CHAPTER VI.

A LOOK INTO THE RED BOOK.

Madam Resimer was waiting in the little room up-stairs,--waiting and watching in that most secret chamber of her mansion,--her cheek resting on her hand, her eyes fixed upon the drawer from which the Red Book had been stolen. The day was bright without, but in the closed apartment, the Madam watched by the light of a candle, which was burning fast to the socket. The Madam had not slept. Her eyes were restless and feverish. Her cheeks, instead of their usual florid hues, were marked with alternate spots of white and red. Sitting in the arm-chair, (which her capacious form, clad in the chintz wrapper, filled to overflowing), the Madam beats the carpet nervously with her foot, and then her small black eyes assume a wicked, a vixenish look.

Daylight is bright upon the city and river; ten o'clock is near,--the hour at which Dermoyne intended to return,--and yet the Madam has no word of the bullies whom last night she set upon Dermoyne's track. Near ten o'clock, and no news of Dirk, Slung-Shot, or--the Red Book!

"Why _don't_ they come!" exclaimed the Madam, for the fiftieth time, and she beat the carpet wickedly with her foot.

And from the shadows of the apartment, a voice, most lugubrious in its tone, uttered the solitary word,--"_Why?_"

"If they don't come, what shall we do?" the Madam's eyes grew wickeder, and she began to "crack" the joints of her fingers.

"_What?_" echoed the lugubrious voice.

"I'll tell you what it is, Corkins," said the Madam, turning fiercely in her chair, "I wish the devil had you,--I do! Sittin' there in your chair, croakin' like a raven.--'What! Why!'" and she mimicked him wickedly; "when you should be doin' somethin' to stave off the trouble that's gatherin' round us. Now you know, that unless we get back the Red Book, we're ruined,--you know it?"

"Com-pletely ruined!" echoed Corkins, who sat in the background, on the edge of a chair, his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands. Corkins, you will remember, is a little, slender man, clad in black, with a white cravat about his neck, a top-knot on his low forehead, a "goatee" on his chin, and gold spectacles on his nose. And as Corkins sits on the edge of his chair, he looks very much like a strange bird on its perch,--a bird of evil omen, meditating all sorts of calamities sure to happen to quite a number of people, at some time not definitely ascertained.

"It's near ten o'clock," glancing at the gold watch which lay on the table before her, "and no word of Barnhurst, not even a hint of Dirk or Slung! And at ten, that villain who stole the book will come back,--that is, unless Dirk and Slung have taken care of him! I never was in such a fever in all my life! Corkins, what _is_ to be done? And your patient,--how is she?"

"As for the patient up-stairs," Corkins began, but the words died away on his lips.

The sound of a bell rang clearly, although gloomily throughout the mansion.

"Go to the front door,--quick!"--in her impatience the Madam bounded from her chair. "See who's there. Open the door, but don't undo the chain; and don't,--do you hear?--don't let anybody in until you hear from me! Quick, I say!"

"But it isn't the front door bell," hesitated Corkins.

Again the sound of the bell was heard.

"It's the bell of the secret passage," ejaculated Madam, changing color,--"the passage which leads to a back street, and of the existence of which, only four persons in the world know anything. There it goes again! who can it be?"

The Madam was evidently very much perplexed. Corkins, who had risen from his perch, stood as though rooted to the floor; and the bell pealed loud and louder, in dismal echoes throughout the mansion.

"Who can it be?" again asked the Madam, while a thousand vague suspicions floated through her brain.

"Who can it be?" echoed Corkins, shaking like a dry leaf in the wind.

Here let us leave them awhile in their perplexity, while we retrace our steps, and take up again the adventures of Barnhurst and Dermoyne. We left them in the dimly-lighted bed-chamber, at the moment when the faithful wife, awaking from her slumber, welcomed the return of her husband in these words,--"Husband! have you come at last? I have waited for you so long!"

"Husband!" said the wife, awaking from her sleep, and stretching forth her arms, "have you come at last? I have waited for you so long!"

"Dearest, I was detained by an unexpected circumstance," answered Barnhurst, and first turning to Dermoyne with an imploring gesture, he approached the bed, and kissed his wife and sleeping child. Then back to Dermoyne again with a stealthy step,--"Take your revenge!" he whispered; "advance, and tell everything to my wife."

Dermoyne's face showed the contest of opposing emotions; now clouded with a hatred as remorseless as death, now touched with something like pity. At a rapid glance he surveyed the face of the trembling culprit,--the boy sleeping on his couch,--the mother resting on the bed, with her babe upon her bent arm,--and then uttered in a whisper, a single word,--"Come!"

He led Barnhurst over the threshold, out upon the landing, and carefully closed the door of the bed-chamber.

"Now, sir," he whispered, fixing his stern gaze upon Barnhurst's face, which was lighted by the rays of the lamp in the hall below,--"what have you to propose?"

Barnhurst's _blonde_ visage was corpse-like in its pallor.

"Nothing," he said, folding his arms with the air of a man who has lost all hope, and made up his mind to the worst. "I am in your power."

Dermoyne, with this finger to his lip, remained for a moment buried in profound thought. Once his eyes, glancing sidelong, rested upon Barnhurst with a sort of ferocious glare. When he spoke again, it was in these words:--

"Enter your bed-chamber, and sleep beside your faithful wife, and,--think of Alice. As for myself, I will watch for the morning, on the sofa, down stairs. Enter, I say!" he pointed sternly to the door,--"and remember! at morning we take up our march again. I _know_ that you will not escape from me,--and as for your wife, if you do not wish her to see me, you will make your appearance at an early hour."

Barnhurst, without a word, glided silently into the bed-chamber, closing the door after him. Dermoyne, listening for a moment, heard the voices of the husband and the wife, mingling in conversation. Then he went quietly down stairs, took down the hanging-lamp, and with it in his hand, entered a room on the lower floor.

It was a neatly-furnished apartment with a sofa, a piano, and a portrait of Barnhurst on the wall. The remains of a wood-fire were smouldering on the hearth. Near the piano stood an empty cradle. It was very much like--home. It was, in a word, the room through whose curtained windows, we gazed in our brief episode, and saw the pure wife with her children, awaiting the return of the husband and father.

Dermoyne lit a candle, which stood on a table, near the sofa, and then replaced the hanging lamp. This done, he came into the quiet parlor again,--without once pausing to notice that the front door was ajar. Had he but remarked this little fact, he might have saved himself a world of trouble. He flung his cloak upon the table, and placed his cap and the iron bar beside it. Then seating himself on the sofa, he drew the Red Book from under his left arm, where for hours he had securely carried it,--and spread it forth upon his knees. Drawing the light nearer to him, he began to examine the contents of that massive volume. How his countenance underwent all changes of expression, as page after page was disclosed to his gaze! At first his lip curled, and his brow grew dark,--there was doubtless much to move contempt and hatred in those pages,--but as he read on, his large gray eyes, dilating in their sockets, shone with steady light; every lineament of his countenance, manifested profound, absorbing interest.

The Red Book!

Of all the singular volumes, ever seen, this certainly was one of the most singular. It comprised perchance, one thousand manuscript pages, written by at least a hundred hands. There were original letters, and copies of letters; some of them traced by the tremulous hand of the dying. There were histories and fragments of histories,--the darkest record of the criminal court is not so black, as many a history comprised within the compass of this volume. It contained the history, sometimes complete sometimes in fragmentary shape, of all who had ever sought the aid of Madam Resimer, or,--suffered beneath her hands. And there were letters there, and histories there, which the Madam had evidently gathered, with a view of extorting money from certain persons, who had never passed into the circle of her infernal influence. All the crimes that can spring from unholy marriages, from violation of the marriage vow, from the seduction of innocent maidenhood, from the conflict between poor chastity and rich temptation, stood out upon those pages, in forms of terrible life. That book was a revelation of the civilization of a large city,--a glittering mask with a death's head behind it,--a living body chained to a leperous corpse. Instead of being called the Red Book, it should have been called the Black Book, or the Death Book, or the Mysteries of the Social World.

How the aristocracy of the money power was set forth in those pages! That aristocracy which the French know as the "Bourgeoise," which the English style the "Middle Classes," and which the Devil knows for his "own,"--the name of whose god the Savior pronounced, when he uttered the word "Mammon,"--whose loftiest aspiration is embodied in the word "Respectable!" How this modern aristocracy of the money power, stood out in naked life, showy and mean, glittering and heartless, upon the pages of the Red Book! Stood out in colors, painted, not by an enemy, but by its own hand, the mark of its baseness stamped upon its forehead, by its own peculiar seal.

One history was there, which, written in different hands, in an especial manner, riveted the interest of Arthur Dermoyne. Bending forward, with the light of the candle upon his brow, he read it page by page, his face manifesting every contrast of emotion as he read. For a title it bore a single name, written in a delicate womanly hand,--"MARION MERLIN." The greater portion of the history was written in the same hand.

Leaning upon the shoulder of Arthur Dermoyne, let us, with him, read this sad, dark history.