CHAPTER XXXIII

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 in 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

Arms 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

its 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 house

has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in

brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard

what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his

shoulders and said, “There’ll be a run upon us!” In the first outcry,

young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph

at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to

that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and

torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all

chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in

company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in

charge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of

sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid

form.

Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and

are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only

stay there. “This is not a time,” says Mr. Bogsby, “to haggle about

money,” though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter;

“give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you’re welcome to whatever

you put a name to.”

Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names

to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to

put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to

all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of

what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile,

one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing

it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from

outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well

know what they are up to in there.

Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out 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 lamp-lighter 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 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 looks,” 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 connexion 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 eye 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 kind of 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,” says 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.”

“Oh! 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. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, 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 obstructed 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.

“Oh, Lord!” gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from

an arm-chair. “Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, 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 connexion

with the Windsor arm-chair, 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 pig-headed 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

bank-notes!”

“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

enter 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. Fodere 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 in Manchester, and in

Mrs. Perkins’ 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, and of

bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. 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 over-light, 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.

“Aye, aye?” 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.