening with you, was called down—and so forth. The inquiry

being only into the circumstances touching the death of the

deceased, it’s not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose

you’ll agree?”

“No!” returns Mr Weevle. “I suppose not.”

“And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?” says the injured

Guppy.

“No,” returns his friend; “if it’s nothing worse than this, I

withdraw the observation.”

“Now, Tony,” says Mr Guppy, taking his arm again, and

walking him slowly on, “I should like to know, in a friendly way,

whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your

continuing to live at that place?”

“What do you mean?” says Tony, stopping.

“Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of

your continuing to live at that place?” repeats Mr Guppy, walking

him on again.

“At what place? That place?” pointing in the direction of the rag and bottle shop.

Mr Guppy nods.

“Why, I wouldn’t pass another night there, for any

consideration that you could offer me,” says Mr Weevle haggardly

staring.

“Do you mean it, though, Tony?”

“Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that,”

says Mr Weevle, with a very genuine shudder.

“Then the possibility or probability—for such it must be

considered—of your never being disturbed in possession of those

effects, lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no

relation in the world; and the certainty of your being able to find

out what he really had got stored up there; don’t weigh with you at

all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?” says Mr Guppy,

biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation.

“Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow’s living there?”

cries Mr Weevle, indignantly. “Go and live there yourself.”

“O! I, Tony!” says Mr Guppy, soothing him. “I have never lived

there, and couldn’t get a lodging there now; whereas you have got

one.”

“You are welcome to it,” rejoins his friend, “and—ugh!—you

may make yourself at home in it.”

“Then you really and truly at this point,” says Mr Guppy, “give

up the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?”

“You never,” returns Tony, with a most convincing

steadfastness, “said a truer word in all your life. I do!”

While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the

square, on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself

manifest to the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends,

for the coach stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr

Smallweed and Mrs Smallweed, accompanied by their

granddaughter Judy. An air of haste and excitement pervades the

party; and as the tall hat (surmounting Mr Smallweed the

younger) alights, Mr Smallweed the elder pokes his head out of

window, and bawls to Mr Guppy, “How de do, sir! How de do!”

“What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the

morning, I wonder!” says Mr Guppy, nodding to his familiar.

“My dear sir,” cries Grandfather Smallweed, “would you do me

a favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to

carry me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his

sister bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man

that good turn, sir?”

Mr Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, “the

public-house in the court?” And they prepare to bear the

venerable burden to the Sol’s Arms.

“There’s your fare!” says the Patriarch to the coachman with a

fierce grin, and shaking his incapable fist at him. “Ask me for a

penny more, and I’ll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear

young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you

round the neck. I won’t squeeze you tighter than I can help. O

Lord! O dear me! O my bones!”

It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr Weevle presents an

apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished.

With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the

utterance of divers croaking sounds, expressive of obstructive

respiration, he fulfils his share of the porterage, and the

benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol’s Arms.

“O Lord!” gasps Mr Smallweed, looking about him, breathless,

from an armchair. “O dear me! O my bones and back! O my aches

and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling,

scrambling poll parrot! Sit down!”

This little apostrophe to Mrs Smallweed is occasioned by a

propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady, whenever she

finds herself on her feet, to amble about, and “set” to inanimate

objects, accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a

witch dance. A nervous affection has probably as much to do with

these demonstrations, as any imbecile intention in the poor old

woman; but on the present occasion they are so particularly lively

in connection with the Windsor armchair, fellow to that in which

Mr Smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her

grandchildren have held her down in it: her lord in the meanwhile

bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of

“a pigheaded Jackdaw,” repeated a surprising number of times.

“My dear sir,” Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds,

addressing Mr Guppy, “there has been a calamity here. Have you

heard of it, either of you?”

“Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it.”

“You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, they discovered

it!”

The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the

compliment.

“My dear friends,” whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out

both his hands, “I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the

melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs Smallweed’s

brother.”“Eh?” says Mr Guppy.

“Mrs Smallweed’s brother, my dear friend—her only relation.

We were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never

would be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric—he

was very eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all

likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down

to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be

protected. I have come down,” repeats Grandfather Smallweed,

hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, “to

look after the property.”

“I think, Small,” says the disconsolate Mr Guppy, “you might

have mentioned that the old man was your uncle.”

“You two were so close about him that I thought you would like

me to be the same,” returns that old bird, with a secretly glistening

eye. “Besides, I wasn’t proud of him.”

“Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he

was or not,” says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.

“He never saw me in his life, to know me,” observed Small; “I

don’t know why I should introduce him, I am sure!”

“No, he never communicated with us—which is to be

deplored,” the old gentleman strikes in; “but I have come to look

after the property—to look over the papers, and to look after the

property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my

solicitor. Mr Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, over the way

there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don’t grow

under his feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs Smallweed’s only

brother; she had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation

but Mrs Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone

black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age.”Mrs Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head, and pipe up,

“Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand

bags of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of

banknotes!”

“Will somebody give me a quart pot?” exclaims her exasperated

husband, looking helplessly about him, and finding no missile

within his reach. “Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will

somebody hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You

hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!” Here Mr

Smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence,

actually throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything

else, by butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as

he can muster, and then dropping into his chair in a heap.

“Shake me up, somebody, if you’ll be so good,” says the voice

from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has

collapsed. “I have come to look after the property. Shake me up;

and call in the police on duty at the next house, to be explained to

about the property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect

the property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall

touch the property!” As his dutiful grandchildren set him up,

panting, and putting him through the usual restorative process of

shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, “the—the

property! The property!—property!”

Mr Weevle and Mr Guppy look at each other; the former as

having relinquished the whole affair; the latter with a discomfited

countenance, as having entertained some lingering expectations

yet. But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the

Smallweed interest. Mr Tulkinghorn’s clerk comes down from his

official pew in the chambers, to mention to the police that Mr Tulkinghorn is answerable for its being all correct about the next

of kin, and that the papers and effects will be formally taken

possession of in due time and course. Mr Smallweed is at once

permitted so far to assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit

of sentiment into the next house, and upstairs into Miss Flite’s

deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly

added to her aviary.

The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the

court, still makes good for the Sol, and keeps the court upon its

mettle. Mrs Piper and Mrs Perkins think it hard upon the young

man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome

present ought to be made him out of the estate. Young Piper and

Young Perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is

the terror of the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into

ashes behind the pump and under the archway, all day long;

where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. Little

Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson entered into affable conversation

with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the

barriers between professionals and non-professionals. Mr Bogsby

puts up “The popular song of KING DEATH! with chorus by the

whole strength of the company,” as the great harmonic feature of

the week; and announces in the bill that “J. G. B. is induced to do

so at a considerable extra expense, in consequence of a wish which

has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of

respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event

which has aroused so much sensation.” There is one point

connected with the deceased, upon which the court is particularly

anxious; namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be

preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker’s stating in the Sol’s bar in the course of the day, that

he has received orders to construct “a six-footer,” the general

solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr

Smallweed’s conduct does him great honour.

Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable

excitement too; for men of science and philosophy come to look,

and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the

same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable

gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever

imagined. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold

with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the

alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a

certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths, reprinted in the

sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book

not quite unknown, on English Medical Jurisprudence; and

likewise of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set

forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote

a scholarly work or so, and was occasionally heard of in his time as

having gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of

Messrs. Foderé and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who would

investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony

of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once

upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where

such a case occurred, and even to write an account of it;—still they

regard the late Mr Krook’s obstinacy, in going out of the world by

any such by-way, as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive.

The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes

it; and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the

Sol’s Arms. Then, there comes the artist of a picture newspaper,with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything, from a

wreck on the Cornish coast to a review in Hyde Park, or a meeting

at Manchester,—and in Mrs Perkins’s own room, memorable

evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block, Mr Krook’s

house, as large as life; in fact considerably larger, making a very

temple of it. Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the

fatal chamber, he depicts that apartment as three quarters of a

mile long, by fifty yards high; at which the court is particularly

charmed. All this time, the two gentlemen before mentioned pop

in and out of every house, and assist at the philosophical

disputations—go everywhere, and listen to everybody,—and yet

are always diving into the Sol’s parlour, and writing with the

ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.

At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except

that the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common

way, and tells the gentlemen of the Jury, in his private capacity,

that “that would seem to be an unlucky house next door,

gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and

these are mysteries we can’t account for!” After which the six-

footer comes into action, and is much admired.

In all these proceedings Mr Guppy has so slight a part, except

when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private

individual, and can only haunt the secret house on the outside;

where he has the mortification of seeing Mr Smallweed

padlocking the door. But before these proceedings draw to a close,

that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr Guppy

has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock.

For which reason, with a sinking heart, and with that hang-dog

sense of guilt upon him, which dread and watching, enfolded in the Sol’s Arms, have produced, the young man of the name of

Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven

o’clock in the evening, and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury

replies that she is going out to dinner; don’t he see the carriage at

the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants

to see my lady too.

Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow

gentleman in waiting, “to pitch into the young man;” but his

instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the

young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the

young man in a large room, not overlight, while he makes report of

him.

Mr Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering

everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or

wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it —? No, it’s no ghost; but

fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.

“I have to beg your ladyship’s pardon,” Mr Guppy stammers,

very downcast. “This is an inconvenient time—”

“I told you, you could come at any time.” She takes a chair,

looking straight at him as on the last occasion.

“Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.”

“You can sit down.” There is not much affability in her tone.

“I don’t know, your ladyship, that it’s worth while my sitting

down and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I

mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.”

“Have you come merely to say so?”

“Merely to say so, your ladyship.” Mr Guppy besides being

depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further

disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. She knows its influence perfectly; has studied it too well to miss a grain

of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly,

he not only feels conscious that he has no guide, in the least

perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts; but

also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further

and further from her.

She will not speak it is plain. So he must.

“In short, your ladyship,” says Mr Guppy, like a meanly

penitent thief, “the person I was to have had the letters of, has

come to a sudden end, and—” He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly

finishes the sentence.

“And the letters are destroyed with the person?”

Mr Guppy would say no, if he could—as he is unable to hide.

“I believe so, your ladyship.”

If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he

could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly

put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.

He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.

“Is this all you have to say?” inquires Lady Dedlock, having

heard him out—or as nearly out as he can stumble.

Mr Guppy thinks that’s all.

“You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to

me; this being the last time you will have the opportunity.”

Mr Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at

present, by any means.

“That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to

you!” and she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the

name of Guppy out.

But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming

with his quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment

on the handle of the door—comes in—and comes face to face with

the young man as he is leaving the room.

One glance between the old man and the lady; and for an

instant the blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and

sharp, looks out. Another instant; close again.

“I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a

thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour.

I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!”

“Stay!” She negligently calls him back. “Remain here, I beg. I

am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young

man!”

The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and

cringingly hopes that Mr Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.

“Ay, ay?” says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent

brows; though he has no need to look again—not he. “From Kenge

and Carboy’s, surely?”

“Kenge and Carboy’s, Mr Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.”

“To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr Guppy, I am very well!”

“Happy to hear it, sir. You can’t be too well, sir, for the credit of

the profession.”

“Thank you, Mr Guppy!”

Mr Guppy sneaks away. Mr Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old-

fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock’s brightness, hands her

down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin,

and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.

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