"You call yourself Cruden Reginald?"
"I have done so; yes."
"Then I must trouble you to come along with me, young gentleman."
"Very well," said Reginald, quietly. "What am I charged with?"
"Conspiracy to defraud, that"s what"s on the warrant. Are you ready now?"
"Yes, quite ready. Where are you going to take me?"
"Well, we shall have to look in at the station on our way, and then go on to the police-court. Won"t take long. Bound to remand you, you know, for a week or something like that, and then you"ll get committed, and the a.s.sizes are on directly after the new year, so three weeks from now will see it all over."
The man talked in a pleasant, civil way, in a tone as if he quite supposed Reginald might be pleased to hear the programme arranged on his behalf.
"We"d better go," said Reginald, moving towards the door.
His face was very white and determined. But there was a tell-tale quiver in his tightly-pressed lips which told that he needed all his courage to help him through the ordeal before him. Till this moment the thought of having to walk through Liverpool in custody had not entered into his calculations, and he recoiled from it with a shiver.
"I needn"t trouble you with these," said the policeman, taking a pair of handcuffs from his pocket; "not yet, anyhow."
"Oh no. I"ll come quite quietly."
"All right. I"ve my mate below. You can walk between. Hulloa!"
This last exclamation was addressed to Master Love, who, having witnessed thus much of the interview in a state of stupefied bewilderment, now recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to make a furious dash at the burly policeman.
"Do you hear? Let him be; let my governor go. He ain"t done nothink to you or n.o.body. It"s me, I tell yer. I"ve murdered dozens, do you "ear?
and robbed the till, and set the Manshing "Ouse o" fire, do you "ear?
You let "im go. It"s me done it!"
And he accompanied the protest with such a furious kick at the policeman"s leg that that functionary grew very red in the face, and making a grab at the offender, seized him by the collar.
"Don"t hurt him, please," said Reginald. "He doesn"t mean any harm."
"Tell you it"s me," cried the boy, trembling in the grasp of the law, "me and that there Medlock. My gov"nor ain"t done it."
"Hush, be quiet, Love," said Reginald. "It"ll do no good to make a noise. It can"t be helped. Good-bye."
The boy fairly broke down, and began to blubber piteously.
Reginald, unmanned enough as it was, had not the heart to wait longer, and walked hurriedly to the door, followed by the policeman. This movement once more raised the faithful Love to a final effort.
"Let "im go, do you "ear?" shouted he, rushing down the stairs after them. "I"ll do for yer if you don"t. Oh, guv"nor, take me too, can"t yer?"
But Reginald could only steel his heart for once, and feign not to hear the appeal.
The other policeman was waiting outside, and between his two custodians he walked, sick at heart, and faltering in courage, longing only to get out of the reach of the curious, critical eyes that turned on him from every side, and beyond the sound of that pitiful whimper of the faithful little friend as it followed him step by step to the very door of the police-station.
At the station Mr Sniff awaited the party with a pleasant smile of welcome.
"That"s right," said he to Reginald, encouragingly; "much better to come quietly, looks better. Look here, young fellow," he added, rather more confidentially, "the first question you"ll be asked is whether you"re guilty or not. Take my advice, and make a clean breast of it."
"I shall say not guilty, which will be the truth."
Mr Sniff, as the reader has been told, had already come to the same conclusion. Still, it being the rule of his profession always to a.s.sume a man to be guilty till he can prove himself innocent, he felt it was no business of his to a.s.sist the magistrate in coming to the decision by stating what he _thought_. All he had to do was to state what he _knew_, and meanwhile, if the prisoner choose to simplify matters by pleading guilty, well, why shouldn"t he?
"Please yourself about that. Have you made your entries, Jones? The van will be here directly. See you later on," added he, nodding to Reginald.
Reginald waited there for the van like a man in a dream. People came in and out, spoke, laughed, looked about them, even mentioned his name.
But they all seemed part of some curious pageant, of which he himself formed not the least unreal portion. His mind wandered off on a hundred little insignificant topics. s.n.a.t.c.hes of the _Pilgrim"s Progress_ came into his mind, half-forgotten airs of music crossed his memory, the vision of young Gedge as he last saw him fleeted before his eyes. He tried in vain to collect his thoughts, but they were hopelessly astray, leaving him for the time barely conscious, and wholly uninterested in what was taking place around him.
The van came at last, a vehicle he had often eyed curiously as it rumbled past him in the streets. Little had he ever dreamed of riding one day inside it.
The usual knot of loungers waited at the door of the police-court to see the van disgorge its freight. Sometimes they had been rewarded for their patience by the glimpse of a real murderer, or wife-kicker, or burglar, and sometimes they had had their bit of fun over a "tough customer," who, if he must travel at her Majesty"s expense, was determined to travel all the way, and insisted on being carried by the arms and legs across the pavement into the tribunal of justice. There was no such fun to be got out of Reginald as he stepped hurriedly from the van, and with downcast eyes entered by the prisoners" door into the court-house.
A case was already in progress, and he had to wait in a dimly-lit underground lobby for his summons. The constable who had arrested him was still beside him, and other groups, mostly of police, filled up the place. But he heeded none, longing--oh! how intensely--to hear his name called and to know the worst.
Presently there was a bustle near the door, and he knew the case upstairs was at an end.
"Six months," some one said.
Some one else whistled softly.
"Whew--old Fogey"s in one of his tantrums, then. He"d have only got three at Dark Street."
Then some one called the name "Reginald," and the policeman near him said "Coming." Then, turning to the prisoner, he said,--
"Fogey"s on the bench to-day, and he"s particular. Look alive."
Reginald found himself being hurried to the door through a lane of officials and others towards the stairs.
"Your turn next, Grinder," he heard some one say as he pa.s.sed. "Ten- minutes will do this case."
To Reginald the stairs seemed interminable. There was a hum of voices above, and a shuffling of feet as of people taking a momentary relaxation in the interval of some performance. Then a loud voice cried, "Silence--order in the court, sit down, gentlemen," and there fell an unearthly stillness on the place.
"To the right," said the policeman, coming beside him, and taking his arm as if to direct him.
He was conscious of a score of curious faces turned on him, of some one on the bench folding up a newspaper and adjusting his gla.s.ses, of a man at a table throwing aside a quill pen and taking another, of a click of a latch closing behind him, of a row of spikes in front of him. Then he found himself alone.
What followed he scarcely could tell. He was vaguely aware of some one with Mr Sniff"s voice making a statement in which his (Reginald"s) own name occurred, another voice from the bench breaking in every now and then, and yet another voice from the table talking too, accompanied by the squeaking of a pen across paper. Then the constable who had arrested him said something, and after the constable some one else.
Then followed a dialogue in undertone between the bench and the table, and once more Mr Sniff"s voice, and at last the voice from the bench, a gruff, unsympathetic voice, said,--
"Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?"
The question roused him. It was intended for him, and he awoke to the consciousness that, after all, he had some interest in what was going on.