Queen of Hearts — Brother Owen's Story of Anne Rodway, part 2
* * * * * * * April 30th.
I have found it!
God knows to what results it may lead; but it is as certain as that I am sitting here before my journal that I have found the cravat from which the end in Mary’s hand was torn.
I
discovered it last night; but the flutter I was in, and the nervousness and uncertainty I felt, prevented me from noting down this most extraordinary and unexpected event at the time when it happened.
Let me try if I can preserve the memory of it in writing now.
I was going home rather late from where I work, when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to buy myself any candles the evening before, and that I should be left in the dark if I did not manage to rectify this mistake in some way.
The shop close to me, at which I usually deal, would be shut up, I knew, before I could get to it; so I determined to go into the first place I passed where candles were sold.
This turned out to be a small shop with two counters, which did business on one side in the general grocery way, and on the other in the rag and bottle and old iron line.
There were several customers on the grocery side when I went in, so I waited on the empty rag side till I could be served.
Glancing about me here at the worthless-looking things by which I was surrounded, my eye was caught by a bundle of rags lying on the counter, as if they had just been brought in and left there.
From mere idle curiosity, I looked close at the rags, and saw among them something like an old cravat.
I
took it up directly and held it under a gaslight.
The pattern was blurred lilac lines running across and across the dingy black ground in a trellis-work form.
I looked at the ends: one of them was torn off.
How I managed to hide the breathless surprise into which this discovery threw me I cannot say, but I certainly contrived to steady my voice somehow, and to ask for my candles calmly when the man and woman serving in the shop, having disposed of their other customers, inquired of me what I wanted.
As the man took down the candles, my brain was all in a whirl with trying to think how I could get possession of the old cravat without exciting any suspicion.
Chance, and a little quickness on my part in taking advantage of it, put the object within my reach in a moment.
The man, having counted out the candles, asked the woman for some paper to wrap them in.
She produced a piece much too small and flimsy for the purpose, and declared, when he called for something better, that the day’s supply of stout paper was all exhausted.
He flew into a rage with her for managing so badly.
Just as they were beginning to quarrel violently, I stepped back to the rag-counter, took the old cravat carelessly out of the bundle, and said, in as light a tone as I could possibly assume: “Come, come, don’t let my candles be the cause of hard words between you.
Tie this ragged old thing round them with a bit of string, and I shall carry them home quite comfortably.
” The man seemed disposed to insist on the stout paper being produced;
but the woman, as if she was glad of an opportunity of spiting him, snatched the candles away, and tied them up in a moment in the torn old cravat.
I was afraid he would have struck her before my face, he seemed in such a fury; but, fortunately, another customer came in, and obliged him to put his hands to peaceable and proper use.
“Quite a bundle of all-sorts on the opposite counter there,” I said to the woman, as I paid her for the candles.
“Yes, and all hoarded up for sale by a poor creature with a lazy brute of a husband, who lets his wife do all the work while he spends all the money,” answered the woman, with a malicious look at the man by her side.
“He can’t surely have much money to spend, if his wife has no better work to do than picking up rags,” said I. “It isn’t her fault if she hasn’t got no better,” says the woman, rather angrily.
“She’s ready to turn her hand to anything.
Charing, washing, laying-out, keeping empty houses—nothing comes amiss to her.
She’s my half-sister, and I think I ought to know.
” “Did you say she went out charing?
” I asked, making believe as if I knew of somebody who might employ her.
“Yes, of course I did,” answered the woman; “and if you can put a job into her hands, you’ll be doing a good turn to a poor hard-working creature as wants it.
She lives down the Mews here to the right—name of Horlick, and as honest a woman as ever stood in shoe-leather.
Now, then, ma’am, what for you?
” Another customer came in just then, and occupied her attention.
I left the shop, passed the turning that led down to the Mews, looked up at the name of the street, so as to know how to find it again, and then ran home as fast as I could.
Perhaps it was the remembrance of my strange dream striking me on a sudden, or perhaps it was the shock of the discovery I had just made, but I began to feel frightened without knowing why, and anxious to be under shelter in my own room.
If Robert should come back!
Oh, what a relief and help it would be now if Robert should come back!
May 1st.
On getting indoors last night, the first thing I did, after striking a light, was to take the ragged cravat off the candles, and smooth it out on the table.
I then took the end that had been in poor Mary’s hand out of my writing-desk, and smoothed that out too.
It matched the torn side of the cravat exactly.
I put them together, and satisfied myself that there was not a doubt of it.
Not once did I close my eyes that night.
A kind of fever got possession of me—a vehement yearning to go on from this first discovery and find out more, no matter what the risk might be.
The cravat now really became, to my mind, the clew that I thought I saw in my dream—the clew that I was resolved to follow.
I determined to go to Mrs. Horlick this evening on my return from work.
I found the Mews easily.
A crook-backed dwarf of a man was lounging at the corner of it smoking his pipe.
Not liking his looks, I did not inquire of him where Mrs. Horlick lived, but went down the Mews till I met with a woman, and asked her.
She directed me to the right number.
I
knocked at the door, and Mrs. Horlick herself—a lean, ill-tempered, miserable-looking woman—answered it.
I told her at once that I had come to ask what her terms were for charing.
She stared at me for a moment, then answered my question civilly enough.
“You look surprised at a stranger like me finding you out,” I said.
“I first came to hear of you last night, from a relation of yours, in rather an odd way.
” And I told her all that had happened in the chandler’s shop, bringing in the bundle of rags, and the circumstance of my carrying home the candles in the old torn cravat, as often as possible.
“It’s the first time I’ve heard of anything belonging to him turning out any use,” said Mrs. Horlick, bitterly.
“What!
the spoiled old neck-handkerchief belonged to your husband, did it?
” said I, at a venture.
“Yes; I pitched his rotten rag of a neck-’andkercher into the bundle along with the rest, and I wish I could have pitched him in after it,” said Mrs. Horlick.
“I’d sell him cheap at any ragshop.
There he stands, smoking his pipe at the end of the Mews, out of work for weeks past, the idlest humpbacked pig in all London!
” She pointed to the man whom I had passed on entering the Mews.
My cheeks began to burn and my knees to tremble, for I knew that in tracing the cravat to its owner I was advancing a step toward a fresh discovery.
I wished Mrs. Horlick good evening, and said I would write and mention the day on which I wanted her.
What I had just been told put a thought into my mind that I was afraid to follow out.
I have heard people talk of being light-headed, and I felt as I have heard them say they felt when I retraced my steps up the Mews.
My head got giddy, and my eyes seemed able to see nothing but the figure of the little crook-backed man, still smoking his pipe in his former place.
I could see nothing but that; I could think of nothing but the mark of the blow on my poor lost Mary’s temple.
I know that I must have been light-headed, for as I came close to the crook-backed man I stopped without meaning it.
The minute before, there had been no idea in me of speaking to him.
I did not know how to speak, or in what way it would be safest to begin; and yet, the moment I came face to face with him, something out of myself seemed to stop me, and to make me speak without considering beforehand, without thinking of consequences, without knowing, I may almost say, what words I was uttering till the instant when they rose to my lips.
“When your old neck-tie was torn, did you know that one end of it went to the rag-shop, and the other fell into my hands?
” I said these bold words to him suddenly, and, as it seemed, without my own will taking any part in them.
He started, stared, changed color.
He was too much amazed by my sudden speaking to find an answer for me.
When he did open his lips, it was to say rather to himself than me: “You’re not the girl.
” “No,” I said, with a strange choking at my heart, “I’m her friend.
” By this time he had recovered his surprise, and he seemed to be aware that he had let out more than he ought.
“You may be anybody’s friend you like,” he said, brutally, “so long as you don’t come jabbering nonsense here.
I don’t know you, and I don’t understand your jokes.
” He turned quickly away from me when he had said the last words.
He had never once looked fairly at me since I first spoke to him.
Was it his hand that had struck the blow?
I had only sixpence in my pocket, but I took it out and followed him.
If it had been a five-pound note I should have done the same in the state I was in then.
“Would a pot of beer help you to understand me?
” I said, and offered him the sixpence.
“A pot ain’t no great things,” he answered, taking the sixpence doubtfully.
“It may lead to something better,” I said.
His eyes began to twinkle, and he came close to me.
Oh, how my legs trembled—how my head swam!
“This is all in a friendly way, is it?
” he asked, in a whisper.
I nodded my head.
At that moment I could not have spoken for worlds.
“Friendly, of course,” he went on to himself, “or there would have been a policeman in it.
She told you, I suppose, that I wasn’t the man?
” I nodded my head again.
It was all I could do to keep myself standing upright.
“I suppose it’s a case of threatening to have him up, and make him settle it quietly for a pound or two?
How much for me if you lay hold of him?
” “Half.
” I began to be afraid that he would suspect something if I was still silent.
The wretch’s eyes twinkled again and he came yet closer.
“I drove him to the Red Lion, corner of Dodd Street and Rudgely Street.
The house was shut up, but he was let in at the jug and bottle door, like a man who was known to the landlord.
That’s as much as I can tell you, and I’m certain I’m right.
He was the last fare I took up at night.
The next morning master gave me the sack—said I cribbed his corn and his fares.
I wish I had.
” I gathered from this that the crook-backed man had been a cab-driver.
“Why don’t you speak?
” he asked, suspiciously.
“Has she been telling you a pack of lies about me?
What did she say when she came home?
” “What ought she to have said?
” “She ought to have said my fare was drunk, and she came in the way as he was going to get into the cab.
That’s what she ought to have said to begin with.
” “But after?
” “Well, after, my fare, by way of larking with her, puts out his leg for to trip her up, and she stumbles and catches at me for to save herself, and tears off one of the limp ends of my rotten old tie.
‘What do you mean by that, you brute?
’ says she, turning round as soon as she was steady on her legs, to my fare.
Says my fare to her: ‘I means to teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head.
’ And he ups with his fist, and—what’s come to you, now?
What are you looking at me like that for?
How do you think a man of my size was to take her part against a man big enough to have eaten me up?
Look as much as you like, in my place you would have done what I done—drew off when he shook his fist at you, and swore he’d be the death of you if you didn’t start your horse in no time.
” I saw he was working himself up into a rage; but I could not, if my life had depended on it, have stood near him or looked at him any longer.
I just managed to stammer out that I had been walking a long way, and that, not being used to much exercise, I felt faint and giddy with fatigue.
He only changed from angry to sulky when I made that excuse.
I got a little further away from him, and then added that if he would be at the Mews entrance the next evening I should have something more to say and something more to give him.
He grumbled a few suspicious words in answer about doubting whether he should trust me to come back.
Fortunately, at that moment, a policeman passed on the opposite side of the way.
He slunk down the Mews immediately, and I was free to make my escape.
How I got home I can’t say, except that I think I ran the greater part of the way.
Sally opened the door, and asked if anything was the matter the moment she saw my face.
I answered: “Nothing—nothing.
” She stopped me as I was going into my room, and said: “Smooth your hair a bit, and put your collar straight.
There’s a gentleman in there waiting for you.
” My heart gave one great bound: I knew who it was in an instant, and rushed into the room like a mad woman.
“Oh, Robert, Robert!
” All my heart went out to him in those two little words.
“Good God, Anne, has anything happened?
Are you ill?
” “Mary!
my poor, lost, murdered, dear, dear Mary!
” That was all I could say before I fell on his breast.
May 2d.
Misfortunes and disappointments have saddened him a little, but toward me he is unaltered.
He is as good, as kind, as gently and truly affectionate as ever.
I believe no other man in the world could have listened to the story of Mary’s death with such tenderness and pity as he.
Instead of cutting me short anywhere, he drew me on to tell more than I had intended; and his first generous words when I had done were to assure me that he would see himself to the grass being laid and the flowers planted on Mary’s grave.
I could almost have gone on my knees and worshiped him when he made me that promise.
Surely this best, and kindest, and noblest of men cannot always be unfortunate!
My cheeks burn when I think that he has come back with only a few pounds in his pocket, after all his hard and honest struggles to do well in America.
They must be bad people there when such a man as Robert cannot get on among them.
He now talks calmly and resignedly of trying for any one of the lowest employments by which a man can earn his bread honestly in this great city—he who knows French, who can write so beautifully!
Oh, if the people who have places to give away only knew Robert as well as I do, what a salary he would have, what a post he would be chosen to occupy!
I am writing these lines alone while he has gone to the Mews to treat with the dastardly, heartless wretch with whom I spoke yesterday.
Robert says the creature—I won’t call him a man—must be humored and kept deceived about poor Mary’s end, in order that we may discover and bring to justice the monster whose drunken blow was the death of her.
I
shall know no ease of mind till her murderer is secured, and till I am certain that he will be made to suffer for his crimes.
I wanted to go with Robert to the Mews, but he said it was best that he should carry out the rest of the investigation alone, for my strength and resolution had been too hardly taxed already.
He said more words in praise of me for what I have been able to do up to this time, which I am almost ashamed to write down with my own pen.
Besides, there is no need;
praise from his lips is one of the things that I can trust my memory to preserve to the latest day of my life.
May 3d.
Robert was very long last night before he came back to tell me what he had done.
He easily recognized the hunchback at the corner of the Mews by my description of him; but he found it a hard matter, even with the help of money, to overcome the cowardly wretch’s distrust of him as a stranger and a man.
However, when this had been accomplished, the main difficulty was conquered.
The hunchback, excited by the promise of more money, went at once to the Red Lion to inquire about the person whom he had driven there in his cab.
Robert followed him, and waited at the corner of the street.
The tidings brought by the cabman were of the most unexpected kind.
The murderer—I can write of him by no other name—had fallen ill on the very night when he was driven to the Red Lion, had taken to his bed there and then, and was still confined to it at that very moment.
His disease was of a kind that is brought on by excessive drinking, and that affects the mind as well as the body.
The people at the public house call it the Horrors.
Hearing these things, Robert determined to see if he could not find out something more for himself by going and inquiring at the public house, in the character of one of the friends of the sick man in bed upstairs.
He made two important discoveries.
First, he found out the name and address of the doctor in attendance.
Secondly, he entrapped the barman into mentioning the murderous wretch by his name.
This last discovery adds an unspeakably fearful interest to the dreadful misfortune of Mary’s death.
Noah Truscott, as she told me herself in the last conversation I ever had with her, was the name of the man whose drunken example ruined her father, and Noah Truscott is also the name of the man whose drunken fury killed her.
There is something that makes one shudder, something supernatural in this awful fact.
Robert agrees with me that the hand of Providence must have guided my steps to that shop from which all the discoveries since made took their rise.
He says he believes we are the instruments of effecting a righteous retribution;
and, if he spends his last farthing, he will have the investigation brought to its full end in a court of justice.
May 4th.
Robert went to-day to consult a lawyer whom he knew in former times.
The lawyer was much interested, though not so seriously impressed as he ought to have been by the story of Mary’s death and of the events that have followed it.
He gave Robert a confidential letter to take to the doctor in attendance on the double-dyed villain at the Red Lion.
Robert left the letter, and called again and saw the doctor, who said his patient was getting better, and would most likely be up again in ten days or a fortnight.
This statement Robert communicated to the lawyer, and the lawyer has undertaken to have the public house properly watched, and the hunchback (who is the most important witness) sharply looked after for the next fortnight, or longer if necessary.
Here, then, the progress of this dreadful business stops for a while.
May 5th.
Robert has got a little temporary employment in copying for his friend the lawyer.
I am working harder than ever at my needle, to make up for the time that has been lost lately.
May 6th.
To-day was Sunday, and Robert proposed that we should go and look at Mary’s grave.
He, who forgets nothing where a kindness is to be done, has found time to perform the promise he made to me on the night when we first met.
The grave is already, by his orders, covered with turf, and planted round with shrubs.
Some flowers, and a low headstone, are to be added, to make the place look worthier of my poor lost darling who is beneath it.
Oh, I hope I shall live long after I am married to Robert!
I want so much time to show him all my gratitude!
May 20th.
A hard trial to my courage to-day.
I have given evidence at the police-office, and have seen the monster who murdered her.
I could only look at him once.
I could just see that he was a giant in size, and that he kept his dull, lowering, bestial face turned toward the witness-box, and his bloodshot, vacant eyes staring on me.
For an instant I tried to confront that look; for an instant I kept my attention fixed on him—on his blotched face—on the short, grizzled hair above it—on his knotty, murderous right hand, hanging loose over the bar in front of him, like the paw of a wild beast over the edge of its den.
Then the horror of him—the double horror of confronting him, in the first place, and afterward of seeing that he was an old man—overcame me, and I turned away, faint, sick, and shuddering.
I
never faced him again; and, at the end of my evidence, Robert considerately took me out.
When we met once more at the end of the examination, Robert told me that the prisoner never spoke and never changed his position.
He was either fortified by the cruel composure of a savage, or his faculties had not yet thoroughly recovered from the disease that had so lately shaken them.
The magistrate seemed to doubt if he was in his right mind; but the evidence of the medical man relieved this uncertainty, and the prisoner was committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter.
