"Never mind abaht that; I tell yer I ain"t goin" in," he said doggedly.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned away. "Then stop outside; you"ll get nothing," was my reply.
As I expected, I had not gone a dozen yards when he came limping after me. "All right, guv"nor, I"ll risk it," he said eagerly, "I"m down on my luck, an" I must have a bite an" a drink. An" after all, w"en yer come to think of it, I"m top dog, ain"t I?"
In my own mind I had to acknowledge as much, though I wondered what his att.i.tude would be when he came face to face with that stronger man, Bardolph Just. I made my way into the house and into the dining-room, while George Rabbit shuffled along behind me. He had pulled off his cap, and now revealed the thin stubble of hair with which his head was covered.
As he shuffled in after me into the dining-room he caught sight of the doctor, standing up with his hands in his pockets, looking at him. He drew back instantly, and looked very much as though he meant to make a bolt for it, after all.
"You can come in, my friend," said the doctor, regarding him steadily.
"I know all about you."
"I said it was a bloomin" trap," muttered Rabbit, as he shuffled into the room.
I saw that the doctor had been busy in my absence. Apparently he had visited the larder, and had brought therefrom the remains of a pie and some bread and cheese, all of which were set out on a tray, together with a bottle and a gla.s.s. Our new guest eyed these things hungrily, forgetful of everything else. At a sign from the doctor he seated himself at the table, and fell to like a ravening wolf.
"I thought it better not to disturb the servants," said Bardolph Just to me in a low tone, "so I foraged for myself. He"ll be more amenable when he"s taken the edge off his appet.i.te."
Mr. George Rabbit feeding was not a pretty sight. Making all allowances for a tremendous hunger, it was not exactly nice to see him cramming food into himself with the aid of his knife as well as his fork, and with an occasional resort to his more primitive fingers; nor did he forget to apply himself to the bottle at intervals. And all the time he eyed us furtively, as though wondering what would happen when his meal was finished.
But at last even he was satisfied--or perhaps I should put it that the pie had given out. He sat back in his chair, and wiped his lips with the lining of his deplorable cap, and heaved a huge sigh of satisfaction.
"That"s done me a treat, guv"nors both," he murmured hoa.r.s.ely.
"We"re pleased, I"m sure," replied Bardolph Just. "Now we can get to business. It seems that you"ve got a sort of idea in your head that you are acquainted with this gentleman?" He indicated me as he spoke.
George Rabbit winked impudently. "Never forgot a pal in my life, an" I "ope I never shall," he said. "W"y, me an" Norton "Ide was unfort"nit togevver, an" now "e"s struck it rich, it ain"t likely I wouldn"t stick to "im. See?"
"Now listen to me, my man," said Bardolph Just, coming to the other end of the table, and leaning his hands on it, and staring down at the other man. "A great many things happen in this world that it"s well to know nothing about. You"ve made a mistake; the gentleman you think is Norton Hyde is not Norton Hyde at all. What do you say to that?"
"Wot I say to that is--try summink else," answered Rabbit. "You fink you"ll kid me; you fink you"ll git rid of me jist fer a supper? Not much. I know a good thing w"en I see it, an" I"m goin" to freeze on to it."
"You will not only have a good supper, but you"ll have somewhere to sleep as well," said the doctor. "More than that, you"ll have money."
"I"ll lay I do!" exclaimed the man boisterously.
Bardolph Just laid a sovereign on the edge of the table, and pushed it gently towards the man. "You"ve never seen this gentleman before?" he hinted.
George Rabbit shook his head. "Not "arf enough," he said disdainfully.
The process was repeated until five sovereigns lay in a little shining row along the edge of the table. It was too much for George Rabbit; he leaned forward eagerly. "I don"t know the gent from Adam!" he exclaimed.
"Ah!" The doctor laughed, and drew a deep breath, and then suddenly dropped his hand down so that the coins were covered. "But not so fast; there"s something else. This money is yours--and you will have a shakedown for the night--only on condition that you stick to what you"ve said. If you give any trouble, or if you start any ridiculous story such as you hinted at to-night, I shall find a way of dealing with you. Do you understand?"
The man looked up at him suspiciously. "You could do a precious lot, I don"t fink!" he exclaimed.
"I"d do this," said the doctor viciously. "I"d hunt you out of the country, my friend; I"d look up past records and see what took you into prison; I"d see if you couldn"t be got back there again. How do you think your word would stand against mine, when it came to a c.o.c.k-and-bull story of the wrong man buried and the right man alive?
Think yourself lucky you"ve been treated as well as you have."
George Rabbit eyed him resentfully, and had a long look at me; then he slowly shuffled to his feet. "Give us the rhino, an" show me w"ere I"m to sleep," he said. "I shall keep me face shut; you needn"t be afraid."
The doctor pushed the coins towards him, and he was in the very act of gathering them up with some deliberateness, when the door was opened, and Martha Leach walked in. What she had expected to find, or whether she had antic.i.p.ated discovering the doctor alone, it is impossible to say; certain it is that she stopped dead, taking in the little picture before her, and something of its meaning. George Rabbit swept the coins into his hand, and jingled them for a moment, and dropped them into his pocket.
"What do you want?" snarled Bardolph Just.
"Nothing," replied the woman, in some dismay. "I only thought--I only wondered if you wanted anything more to-night. I"m very sorry."
"I want nothing. Go to bed," he said curtly; and with another swift glance round the room that seemed to embrace us all, she walked out of the room and closed the door.
"Now, show this man where he can sleep," he said, turning to me.
"There"s a loft over the stable, with plenty of straw in it; if he doesn"t set fire to himself he"ll be comfortable enough. You know where it is?"
I nodded, and signed to George Rabbit to follow me. He made an elaborate and somewhat ironical bow to the doctor in the doorway of the room. The doctor called him back for a moment.
"You can slip away in the morning when you like," he said. "And don"t let us see your ugly face again."
"Not so much about my face, if yer don"t mind," said Mr. Rabbit. "An" I shan"t be at all sorry ter go; I don"t "alf like the company you keep!"
With this doubtful compliment flung at me, Mr. George Rabbit shuffled out of the room, with a parting grin at the doctor. I took him out of the house and across the grounds towards the stable, showed him where, by mounting a ladder, he could get to his nest among the straw in the loft. "And don"t smoke there," I said, "if only for your own sake."
"I "aven"t got anythink to smoke," he said, a little disgustedly. "I never thought of it. I "aven"t so much as a match on me."
I knew that the stable was deserted, because I had never seen any horses there, and I knew that the doctor kept none. I left George Rabbit in the dark, and retraced my steps to the house. I met the doctor in the hall; he had evidently been waiting for me.
"Well?" he asked, looking at me with a smile.
"I don"t think he"ll trouble us again," I said. "As you suggested, he won"t get anyone to believe his story, even if he tells it, and a great many things may happen before he gets rid of his five pounds. Take my word for it, we"ve seen the last of him."
I went to my room and prepared for bed. At the last moment it occurred to me that I had said nothing to the doctor about Capper, or about the treachery of Harvey Scoffold, and I decided that that omission was perhaps, after all, for the best. The business of the man Capper was one which concerned Debora, in a sense, and I knew that the doctor was no friend to Debora. I determined to say nothing at present.
It was a particularly warm night, with a suggestion in the air of a coming storm. I threw back the curtains from my window, and flung the window wide, and then, as there was light enough for me to undress by without the lamp, I put that out, and sat in the semi-darkness of the room, smoking. I was thinking of many things while I slipped off my upper garments, and only gradually did it dawn upon me that across the grounds a light was showing where no light should surely be. Taking my bearings in regard to the position of the house itself, I saw that that light would come from the loft above the disused stable.
I cursed George Rabbit and my own folly for trusting him. At the same time it occurred to me that I did not want to make an enemy of the man, and that I might well let him alone, to take what risks he chose. The light was perfectly steady, and there was no suggestion of the flicker of a blaze; I thought it possible that he might have discovered some old stable lantern, with an end of candle in it, and so have armed himself against the terrors of the darkness. Nevertheless, while I leaned on the window-sill and smoked I watched that light.
Presently I saw it move, and then disappear; and while I was congratulating myself on the fact that the man had probably put out the light, I saw it appear again near the ground, and this time it was swinging, as though someone carried it. I drew back a little from the window, lest I should be seen, and watched the light.
Whoever carried it was coming towards the house, and as it swung I saw that it was a lantern, and that it was knocking gently, not against the leg of a man, as I had antic.i.p.ated, but against the skirts of a woman; so much I made out clearly. When the light was so close as to be almost under my window I craned forward, and looked, for it had stopped.
The next moment I saw what I wanted to see clearly. The lantern was raised, and opened; a face was set close to it that the light might be blown out. In the second before the light was puffed out I saw that face clearly--the face of Martha Leach!
Long after she had gone into the house I stood there puzzling about the matter, wondering what she could have had to say to George Rabbit. I remembered how she had come into the room when he was taking the money from the table; I remembered, too, her threat to me, at an earlier time, that she would find out how I came into the house and all about me. And I knew that, whether she had succeeded or not, she had paid that nocturnal visit to George Rabbit to find out from him what he knew.
I found myself wondering whether the man had stood firm, or whether he had been induced to tell the truth. I knew that in the latter case I had an enemy in the house more powerful than any I had encountered yet; so much justice at least I did her.
At breakfast the next morning the doctor was in a new mood. Something to my surprise, I found both him and Debora at the breakfast table when I entered; I may say that I had been to that loft over the stable, only to find, as I had hoped, that my bird was flown. Now I murmured a word of apology as I moved round to my place, and was laughingly answered by Bardolph Just.
"You should indeed apologise, my dear John, on such an occasion as this," he said. "And not to me, but to the lady. Don"t you know what to-day is?"
I think I murmured stupidly that I thought it was Tuesday, but the doctor caught me up on the word, with another laugh.