CHAPTER VIII

SCOTCHING A SNAKE.

At nine o’clock the next morning Prescott went into the “Lively Stunners.” Perkins was, as usual, at his post behind the bar, in his shirt-sleeves.

“Well, Perkins, how go things with you?”

“Lor, Mr. Prescott, what a time it is since you’ve been into the old crib, to be sure. The sight of you is good for one’s eyes. Come inside, sir,” and he shook hands warmly with Prescott and led the way into his snuggery behind the bar. A mere slip of a room, but comfortable, and decorated with the portraits of many worthies of the ring, in fighting costume and defiant attitudes—not perhaps a handsome set of men, but with an undeniable development of biceps. In the post of honour, over the mantel-piece, was the portrait of Perkins himself in fighting costume, as he appeared on standing up for the first round of that celebrated fight of his with “Unknown.” His portrait, as taken in the sixty-first and last round of that tournament, would have been less pleasant to see. Upon the mantel-piece were several silver cups, with inscriptions, stating that they had been presented to Perkins by admirers of his science, endurance, and British pluck.

“Sit down, Mr. Prescott, and light up; these cigars are a good brand. Now, sir, name your liquor?”

Prescott named his liquor, Perkins himself mixed it, and then having left the charge of the bar to his assistant, took his seat by Prescott.

“And how go things with you, Perkins?”

“Bobbish, Mr. Prescott, bobbish. No great shakes, perhaps, but nothing to grumble about. I don’t think the young swells are quite what they were. Stroll in, you know, and look on, but don’t go in so much for work as they used to do. Don’t take their punishment so kindly, you know. Bad job that about Mr. Maynard, sir. Heard about it from John Holl, Holl’s boy being in his service. Now, he was what I call first-rate, just first-rate. Shoulder a little too low, perhaps, but I defy any man to point out another blemish. Wonderful quick for a heavy weight, and such a hitter. I tell you what, Mr. Prescott, though I shouldn’t like it to go further, I never put on the gloves with any man that I felt so unsafe with as with Mr. Maynard. He stood just a little over me. He was as active on his pins as a kitten, and very quick with his head. He didn’t mind how hard you hit him, never lost his temper, but was always there, and then, just when you didn’t expect it, out would come his left like a sledge-hammer, and his right after it. Ah, he was a out-and-outer. A champion spoilt, sir, I call him, a champion spoilt. I’d have backed him against the Slasher, sir, and put every halfpenny I had on it.”

Prescott laughed.

“Yes, he is an awkward customer, Perkins. And now what’s going on upstairs?”

“There’s a few of the old lot, and half a dozen novices; will you walk up presently, sir?”

“Is the Slogger here?”

“Yes, he’s here, sir. Unsteady hand, the Slogger—can’t keep him off his lush. Always breaks down in his training. I’ve stood twenty on him twice, but it’s no good. So he’s give up work, and comes here regular to spar. Worst of him is he will get on, late, and make a row. You remember Mr. Maynard paid his fines and took him out twice. He’s better than he used to be. I had to tell him that he must give it up, or clear out, for he got my place a bad name.”

“I want to have a talk with him, Perkins. A man named Barton,—I believe, from what John Holl says, you have met him at his place,—has got some papers relating to a cousin of Mr. Maynard’s. This man Barton is a great scoundrel, and I don’t know how to get at him, but I hear that the Slogger thinks he has got some sort of hold over him.”

“Yes,” Perkins said, “I told Holl about it. I know the Slogger thinks it is a great pull, but he ain’t a very long-headed chap, ain’t the Slogger. However, Mr. Prescott, you can talk to him. Here, Bill,” he called to a boy, “go upstairs and tell the Slogger he’s wanted down here.”

The boy returned with word that the Slogger was at present in the ring with Nobbler Jack, but would be down shortly.

In a few minutes the Slogger himself appeared, very hot, very red in the face, and a little puffed about the lips.

“Servant, Mr. Prescott!” he said, “long time since I saw you.”

“Yes, Slogger, I’ve been too busy and am getting too stiff to do much with the gloves now. Sit down and take something to drink.”

“Gin cold is my liquor, sir.”

“Now, Mr. Prescott,” Perkins said, when he had brought in the required refreshment, “I’ll leave you to talk it over with the Slogger. I’ll just go upstairs and see how things are getting on.”

“This business I want to speak to you about, Slogger, concerns Mr. Maynard and myself, and I rely upon you to do anything you can for us.”

“That I will, sir,” the man said heartily. “Mr. Maynard and you have been good friends to me, and I’m your man now. Who is it, sir? I’ll tumble against him somehow, and give him pepper. I don’t care if I get six months for it, not a snap, sir, not for you and Mr. Maynard.”

Prescott laughed.

“It is not in that line, Slogger, and if it was you know Mr. Maynard could do it for himself.”

“So he could, sir, none better; still he mightn’t like to get in the papers, you know. I hoped I might have done him a good turn.”

“So you can, Slogger, but not in that line. You know a man named Barton?”

“That I do,” the man said angrily. “He got my brother Bill transported. But I’ll be even with him some day.”

“It is about that I wanted to speak to you. Barton has been paid by Mr. Maynard’s uncle to find out something. Instead of that he has cheated him completely, and has kept some documents in his hands which are of great importance. He will now want a large sum of money to give them up. The old gentleman is so indignant that he swears he won’t pay him a penny. Now, if you have really got some pull over Barton, and can put on the screw, so as to make him give up the papers, you will do Barton as ill a turn as he has done you, you will greatly oblige us, and you will put a fifty pound note into your pocket.”

“Done it is with you, it’s a match,” the man said. “I have got what I fancy’s a pull over Barton, but I never used it before because I never saw my way. I will tell you, sir, and you can put it on as you think best. You remember I went with Perkins and Mr. Maynard and you to that Chartist meeting. My eye, what a lark that were, to be sure. Well, sir, there was a big slouching chap standing in front of me when the row began. He didn’t go in for fighting, but his hat got knocked off in the skrimmage, and a black wig he wore, and I saw his short grey hair, and knew him at once for Barton, for it was only a week before I had seen him in the witness-box against my brother. I tried to get at him to give him a remembrancer, but there were half a dozen round all busy at me at once, so I had enough to do to keep close to the others. Well, sir, not long after this, came the blow up of the whole business, and I heard it said among some chaps I knew, who were pretty deep in it, that they had been blown upon. I asked who they suspected, and they told me that it must have been one of the committee, but there were only one chap who had been on it who they didn’t know, and he weren’t nowhere to be found. He’d give out he was a joiner, and worked down Clerkenwell, but they searched every shop, and made every enquiry, and no chap like him had been heard of there. I asked about his looks, and, just as I expected, I found out it was Barton. If I’d told ’em what I thought, Barton’s life wouldn’t have been worth, no, not a day’s purchase, for a lot of ’em had sworn if they ever found out who it was they’d do for him; and I didn’t somehow like the thought of that. It ain’t English, you know, sir, nothing manly and stand-up about it—what I call a foreigneering sort of job. So I kept it dark, thinking some day if any of my pals got into a hole I could put the screw on to Barton, and make him get ’em off. There, sir, that’s all I know. What do you think of it?”

“Very good, Slogger, very good indeed. I think I can manage with that. Now will you meet me to-morrow morning at the door of his office at eleven o’clock. I have written the address down upon that bit of paper, so that there can be no mistake about it I do not want you to go in with me, but just to be there if wanted.”

“All right, Mr. Prescott, I’m on.”

And so Prescott took his leave, and soon emerged from the narrow street into the broad glare of the Haymarket.

The next day at eleven Prescott entered Mr. Barton’s office, and sent in his name.

“Ask him to walk in.”

Prescott took a seat and made a quick survey of the man opposite.

“My name is Prescott, Mr. Barton. I am a barrister. I have come down to speak to you relative to some business you transacted a good many years since for Captain Bradshaw.”

The man gave a slight start, and his face grew visibly pale.

“I don’t think you acted quite on the square, so to speak, upon that occasion, Mr. Barton.”

He paused, but the detective did not speak.

“It was hardly the right thing to do, you know, although perhaps clever; you have the reputation for being a very clever man you know, Mr. Barton,” and Prescott paused again, but Barton did not speak, although Prescott could see that his lips moved, as if he was muttering a deep oath, and drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. “Still, you see, Barton, even very clever men make a mistake sometimes. A waiting game pays sometimes, but, perhaps, more often it does not.”

The detective could stand it no longer, but burst out with a fearful imprecation.

“——what are you driving at?”

“Only at this, Mr. Barton,” Prescott went on composedly, “that when you forgot to tell Captain Bradshaw that his grandson was alive,”—the man uttered an exclamation, which was almost a groan, but Prescott, without heeding him, continued,—“alive and well, and allowed him to remain all these years in ignorance of it—with the intention, of course, of extorting a very large sum from the boy when he came of age, for the knowledge of his birth—it would have been wiser to have assured yourself that the mother had left no sign, no little valuables, such as seals with crests, and so on, which might lead to the discovery of the mother without your kind interference. It was not likely, of course, but it turned out so, and the lad is now at his grandfather’s house as his acknowledged and recognised heir.”

The detective listened in stupefied silence. This utter overthrow of all he had schemed for for so many years completely crushed him. For a moment he thought of the document he held from Fred Bingham, then he remembered that it was expressly voided by the appearance of the heir. Then he sat for a time with his forehead on his hand, thinking deeply, Prescott quietly watching him all the time. At last he said,

“Well, Barton, what do you make of it?”

“I make this,” the man said doggedly; “that the boy may or may not be his grandson, but he has no proof whatever of it. The woman who died at the Holls’ may have stolen the things, or they may have been given to her by the other. You have no proof—even if you knew that it was his daughter, which you don’t—that the child was hers; and you have no proof that his parents were ever married, even if you could prove the other points.”

“We have not,” Prescott said, frankly, “and it is precisely for that reason that I come to you. Of course you have got all these proofs, and I want you to furnish them to us.”

“And how much do you propose to give for them?” Barton asked cautiously. “I have waited for twenty years, and I won’t give up the game for a trifle.”

“Captain Bradshaw is so angry at the manner in which you have deceived him that he will not give one farthing.”

“And do you think that, if I have those proofs,” Barton sneered, “I am going to give them up for nothing? Do you take me for an idiot?”

“Not at all,” Prescott answered unmoved. “I have already said that I take you to be a clever man, although things have hardly turned out as you expected. I will tell you what my advice to Captain Bradshaw will be. I shall recommend him to publish a statement of the case, under the head of ‘Extraordinary recovery of a missing Heir,’ in every newspaper in England, relating the whole particulars. I don’t think your business would be worth much after that.”

“I don’t care,” the man said doggedly; “you won’t frighten me that way. I am going to retire. I shall shut my office up next week for good.”

“Going to retire to enjoy your honest savings, Mr. Barton?” Prescott said cheerfully; “then we must go to work in another way. We know the marriage took place in or near London, so that an offer of fifty pounds reward will very soon produce that certificate. As to the birth of the child, it is more difficult. Let me see,” he said thoughtfully, narrowly watching the face of the man, who was sitting in sulky silence opposite to him; “she was very poor, very. Her husband died, I fancy, before the child was born, so she was likely to have been confined in a workhouse. Yes,” he said, seeing a slight change in the man’s face, “certainly in a workhouse, and as we know the date to within a month we shall have no difficulty about that part of the business.”

“You may do what you please,” Barton said, bringing his clenched hand down upon the table with a fierce execration; “you may do what you please, but you can never prove the connection beyond the personal ornaments, and they are no proof at all.”

“No legal proof in themselves,” Prescott said quietly, “but strong corroborative proof, which coupled with connection of dates and ages, the personal appearance of the lady, and other points, would make a strong case—a very strong case. Well, as you won’t help us, we must do our best. So you are thinking of retiring from business, Mr. Barton?”

“Yes, I am,” growled the man sulkily; “and now I will trouble you to walk out.”

“A snug little place at Putney or Hampstead, eh, Mr. Barton?”

“I don’t want any chaff,” the man said, rising; “you had better move, and before I make you.”

“I am just going, Mr. Barton. I was only about to say that it would not be a pleasant thing for you when you were walking in your garden in the dusk of evening, smoking your pipe—I suppose you do smoke?—to have a bullet put suddenly into you from behind a hedge. I am afraid by what I hear that it is not unlikely. I only mention it as a friend, you know. Good morning.”

Mr. Barton turned very pale. He was, as has been said, physically a coward, and this picture Prescott had drawn cowed him at once. He put his back against the door.

“What do you mean, Mr. Prescott, are you threatening me?”

“I!” Prescott said, in a surprised tone. “I! just the contrary, Mr. Barton. Why, you don’t suppose, man, do you, that I would hire a man to murder you because you decline to furnish me with a necessary link in a chain of evidence.” And Prescott laughed pleasantly. “I was only acting as a friend, you know, Mr. Barton. One hears things sometimes, and if a word of warning can avert mischief, of course one gives it. Good morning.”

Barton irresolutely half moved away from the door, and then his fear got the better of him, and he determined to see whether it was a mere threat or a real danger.

“I have done my duty,” he said sturdily, “and I am afraid of no man.”

“Very right, Barton, ‘do your duty and fear no man’ is an excellent rule to act on. Still, you know, men sometimes have a little malice among themselves, even against men who have done their duty. Now, I will give you a case in point. At the Chartist business three years ago, the men knew that their plans were betrayed and their leaders transported by the information of a man who called himself a joiner, of Clerkenwell. They have sworn to murder him if they find him out, and, upon my word, I believe they will keep their oath. I know that they never have found out who it was, but I have heard that at two o’clock this afternoon they are to be told. Now there is a case in point. Supposing that informer had been yourself, I ask you, would it be safe for you to indulge in an evening pipe in your garden?”

Mr. Barton actually trembled with terror and rage.

“This is a conspiracy against my life, Mr. Prescott. I will go off at once and swear an information against you.”

“Against me, Mr. Barton? you are mad. If I am conspiring at all it is in your favour. I hear a rumour and I mention it to you. I put a hypothetical case for your opinion.”

“And you have it in your power to prevent this information being known?”

“Yes, Mr. Barton, this is quite between ourselves; but there is a man leaning against the doorway opposite—yes, there he is,” and Prescott looked out of the window. “Now, if I wink at that man as I go out, that man will go straight to his home and will keep his mouth shut for the rest of his life; and he is the only man besides myself who knows of that little affair. If I don’t wink at him, I really can’t answer which way he will walk.”

“There are the papers,” the detective said, completely cowed, and taking some papers from an iron safe; “here are copies of certificates of the marriage, and baptism of the child. What else do you want?”

“I want you to go before a magistrate with me, and swear this affidavit I have prepared, saying, that in pursuance of instructions you received from Captain Bradshaw, you traced his daughter from the place where her child was born; that you never lost sight of her, and that she died at John Holl’s, and that the child is the one mentioned in the certificate of baptism.”

Without a word Barton followed Prescott down-stairs, and as they went out stole a glance at the lounging figure opposite, who, with his hands in his pockets, was apparently absorbed in the operation of smoking a pipe, but who, after they had passed, moved leisurely after them. When they came out from the Mansion House, Prescott said,—

“Good morning, Mr. Barton; that is, I think, satisfactory to all parties.”

The detective walked off without saying a word, he was too completely beaten even to retort.

“It’s all right, Slogger,” Prescott said to the man. “He was a dreadful cur. Come to-morrow at eleven o’clock to my rooms in the Temple, and I will hand you over the money.”

“All right, governor, I’ll be there,” and the man turned off again westward.