The Trail of the Serpent Read online

Throughout the proceedings there stood in the background a shabbily-dressed man, with watchful observant eyes, and a mouth very much on one side.

  This man was Joseph Peters, the scrub of the detective force of Gardenford. He rarely took his eyes from Richard, who, with pale bewildered face, dishevelled hair, and slovenly costume, looked perhaps as much like guilt as innocence.

  The verdict of the coroner’s jury was, as every one expected it would be, to the effect that the deceased had been wilfully murdered by Richard Marwood his nephew; and poor Dick was removed immediately to the county gaol on the outskirts of Slopperton, there to lie till the assizes.

  The excitement in Slopperton, as before observed, was immense. Slopperton had but one voice—a voice loud in execration of the innocent prisoner, horror of the treachery and cruelty of the dreadful deed, and pity for the wretched mother of this wicked son, whose anguish had thrown her on a sick bed—but who, despite of every proof repeated every hour, expressed her assurance of her unfortunate son’s innocence.

  The coroner had plenty of work on that dismal November day: for from the inquest on the unfortunate Mr. Harding he had to hurry down to a little dingy public-house on the river’s bank, there to inquire into the cause of the untimely death of a wretched outcast found by some bargemen in the Sloshy.

  This sort of death was so common an event in the large and thickly-populated town of Slopperton, that the coroner and the jury (lighted by two guttering tallow candles with long wicks, at four o’clock on that dull afternoon) had very little to say about it.

  One glance at that heap of wet, torn, and shabby garments—one half-shuddering, half-pitying look at the white face, blue lips, and damp loose auburn hair, and a merciful verdict—“Found drowned.”2

  One juryman, a butcher—(we sometimes think them hard-hearted, these butchers)—lays a gentle hand upon the auburn hair, and brushes a lock of it away from the pale forehead.

  Perhaps so tender a touch had not been laid upon that head for two long years. Perhaps not since the day when the dead woman left her native village, and a fond and happy mother for the last time smoothed the golden braids beneath her daughter’s Sunday bonnet.

  In half an hour the butcher is home by his cheerful fireside; and I think he has a more loving and protecting glance than usual for the fair-haired daughter who pours out his tea.

  No one recognizes the dead woman. No one knows her story; they guess at it as a very common history, and bury her in a parish burying-ground—a damp and dreary spot not far from the river’s brink, in which many such as she are laid.

  Our friend Jabez North, borrowing the Saturday’s paper of his principal in the evening after school-hours, is very much interested in the accounts of these two coroner’s inquests.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE DUMB DETECTIVE A PHILANTHROPIST

  The dreary winter months pass by. Time, slow of foot to some, and fast of wing to others, is a very chameleon, such different accounts do different people give of him.

  He is very rapid in his flight, no doubt, for the young gentlemen from Dr. Tappenden’s home for the Christmas holidays: rapid enough perhaps for the young gentlemen’s papas, who have to send their sons back to the academy armed with Dr. Tappenden’s little account—which is not such a very little account either, when you reckon up all the extras, such as dancing, French, gymnastics, drillserjeant, hair-cutting, stationery, servants, and pew at church.

  Fast enough, perhaps, is the flight of Time for Allecompain Major, who goes home in a new suit of mourning, and who makes it sticky about the cuffs and white about the elbows before the holidays are out. I don’t suppose he forgets his little dead brother; and I dare say, by the blazing hearth, where the firelight falls dullest upon his mother’s black dress, he sometimes thinks very sadly of the little grave out in the bleak winter night, on which the snow falls so purely white. But “cakes and ale”1 are eternal institutions; and if you or I, reader, died to-morrow, the baker would still bake, and Messrs. Barclay and Perkins would continue to brew the ale and stout for which they are so famous, and the friends who were sorriest for us would eat, drink, ay and be merry too, before long.

  Who shall say how slow of foot is Time to the miserable young man awaiting his trial in the dreary gaol of Slopperton?

  Who shall say how slow to the mother awaiting in agony the result of that trial?

  The assizes take place late in February. So, through the fog and damp of gloomy November; through long, dark, and dreary December nights; through January frost and snow—(of whose outward presence he has no better token than the piercing cold within)—Richard paces up and down his narrow cell, and broods upon the murder of his uncle, and of his trial which is to come.

  Ministers of religion come to convert him, as they say. He tells them that he hopes and believes all they can teach him, for that it was taught him in years gone by at his mother’s knee.

  “The best proof of my faith,” he says, “is that I am not mad. Do you think, if I did not believe in an All-seeing Providence, I should not go stark staring mad, when, night after night, through hours which are as years in duration, I think, and think, of the situation in which I am placed, till my brain grows wild and my senses reel? I have no hope in the result of my trial, for I feel how every circumstance tells against me: but I have hope that Heaven, with a mighty hand, and an instrument of its own choosing, may yet work out the saving of an innocent man from an ignominious death.”

  The dumb detective Peters had begged to be transferred from Gardenford to Slopperton, and was now in the employ of the police force of that town. Of very little account this scrub among the officials. His infirmity, they say, makes him scarcely worth his salt, though they admit that his industry is unfailing.

  So the scrub awaits the trial of Richard Marwood, in whose fortunes he takes an interest which is in no way abated since he spelt out the words “Not guilty” in the railway carriage.

  He had taken up his Slopperton abode in a lodging in a small street of six-roomed houses yclept2 Little Gulliver Street. At No. 5, Little Gulliver Street, Mr. Peters’s attention had been attracted by the announcement of the readiness and willingness of the occupier of the house to take in and do for a single gentleman. Mr. Peters was a single gentleman, and he accordingly presented himself at No. 5, expressing the amiable desire of being forthwith taken in and done for.

  The back bedroom of that establishment, he was assured by its proprietress, was an indoor garden-of-Eden for a single man; and certainly, looked at by the light of such advantages as a rent of four-and-sixpence a week, a sofa-bedstead—(that deliciously innocent white lie in the way of furniture which never yet deceived anybody); a Dutch oven,3 an apparatus for cooking anything, from a pheasant to a red herring;4 and a little high-art in the way of a young gentleman in red-and-yellow making honourable proposals to a young lady in yellow-and-red, in picture number one; and the same lady and gentleman perpetuating themselves in picture number two, by means of a red baby in a yellow cradle;—taking into consideration such advantages as these, the one-pair back was a paradise calculated to charm a virtuously-minded single man. Mr. Peters therefore took immediate possession by planting his honest gingham in a corner of the room, and by placing two-and-sixpence in the hands of the proprietress by way of deposit. His luggage was more convenient than extensive—consisting of a parcel in the crown of his hat, containing the lighter elegancies of his costume; a small bundle in a red cotton pocket handkerchief, which held the heavier articles of his wardrobe; and a comb, which he carried in his pocket-book.

  The proprietress of the indoor Eden was a maiden lady of mature age, with a sharp red nose and metallic pattens. It was with some difficulty that Mr. Peters made her understand, by the aid of pantomimic gestures and violent shakings of the head, that he was dumb, but not deaf; that she need be under no necessity of doing violence to the muscles of her throat, as he could hear her with perfect ease in her natural key. He then—still by the aid of pantomime—made known a de
sire for pencil and paper, and on being supplied with these articles wrote the one word “baby,” and handed that specimen of caligraphy to the proprietress.

  That sharp-nosed damsel’s maidenly indignation sent new roses to join the permanent blossoms at the end of her olfactory organ, and she remarked, in a voice of vinegar, that she let her lodgings to single men, and that single men as were single men, and not impostors, had no business with babies.

  Mr. Peters again had recourse to the pencil, “Not mine—fondling;5 to be brought up by hand;6 would pay for food and nursing.”

  The maiden proprietress had no objection to a fondling, if paid for its requirements; liked children in their places; would call Kuppins; and did call Kuppins.

  A voice at the bottom of the stairs responded to the call of Kuppins; a boy’s voice most decidedly; a boy’s step upon the stairs announced the approach of Kuppins; and Kuppins entered the room with a boy’s stride and a boy’s slouch; but for all this, Kuppins was a girl.

  Not very much like a girl about the head, with that shock of dark rough short hair; not much like a girl about the feet, in high-lows,7 with hob-nailed soles; but a girl for all that, as testified by short petticoats and a long blue pinafore, ornamented profusely with every variety of decoration in the way of three-cornered slits and grease-spots.

  Kuppins was informed by her mistress that the gent had come to lodge; and moreover that the gent was dumb. It is impossible to describe Kuppins’s delight at the idea of a dumb lodger.

  Kuppins had knowed a dumb boy as lived three doors from mother’s (Kuppins’s mother understood); this ’ere dumb boy was wicious, and when he was gone agin, ’owled ’orrid.

  Was told that the gent wasn’t vicious and never howled, and seemed, if anything, disappointed. Understood the dumb alphabet, and had conversed in it for hours with the aforesaid dumb boy. The author, as omniscient, may state that Kuppins and the vicious boy had had some love-passages in days gone by. Mr. Peters was delighted to find a kindred spirit capable of understanding his dirty alphabet, and explained his wish that a baby, “a fondling” he intended to bring up, might be taken in and done for as well as himself.

  Kuppins doated on babies; had nursed nine brothers and sisters, and had nursed outside the family circle, at the rate of fifteen-pence a week, for some years. Kuppins had been out in the world from the age of twelve, and was used up as to Slopperton at sixteen.

  Mr. Peters stated by means of the dirty alphabet—(more than usually dirty to-day, after his journey from Gardenford, whence he had transplanted his household goods, namely, the gingham umbrella, the bundle, parcel, pocket-book, and comb)—that he would go and fetch the baby. Kuppins immediately proved herself an adept in the art of construing this manual language, and nodded triumphantly a great many times in token that she understood the detective’s meaning.

  The baby was apparently not far off, for Mr. Peters returned in five minutes with a limp bundle smothered in an old pea-jacket,8 which on close inspection turned out to be the “fondling.”

  Mr. Peters had lately purchased the pea-jacket second-hand, and believed it to be an appropriate outer garment for a baby in long-clothes.9

  The fondling soon evinced signs of a strongly-marked character, not to say a vindictive disposition, and fought manfully with Kuppins, smiting that young lady in the face, and abstracting handfuls of her hair with an address beyond his years.

  “Ain’t he playful?” asked that young person, who was evidently experienced in fretful babies, and indifferent to the loss of a stray tress or so from her luxuriant locks. “Ain’t he playful, pretty hinnercent! Lor! he’ll make the place quite cheerful!”

  In corroboration of which prediction the “fondling” set up a dismal wail, varied with occasional chokes and screams.

  Surely there never could have been, since the foundation-stones of the hospitals for abandoned children in Paris and London were laid, such a “fondling” to choke as this fondling. The manner in which his complexion would turn—from its original sickly sallow to a vivid crimson, from crimson to dark blue, and from blue to black—was something miraculous; and Kuppins was promised much employment in the way of shakings and pattings on the back, to keep the “fondling” from an early and unpleasant death. But Kuppins, as we have remarked, liked a baby—and, indeed, would have given the preference to a cross baby—a cross baby being, as it were, a battle to fight, and a victory to achieve.

  In half an hour she had conquered the fondling in a manner wonderful to behold. She laid him across her knee while she lighted a fire in the smoky little grate; for the in-door Eden offered a Hobson’s choice to its inhabitants, of smoke or damp; and Mr. Peters preferred smoke. She carried the infant on her left arm, while she fetched a red herring, an ounce of tea, and other comestibles from the chandler’s at the corner; put him under her arm while she cooked the herring and made the tea, and waited on Mr. Peters at his modest repast with the fondling choking on her shoulder.

  Mr. Peters, having discussed his meal, conversed with Kuppins as she removed the tea-things. The alphabet by this time had acquired a piscatorial flavour, from his having made use of the five vowels to remove the bones of his herring.

  “That baby’s a rare fretful one,” says Mr. Peters with rapid fingers.

  Kuppins had nursed a many fretful babies. “Orphants was generally fretful; supposed the ‘fondling’ was a orphant.”

  “Poor little chap!—yes,” said Peters. “He’s had his trials, though he is a young ’un. I’m afeard he’ll never grow up a tee-totaller. He’s had a little too much of the water already.”

  Has had too much of the water? Kuppins would very much like to know the meaning of this observation. But Mr. Peters relapses into profound thought, and looks at the “fondling” (still choking) with the eye of a philanthropist and almost the tenderness of a father.

  He who provides for the young ravens10 had, perhaps, in the marvellous fitness of all things of His creation, given to this helpless little one a better protector in the dumb scrub of the police force than he might have had in the father who had cast him off, whoever that father might be.

  Mr. Peters presently remarks to the interested Kuppins, that he shall “ederkate,”—he is some time deciding on the conflicting merits of a c or a k for this word—he shall “ederkate the fondling, and bring him up to his own business.”

  “What is his business?” asks Kuppins naturally.

  “Detecktive,” Mr. Peters spells, embellishing the word with an extraneous k.

  “Oh, perlice,” said Kuppins. “Criky, how jolly! Shouldn’t I like to be a perliceman, and find out all about this ’ere ’orrid murder!”

  Mr. Peters brightens at the word “murder,” and he regards Kuppins with a friendly glance.

  “So you takes a hinterest in this ’ere murder, do yer?” he spells out.

  “Oh, don’t I? I bought a Sunday paper. Shouldn’t I like to see that there young man as killed his uncle scragged11—that’s all!”

  Mr. Peters shook his head doubtfully, with a less friendly glance at Kuppins. But there were secrets and mysteries of his art he did not trust at all times to the dirty alphabet; and perhaps his opinion on the subject of the murder of Mr. Montague Harding was one of them.

  Kuppins presently fetched him a pipe; and as he sat by the smoky fire, he watched alternately the blue cloud that issued from his lips and the clumsy figure of the damsel pacing up and down with the “fondling” (asleep after the exhaustion attendant on a desperate choke) upon her arms.

  “If,” mused Mr. Peters, with his mouth very much to the left of his nose—“if that there baby was grow’d up, he might help me to find out the rights and wrongs of this ’ere murder.”

  Who so fit? or who so unfit? Which shall we say? If in the wonderful course of events, this little child shall ever have a part in dragging a murderer to a murderer’s doom, shall it be called a monstrous and a terrible outrage of nature, or a just and a fitting retribution?

  CHAPTER V
III

  SEVEN LETTERS ON THE DIRTY ALPHABET

  The 17th of February shone out bright and clear, and a frosty sunlight illumined the windows of the court where Richard Marwood stood to be tried for his life.

  Never, perhaps, had that court been so crowded; never, perhaps, had there been so much anxiety felt in Slopperton for the result of any trial as was felt that day for the issue of the trial of Richard Marwood.

  The cold bright sunlight streaming in at the windows seemed to fall brightest and coldest on the wan white face of the prisoner at the bar.

  Three months of mental torture had done their work, and had written their progress in such characters upon that young and once radiant countenance, as Time, in his smooth and peaceful course, would have taken years to trace. But Richard Marwood was calm to-day, with the awful calmness of that despair which is past all hope. Suspense had exhausted him. But he had done with suspense, and felt that his fate was sealed; unless, indeed, Heaven—infinite both in mercy and in power—raised up as by a miracle some earthly instrument to save him.

  The court was one vast sea of eager faces; for, to the spectators, this trial was as a great game of chance, which the counsel for the prosecution, the judge, and the jury, played against the prisoner and his advocate, and at which the prisoner staked his life.

  There was but one opinion in that vast assemblage; and that was, that the accused would lose in this dreadful game, and that he well deserved to lose.

  There had been betting in Slopperton on the result of this awful hazard. For the theory of chances is to certain minds so delightful, that the range of subjects for a wager may ascend from a maggotrace to a trial for murder. Some adventurous spirits had taken desperate odds against the outsider “Acquittal;” and many enterprising gentlemen had made what they considered “good books,” by putting heavy sums on the decided favourite, “Found Guilty.” As, however, there might be a commutation of the sentence of death to transportation for life, some speculators had bet upon the chance of the prisoner being found guilty, but not executed; or, as it had been forcibly expressed, had backed “Penal Servitude” against “Gallows.”