The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics)

by George W. M. Reynolds

  “But wherefore should you press me in this way?” said the stock-broker. “Did I not satisfy your demands on a former occasion?”

  “And have I not kept my pledge?” cried Tidkins. “Has a word ever escaped my lips to do you an injury? Why, there is still a reward of three thousand pounds to be got——”

  “No—no,” interrupted Tomlinson; “you are wrong. My affairs are all wound up in respect to the bank—and a dividend has been paid.”

  “A precious small one, I’ll be bound,” observed Tidkins. “However,—reward or no reward,—it wouldn’t place you in a very comfortable situation if I was to take a policeman with me, and just call at a particular house in Thomas Street, where an old gentleman named Nelson——”

  “Enough!” cried Tomlinson: “I see you know all. My God! when shall I be released from this peril? when shall I know a moment’s comfort?”

  “When you’ve brought me down a couple of hundred pounds to-morrow night,” answered the Resurrection Man, knocking out the ashes from his pipe. “And, then—if you like to make it worth my while—I tell you what I’ll do for you.”

  “What?” asked the stock-broker, gasping for breath.

  “I’ll entice the old fellow down here, and either lock him up in one of my cells, or else settle his hash in such a way that he shall only be fit to sell to the surgeons,” returned the Resurrection Man, fixing his snake-like eyes on the stock-broker’s countenance, as if to ascertain the precise impression which this proposal made.

  “Monster!” ejaculated Tomlinson, shrinking from the bare idea of such an atrocity—for he was more or less attached to Michael Martin, in consequence of the immense sacrifice which the old man had made on his account: “no—never will I imbrue my hands with blood, nor suborn another to play the assassin’s part for me! To-morrow evening you shall receive the amount you demand; and heaven grant that all connexion between us may cease.”

  “Be it so,” observed the Resurrection Man, coolly, as he brewed himself a glass of grog.

  “You have nothing more to say to me?” asked Tomlinson, rising to depart.

  The reply was a negative; and the stock-broker hurried away from a dwelling where crime seemed to proclaim its presence trumpet-tongued,—where every look that eyes shot forth, and every word that lips uttered, and every thought that brains conceived—all, all appeared to feel the noxious atmosphere of blackest turpitude.

  In a house where a person has lately died, everything seems to exhale a sickly odour as of a corpse; and if you touch the wall with your fingers, you feel a clammy and fetid moisture which makes your blood run cold within you. So was it with the dwelling of the Resurrection Man: the taint of crime impregnated the very atmosphere; and Tomlinson shook himself when he gained the open air, as if he could thus throw off some pestilential influence which had seized hold of him.

  Tomlinson had not left the house many minutes, when a low, but peculiar knock at the door brought the Resurrection Man down to answer the summons.

  “Who is it?” he demanded, ere he opened.

  “Me,” growled a voice which Tidkins immediately recognised to be that of the Lully Prig.

  This individual was forthwith admitted; and when the two villains were seated by the fire in the back room, the Resurrection Man asked “What news?”

  “Just as you wished,” was the reply. “I called at the chandlery shop in Pitfield Street, Hoxton, and axed for a nounce of bakker. The woman served me; and I soon see that she was alone. Then says I, ‘If so be no one’s within ’earing, I want a word with you.’—She looked frightened, but said nothing wotsomover.—‘All I have to tell you is just this,’ says I: ‘Tony Tidkins knows where you be and all about you. But he says, says he, that if you take no notice of him in case you sees him, and says nothing to nobody in case you ’ears of him, he’ll leave you alone.’—Lor! how she did turn pale and tremble when I mentioned your name; and she seemed so glad when I told her that you wouldn’t do her no harm, if so be she didn’t try to do you none.—‘If he won’t come near me, I’ll never even breathe his name,’ she says.—‘And you’ll never utter a word about the crib in Globe Town,’ says I.—‘Never, never,’ says she.—‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘all will go on well; and you can sleep as sound in your bed as if there wasn’t such a man as Tony Tidkins in the world. But if so be you peaches, or says a word,’ says I, ‘that may get Tony into trouble, he’s got plenty of friends as will awenge him, and the fust is me.’—So she swore eyes and limbs, she’d keep all close; and in that way I left her.”

  “So far, so good,” observed the Resurrection Man. “She’s frightened, and will keep a close tongue. That’s all I want. When I have finished the different things I have in hand, and don’t care about staying in London any longer, I will punish her for what she did to me. But my revenge will keep for the present. Now, what about Crankey Jem?”

  “He still lives in the court in Drury Lane, and stays at home all day,” answered the Lully Prig. “But at night he goes out for some hours, and I can’t find out where. For three evenin’s follering I watched him; and every time I missed him at last somehow or another.”

  “Which way did he go?” demanded the Resurrection Man.

  “Different ways—not always up one street and down another—now here, then there, as if he hadn’t no partickler motive, but merely went out a walkin’ for the fun of it.”

  “I tell you what it is, Lully,” said the Resurrection Man, gloomily, “you’re not so wide awake as I am. That fellow has some object in wandering about zigzag and crosswise in that manner. He has got a scent of me; and he’s following it up. But at the same time he’s afraid that I may have a scent of him; and so he dodges about. It’s as clear as day-light—’cause it’s just what I should do.”

  “And you’re a downy cove enough, Tony,” observed the Lully Prig; “although I do think arter all you’ve let that damned parley-woo French feller do us about them Bank notes.”

  “It’s very strange the Buffer doesn’t return,” said the Resurrection Man. “I’d take my davy that he wouldn’t chouse us out of our reglars. But time will show. Now look here, Lully,—as you’ve made that same remark a dozen times since the thing took place,—and just see how the matter stood. We got four thousand pounds clear——”

  “Yes—a thousand a-piece,” said the Lully Prig, assentingly: “and a precious jolly catch it was.”

  “Well,” continued the Resurrection Man, “the Bank notes were of no more use to us than so much waste paper, because Greenwood was sure to stop them the moment he got back to London: at least I should think so. Now when that French fellow Lafleur offered to let you, me, the Buffer, and Long Bob share the gold, and he would go to France to smash the notes at the money-changer’s that he told us about in Paris, and then take his thousand beyond his fifth share of the produce of the notes, it was the best thing we could do to accept his proposal—particularly as he said that any one of us might go with him.”

  “But if he sticks to the whole sixteen thousand pounds, what a deuced good pull he has over us,” observed the Lully Prig.

  “So he has,” said the Resurrection Man; “and again I tell you that if he hadn’t offered to go to France and change the notes, we must have destroyed them in the very chalk-pit where we divided the swag. They were no use to us—but a great danger. It was better to trust to the chance of Lafleur doing the thing that’s right; and if he don’t, the Buffer will drop down on him, in spite of all the gulloteens[1] and Johnny-darmies[2] in France.”

  [1] Guillotines.

  [2] Gendarmes.

  “Well, we won’t quarrel about it, Tony,” said the Lully Prig. “You and the Buffer let me in for a good thing; and I ought not to grumble. You see, I’ve follered your advice, and kept the blunt in a safe place, without wasting it as Long Bob is doing. He’s never been sober sin
ce the thing took place.”

  “Where is he now?” asked the Resurrection Man.

  “Oh! he’s knocking about at all the flash cribs, spending his tin as fast as he can,” answered the Lully Prig.

  “Don’t let him know of this place of mine for the world,” said Tidkins. “A drunken chap like that isn’t to be trusted in any shape. I only hope he won’t wag his tongue too free about the business that put all the money into his pocket.”

  “Not he!” cried the Lully Prig: “he’s as close as the door of Newgate about them kind of things, even when he’s as drunk as a pig. But I don’t want to have nothing more to do with him; I’ll stick to you and the Buffer; and when you’ve settled all the things you say you have in hand, we’ll be off to Americky.”

  “So we will, Lully. But this fellow Crankey Jem annoys me. You must go on watching him. Or p’rhaps it would be better to get the Bully Grand to set some of his Forty Thieves after him?” added the Resurrection Man.

  “No—no,” cried the Lully Prig, whose pride was somewhat hurt at this suggestion, which seemed to cast a doubt upon his own skill and ability in performing the service required: “leave him in my hands, and I’ll find out what dodge he’s upon sooner or later.”

  Scarcely were these words uttered, when a knock at the front door fell on the ears of the two villains.

  The Resurrection Man descended; and, to the usual inquiry ere the door was opened, the well-known voice of the Buffer answered, “It is me.”

  “Well—what luck?” demanded the Resurrection Man, hastily—his avarice prompting the question even before his accomplice in iniquity had scarcely time to utter a reply to the first query.

  “Sold—regularly sold—done brown!” returned the Buffer, closing and bolting the door behind him.

  “Damnation!” cried the Resurrection Man, who, now that the faint hope of obtaining a further share of the plunder of Greenwood’s tin-case was annihilated, manifested a fiercer rage than would have been expected after his cool reasoning with the Lully Prig upon the special point.

  “You may well swear, Tony,” said the Buffer, sulkily, as he ascended the stairs; “for we never was so completely done in all our lives. That snivelling Mounseer was one too many for us.”

  “Ah! I see how it is,” observed the Lully Prig, when the two men entered the room where he had remained; “and I can’t say it’s more than I expected. But how did he do it?”

  “Why, he gave me the slip at last,” answered the Buffer, pouring himself out half a tumbler of raw spirit, which he drank without winking, just as if it were so much water. “You see, he kept me humbugging about in Paris week after week, always saying that it wasn’t prudent to begin smashing the notes yet awhile; and I stuck to him like a leech. I shan’t make a long story on it now—I’m too wexed: all I’ll tell you at present is that four days ago he gave me the slip; and so I twigged that it was all gammon. He’d done us brown—that was wery clear;—and so I come back.”

  We shall leave the three villains to discuss this disappointment, together with divers other matters interesting to themselves, and continue the thread of our narrative in another quarter.

  It is, however, as well to observe that all these comings and goings at the house of the Resurrection Man were watched by an individual, who for several nights had been lurking about that neighbourhood for the purpose, but who had exercised so much caution that he was never perceived by any one of the gang.

  This person was Crankey Jem.

  CHAPTER CCIX.

  ALDERMAN SNIFF.—TOMLINSON AND GREENWOOD.

  It was eleven o’clock in the forenoon of the day following the incidents just related.

  The scene is Mr. Tomlinson’s office in Tokenhouse Yard.

  The stock-broker was seated at his desk. His manner was nervous, and his countenance expressive of anxiety: he had, indeed, passed a sleepless night,—for he saw in the conduct of the Resurrection Man the renewal of a system of extortion which was not likely to cease so long as there was a secret to be hushed up.

  The careful aspect of the stock-broker was not, however, noticed by Mr. Alderman Sniff, who was lounging against the mantel, with his back to the fire, and expatiating on his own success in life—a favourite subject with this civic functionary, who considered “success” to be nothing more nor less than the accumulation of money from a variety of schemes and representations so nearly allied to downright swindling, that it was impossible to say what a jury would have thought of them had they come under the notice of a criminal tribunal.

  “But how have you managed to do it all?” asked Tomlinson, by way of saying something—although his thoughts were far removed from the topic of Mr. Alderman Sniff’s discourse.

  “You see I began life with plenty of money,” returned the Alderman: “I mean I had a decent fortune at the death of my father, which took place when I was about two-and-twenty. But that soon went; and I was glad to accept an offer to go out to India. On my arrival at Madras I was inducted into a situation as clerk in a mercantile establishment; and there I was making some little money, when I was foolish enough to issue a prospectus for the ‘General Boa-Constrictor Killing and Wild Beast Extirpation Joint-Stock Company,’—a project which was not so well relished as I could have wished. My employers discharged me; and, deeply disgusted with the ignorance of the English settlers and the natives, who could not understand the magnitude of my designs, I came back to England. My trip to India was, however, very useful to me; for, on my return to this country, I lived splendidly on the Deccan Prize Money for four years.”

  “Lived on the Deccan Prize Money!” exclaimed Tomlinson: “why—what claim had you to any of it?”

  “None,” replied Mr. Sniff; “I never was in the Deccan in my life. But I declared that I had claims to I can’t remember how many lacs of rupees; and it was very easy to obtain loans from friends and get bills cashed on the strength of the assertion. Of course this had an end: the settlement of the Deccan Prize Money affairs was interminable; but the facility for procuring cash on the strength of it was not equally lasting. However,—as I just now observed,—I lived comfortably on my alleged claims for four years; and then I started the ‘Universal Poor Man’s Corn-Plaster and Blister Gratuitous Distribution Society.’ I got several philanthropic and worthy men to join me in this laudable undertaking: we took splendid offices in King Street, Cheapside; and the enterprise progressed wonderfully. How well I remember our first annual meeting at Exeter Hall! The great room was crowded to excess. I was the Secretary, and it was my duty to read the Report of the Committee. That document had been drawn up in most pathetic language by some poor devil of an author whom I employed for the purpose; and it produced a wonderful effect. It was really quite touching to see how the ladies—poor dear creatures—wept tears of the most refreshing philanthropy, when I enumerated the blessings which this Society had conferred upon vast numbers of individuals. Nine thousand six hundred and sixty-seven Corn-Plasters and eleven thousand two hundred and fourteen Blisters had been distributed gratuitously, during the year, to as many poor suffering creatures, who had all been thereby cured of corns previously deemed inveterate, and of chest-complaints that until then had received no medical attention. The Report dwelt upon the gratitude of thousands of poor families for the relief thus dispensed, and congratulated the members of the Society on the claims they possessed to the applause of the whole Christian world. Subscriptions rained in upon me in perfect torrents; and there was not a tearless eye throughout that vast hall.”

  “How was it that so excellent an institution became extinct?” asked Tomlinson, awaking from his reverie when the Alderman paused.

  “I really can scarce tell you,” was the reply. “Whether it was that the public thought there could not possibly be any more corns to cure or pulmonary complaints to heal,—or whether it was in consequence of a proposition which I ma
de, in an unlucky hour, to extend the benefits of the Society to the poor savages in the islands of the Pacific,—I can’t say: it is, however, certain that the subscribers were very ‘backward in coming forward’ at the third annual meeting; and so the institution dwindled into nothing. I had, nevertheless, saved some little money; and I was not long idle. My next spec was ‘The Metropolitan Poor Family’s Sunday-Dinner Gratuitous Baking Association.’ You perceive that I am fond of dealing in humane and philanthropic enterprises. My idea was to establish numerous baking-houses all over London and to cook the poor man’s Sunday joint and potatoes for him, the Society reserving to itself the dripping, which being sold, and the profits added to the voluntary subscriptions received from the charitable, would support these most useful institutions. At the end of a year, however, I was compelled to dissolve the Association, after having gone to the expense of building no less than sixty enormous ovens in as many different parts of London.”

  “How came that project to fail,” asked Tomlinson, “when it was calculated to benefit so many poor families?”

  “Simply because so few of those poor families ever had any Sunday dinners to cook at all,” replied Alderman Sniff. “Nevertheless, the subscriptions which were received paid all the outlay, and remunerated me for my trouble. I therefore met with some little encouragement in all I did for the benefit of my fellow-creatures; and, more than that,” added the philanthropist, slapping his left breast, “I enjoyed the approval, Mr. Tomlinson, of my conscience.”

  The stock-broker sighed:—not that he envied any inward feelings which Mr. Alderman Sniff could have experienced as the results of the speculations referred to; but the thoughts occasioned by the mere mention of the word “Conscience” aroused painful emotions in the breast of James Tomlinson.