CHAPTER VIII.

IDENTIFIED.

Early on the following day Thornton Carey paid another visit to the police authorities, with whom he had already been in communication. As much to their surprise as his own, and their mutual congratulation, he was enabled to lay the case before them with all the detail, explanation, and certainty acquired by the perusal of Mr. Dunn's letter. With the exception of certain inquiries which he had made during his brief absence at Liverpool and his interview with certain magnates of Scotland-yard on the previous day, Thornton Carey had, so far, worked up this case without professional assistance; but he now asked for such assistance in the practical form of a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Dunn.

There was no difficulty about the granting of the warrant, but Carey was advised that it would be much better to have it carried into effect at Liverpool, the scene of the murder, and whither it was evident Mr. Dunn was about to transfer himself within a very few days. To this advice Thornton Carey deferred perhaps a little unwillingly; he had a mortal dread that his prey might escape him, that the cunning which had availed the murderer so far might be put forth in a final effort, which would elude all their vigilance. But a little professional reasoning tranquillised his mind on this subject. It would be totally impossible for Mr. Dunn to escape the vigilance of the police at the port of Liverpool; and if he should leave his present lodgings without the knowledge of Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins, the fault would be theirs. The gaoler of the prison to which he would be inevitably transferred before long would not have him in surer watch and ward than the quiet-looking, business-like, and unsuspicious lady and gentleman occupying the dining-room floor. With this assurance, and instructions that he was to communicate with a certain person to whom he was introduced, and who was desired to hold himself at the applicant's disposal, Thornton Carey returned home just in time to see Mr. Dunn, in his usual neat attire and with his accustomed deliberation of step, turn into Piccadilly with the air of a gentleman who had nothing whatever on his mind but the procuring of air and exercise.

Two days, which both Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins found exceedingly tedious and hard to dispose of, elapsed, and on the morning of the third, Mrs. Watts, who had made great friends with her lady lodger of the dining-room floor, came to inform her that she was really about to lose Mr. Dunn at last.

Yes, it was just like her luck. He was going for good, and the quietest and most accommodating of lodgers would be known no more in Queen-street, Mayfair.

Indeed, Mrs. Jenkins sympathised. It was rather sudden, wasn't it? Had Mr. Dunn had any bad news from home, or had he completed all his business in London?

That Mrs. Watts could not tell her. He had seemed exceedingly put out over some American papers that had come in a great batch from somewheres in the City, and he had told her that he was very much disappointed that his employers did not require him to remain for another year in England. Mrs. Watts did not know much of Americans, but she had noticed that Mr. Dunn was the only one who had ever acknowledged that he liked England better than his own country; if it was his own country, which she could not say; perhaps he had gone out there young.

But Mrs. Jenkins was obliged to ask Mrs. Watts to excuse her for cutting short their interview--on that morning her brother was going out on business, and she must see him before he left the house. After he had gone she would return and resume their talk; so in the fewest possible words Thornton Carey was rapidly informed that the time had come. Mr. Dunn was going to Liverpool by the twelve-o'clock train.

Thornton Carey needed no details; he had merely to transmit that fact to the person with whom he had been put in communication on the previous day.

At noon that day the train for Liverpool started with its accustomed punctuality, and without the slightest indication that it conveyed any passenger more interesting or important than its ordinary freight.

Mr. Dunn occupied a corner-seat in a first-class carriage, and was profoundly unconscious of the presence in the next compartment of the remarkably quiet lady and gentleman who had been of late his fellow lodgers. He was looking ill and much preoccupied; he duly wrapped himself up, settled himself in his seat, and strewed the adjoining division with miscellaneous literature, but it lay there untouched, and Mr. Dunn's fidgetiness was such that it might not unreasonably have provoked the remonstrances of the stout elderly gentleman, with light fluffy whiskers and remarkably unexpressive eyes, who sat opposite to him, and read newspapers one after another, with engrossing interest and undeviating steadiness, for fully two-thirds of the journey.

But the stout gentleman took absolutely no notice whatever of his companion's movements, which alternated between excessive restlessness, in which he would throw off his wraps, pull the window up and down, and gape audibly, and extreme moody depression, in which he sat back, his chin dropped upon his breast, and his eyes fixed upon the flying landscape, and evidently totally unconscious of the objects passing before them.

It was remarkable that, though the train was rather crowded, Mr. Dunn and the elderly gentleman, with so insatiable an appetite for details, had this particular first-class compartment to themselves all the way, with the trifling exception hereafter to be noted. There might almost have been an understanding between the railway people and the elderly gentleman--perhaps there was, perhaps also he saw and remarked Mr. Dunn's moves more clearly than he appeared to see and remark them; for when Mr. Dunn (they were then three-quarters of an hour from Liverpool) took a crumpled packet of letters out of his pocket, though the elderly gentleman interposed a newspaper directly between his own face and that of Mr. Dunn's, he slid his hand gently into the pocket of his heavy overcoat, and at the same moment handled something metallic which lay within it.

Mr. Dunn pored over these letters with an absorbed attention, which could not have been greater had he been in absolute solitude. He compared their dates, he counted them, he carefully rearranged them, each in its respective former position in the packet, and when he had read and re-read them, he tied them up again and replaced them in an inner pocket.

During all this time his companion kept his hand upon the something metallic in the pocket of his rough greatcoat, and when Mr. Dunn, apparently yielding to a momentary temptation to tear up the letters and strew them by the roadside, made a slight motion towards letting down the window next him, he almost instantly withdrew his hand, the barrier of the newspaper was withdrawn for a second, and the usually inexpressive face of the elderly gentleman was set in a very stern purpose indeed.

Nothing came, however, of the temptation. Mr. Dunn replaced the letters; his companion reinterposed the barrier; and the train glided smoothly on but another quarter of an hour, during which Mr. Dunn subsided from his restless into his depressed alternative, and occasionally took out a photographic likeness of a woman, at which he gazed moodily.

Just as the train was running into Lime-street station its speed slackened, it stopped in an instant, and a man stepped with wonderful swiftness into the compartment hitherto occupied only by Mr. Dunn and the persistent reader.

Mr. Dunn slipped the photograph at which he was looking into his breast-pocket, and glanced round surprised, but the elderly gentleman, with a satisfied wink at the new arrival, stuffed his newspaper under the back of the cushion, and bending over and approaching Mr. Dunn, laid his hand on his shoulder.

Mr. Dunn started up, or rather attempted to do so, but found himself held firmly in his seat by a grasp apparently gentle, but wholly irresistible, while his companion informed him, in the briefest of phrases, that he was arrested on the charge of murder, and had better not say anything lest it should be used to his disadvantage. Pale, speechless, and bewildered, the trapped criminal stared at the police-officer, who made a sign to his assistant, who, with businesslike imperturbability and the deftness of long practice, slipped a pair of handcuffs on Mr. Dunn's wrists.

In another minute the train had stopped, and the police-officer, considerately arranging Mr. Dunn's wraps so as to disguise the fact that he was a prisoner, stepped out with his charge upon the platform, closely followed by his assistant.

Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins retained their seats until the three, whose movements they were watching, had passed the door of the compartment in which they were. Then they immediately left the carriage and followed.

Among the persons assembled on the arrival platform at Lime-street was a respectable-looking woman, who carried a large basket, with that air of inseparability habitual to females of her class. She was probably there by appointment with somebody, for she had taken her seat on a bench and waited with the inevitable basket on her knees for the arrival of the train.

As Mr. Dunn passed down the platform in the custody of his two travelling companions, the elderly gentleman slackened his pace for a moment when they came alongside the bench where this woman sat, and laid his hand, as if accidentally and in passing, upon the cover of her basket. She gave him a quick look; but on the prisoner she conferred a prolonged stare, of which, however, the wretched man was wholly unconscious. A few persons only came between Mr. Dunn and his companions and Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins, who walked up to the woman arm-in-arm. Thornton Carey addressed her:

'Have you seen him?'

'I have, sir.'

'Is it he?'

'It is, sir; I could swear to the Methodist preacher that talked to the poor gentleman and to me in the Birkenhead ferry anywhere in the world!'

They took him to the police-office. He went quietly, in absolute silence, only looking from time to time at the men who walked one on each side of him with a confused and helpless stare.

Thornton Carey, Mrs. Jenkins, and the woman, whose evidence Thornton Carey had skilfully hunted up during his short stay in Liverpool, exercising the ingenuity which subsequently won him many warm congratulations from Mr. Dunn's travelling companion, and whose evidence was the last link in the chain of identification which convicted Mr. Dunn of the crime committed by Trenton Warren, had reached the police-court some minutes in advance. The prisoner recognised his inoffensive fellow lodgers of the dining-room floor in Queen-street, Mayfair, with an irrepressible start, and spoke for the first time. 'Who are they?' he asked.

Thornton Carey replied: 'I am Thornton Carey, whose benefactor Mr. Griswold was; and this woman,' drawing forward Mrs. Jenkins, 'is your brother's widow--your brother whose blood is on your head. We represent your victims!'

The usual formalities were quickly accomplished; and when the prisoner was searched, it appeared that he would have done wisely had he yielded to that momentary temptation which had moved him to tear the letters which he had read in the train and to scatter them in fragments from the carriage window; for the letters in question were those written by Helen Griswold to her husband, and the photograph was that which the murdered man had carried in his pocket-book, and the murderer had robbed him of both.

'On the whole,' as Mr. Dunn's travelling companion remarked to Thornton Carey, as they walked away from the police-court together, 'it isn't often one has the handling of a case that fits together so satisfactorily; in this there isn't a loop-hole.'

EPILOGUE

During the weeks, now numbering months, of their intimate association, a strong mutual regard had sprung up between Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins. The bereaved woman's character had a great attraction for Thornton, who thoroughly appreciated her sincerity, disinterestedness, and depth of feeling. The earnestness and vehemence of Mrs. Jenkins's grief for the loss of a husband who perhaps had not precisely merited her love or her sorrow had struck the young man by its pure womanliness, and her sound practical common sense had been of immense assistance to him in every detail of his task. Thus the relation between the two confederates, which, owing to the discrepancy between their respective social stations, might have been attended by a certain awkwardness and reserve, had, on the contrary, been frank and pleasant from the first, and had very soon merged into genuine unreserved confidence and intimacy.

Thornton Carey, though perhaps more deeply a student of books, was also an observer of human nature, and in his long talks with Mrs. Jenkins, when it was a relief for them both to escape from the great purpose and topic of their lives into byways of conversation, would question Mrs. Jenkins concerning her own history, and the scenes she had witnessed, the experiences she had undergone as the wife of a man whose life had been so shifting and shifty, so disreputable and sometimes hard, in that wonderful microcosm, the city of New York.

Mrs. Jenkins had no reserve with Thornton Carey, towards whom she gradually assumed quite a motherly tone, and she answered his questions readily, and drew for him the kind of pictures which he wished to see with his mind's eye with an untutored reality and a quaint force that he found most interesting. But on no topic was it so pleasant to him to hear Mrs. Jenkins discourse as on that of Helen Griswold, and on none was she more disposed to gratify him to the full. There was a deep vein of enthusiasm in Mrs. Jenkins, and the gentle, gracious, thorough lady into whose house she had gone with her heart bleeding its two sorest wounds--the death of her child and parting with her husband--had roused it. And then had come the remarkable combination of circumstances which had bound her life up in the same chapter of accidents with Mrs. Griswold's.

She would tell Thornton Carey over and over again innumerable small particulars of her first days in Helen's house, of her first impressions, and of the generous kindliness with which Helen had turned her first feeling of loneliness and dependence into one which she had never thought to experience again--the tranquil happiness of home. She would tell of Helen's quiet regret for her husband's absence, of her rational life, her charities, her unselfishness, her love and pride for the child, until any listener less deeply interested than Thornton must have wearied of the subject. But he never wearied of it, and in return he would tell Mrs. Jenkins tales of Helen's childhood and his own, reproducing the old familiar scenes with a skill and vividness at which the simple woman, who, though uneducated, had the intuitive perception of good taste, wondered. Listening to Thornton's talk, she thought, was like reading a pleasant book, or looking at pictures. And so it came to Mrs. Jenkins's mind one day, that ever since that childish time, which had passed so happily amid the rural scenes and surroundings of Holland Mills, Thornton Carey had had but one love in his life--the love of Helen--and that it had grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. When this belief took possession of her, she went to work in her own clever yet simple way to verify it, by asking him in her turn about his life since the breaking up of the old childish associations, about his friends and his pursuits, and through all the narrative which she thus elicited she could trace no other influence than that of Helen. He had lived the life of a recluse and a student, not gloomy or morose indeed, but sufficing to himself; and desiring nothing beyond, in all the hours that were outside his work. He spoke of some men-friends, and they were chiefly men older than himself, but no woman's name ever turned up in his account of his life. When he mentioned Mr. Griswold, it was always vaguely, though with gratitude, but it was evident he had not known very much of him; and the awful termination of his life, the wonderful train of circumstances which had turned the _protégé_ into the avenger, made it difficult for Thornton to speak of him so freely as of other subjects.

Long before their task was accomplished Mrs. Jenkins believed herself to be in possession of the secret history of two hearts, with this great difference between them--that Thornton Carey knew and acknowledged to himself that he loved Helen Griswold, that he had loved her, and no other, all his life, but that Helen entertained no suspicion either of his feelings or her own. Mrs. Jenkins could not have analysed her conviction that Helen, excellent and devoted wife that she was, and true as was the affection with which she regarded her husband, had not been _in love_ with him, but it was clear and strong, the growth of constant observation of innumerable trifles, those small but significant symptoms which only a woman notices and interprets aright. Then Mrs. Jenkins, who, for all her inferiority to Helen in the social scale, had some strong points of resemblance to her, and was an instance of the absolute level on which classes stand when the only ruling feeling of the human heart is in question, asked herself whether it was that Helen had never been in love with any one, or whether it was that she was in love with some one else. The latter question did not present itself for a moment to the mind of Mrs. Jenkins in a light unfavourable or derogatory to Helen; she knew that, if such were indeed the case, Helen was entirely guiltless. Now the whole story made itself clear to the perception of Mrs. Jenkins, and she knew that the unconscious presence of an influence which had existed since her childhood, and been stronger than any which had since come into her life, had closed Helen's heart against every whisper of passion for the man she had married and, in one sense, loved.

With this discovery there had come to Mrs. Jenkins a still deeper pity and regard for the young widow, so awfully bereaved, for there had come a clearer comprehension of how admirably she had fulfilled her duty as a wife. Thus it happened that the secret of both these hearts, which had never been mutually disclosed, had been revealed unconsciously by each to this humble friend; and in all the talks which they had together, Mrs. Jenkins had had floating before her fancy a vision of the future, in which the beautiful old story of the childhood of these two should be taken up again and brought to its perfection after such a trial as happily comes but rarely into human lives. She was far too discreet to breathe a hint of her discovery or her hope to Thornton Carey; and she promised herself that she would exercise an equal discretion when she should have returned to New York, and resumed her position in Mrs. Griswold's house.

It had been agreed that Mrs. Jenkins was to return before she and Thornton Carey started on their journey to England. She had no friends in England that her friends in America knew of, and she felt in her inmost heart that the relations between herself and her sister would not be sufficiently satisfactory to compensate for an entire separation from Helen and her child. Besides, there was a very good chance that she night see as much of her sister by residing in New York as she should see of her if she lived in London; for Miss Montressor's success was so marked, that there was a brisk competition among American managers for the promise of her services during a long series of seasons. On the whole New York had become much more like home to Mrs. Jenkins than England was, though she felt that it would be long before the word would seem to have any meaning for her in a world where her Ephraim was not. With Helen Griswold she would have peace, respectability, and a strong interest in her surroundings; while to Helen, her presence must always be beneficial, to an extent which would far out-measure the pain of their respective and common associations.

When the task which they had come to fulfil was finished; when the sentence of a righteous doom had been passed upon one of the most cruel and treacherous murderers who had ever incurred the curse pronounced against the shedder of man's blood; and the time fixed for Mrs. Jenkins's departure drew near (she wished to leave England before the execution of Trenton Warren), she discovered that Thornton Carey was hesitating about his own return to America. It had never been intended that he should accompany her; he meant to be in Liverpool when the dread penalty of his crime should be inflicted on Helen's enemy; but she had taken it for granted he would not make much further delay, and was quite unprepared for the announcement which he made to her the day before the sailing of the mail steamer in which a passage had been taken for her. He came round to see her at the Railway Hotel (he was at the Adelphi) late in the evening, and after talking cheerily to her about the voyage back, he said:

'I hope you will drop talking of all this awful affair to poor Mrs. Griswold as soon as you can reasonably persuade her to let it rest. It is quite useless to keep up the misery and excitement of it any longer than they must necessarily last; and that will be over when this wretched man shall have been sent to his account. Then she had better be led to dwell on the happier features of the past, and to let its miserable ending die down into oblivion. You will be the best person to lead her mind into that channel, and I, and all her friends, will trust you to do it.'

'But, Mr. Carey, you will have a great deal more influence than I shall. Of course, I must let her talk at first as much as she likes; but if she will be kept from dwelling on the past by what I can do, she will look more to you than to any of her friends for such things as can cheer her up, and do her real good.'

Thornton Carey smiled rather sadly.

'She will not have me to cheer her up for many a long day,' he said.

'Why, whatever do you mean?' asked Mrs. Jenkins in unfeigned amazement; 'ain't you coming very soon--as soon as--'

Her face fell, and she turned her eyes away. The subject was a terrible one, and they had avoided reference to it by common consent.

'No, my dear friend, I am not. I have been thinking it all over since I have been here, and I have come to the conclusion that I had better not go back just yet. I have made some friends here quite unexpectedly. Mr. Whitbread, the magistrate's brother, among others, has been kind enough to form a good opinion of me, and he has just been returned for B--. I dined with him last evening, and he talked to me a good deal about myself; asked about my post at New Orleans, whether it was a permanent one, and so on. I told him exactly how the matter stood, and that poor Mr. Griswold had been negotiating a better post for me, but one which would not be likely to be vacant for at least twelve months from the present time. Then Mr. Whitbread offered to engage me as his private secretary for that time certain. He represents an important constituency, and will be a very active member of the House of Commons. He is an advanced Liberal, and there would be no better opportunity for me to learn the routine of public business than in his employment. So I have accepted the offer, and I shall be in England at least one year.'

'I do not regret it, sir, for your sake,' replied Mrs. Jenkins, 'though I doubt it will come very hard on Mrs. Griswold. But, then, she is one who does not think of herself, and if it's good for you, she will be content.'

Thornton Carey looked at her inquiringly, and a sudden deep flush suffused his face. Mrs. Jenkins saw the sudden flush, and perfectly understood its origin, but she made no sign, and continued:

'Have you written to her, Mr. Carey, or am I to take her the news? It will be a surprise to Mr. Duval, too, though he will be very glad to find you here when he comes back. Very likely he'll be writing a play about it, and be glad of your help.'

'Writing a play, you dear droll woman, half a century behind the speed of the age! I would lay a stout wager the play is ready for rehearsal!'

Once more the scene of this story is by the seaboard. The mail steamer for New York is just about to sail, and the landing-stage is as usual crowded by sightseers anxious to witness its departure. It is a fine, cold, wintry day, and the sky is bright, the wind fair. Unrecognised, unnoticed by the crowd, who have no notion that the woman in widow's weeds, and the handsome young man who takes her on board the tender so carefully, were directly concerned in the great criminal trial which has been the central object of interest in Liverpool, Mrs. Jenkins and Thornton Carey pass the last few minutes of their companionship together.

Mrs. Jenkins is quite composed when she goes on board the Cuba, but she has been crying a good deal in the early hours of morning. She feels, now that the parting has come, how much Thornton Carey has cheered up and helped her through the anguish of her own bereavement; and now that all the excitement is over, her womanly heart has a touch of pity in it for the doomed wretch they have so effectually punished. But that is a weakness which she dares not betray to Thornton Carey, and which indeed she very soon gets over.

Thornton has seen to all the comforts of her state room--for Mrs. Jenkins is travelling 'like a lady,' and is not in the least likely to disgrace the character, as she is reticent and unassuming always--and has added to them many a little 'surprise,' which will bring tears of gladness to her eyes when she shall find them out; and they are now standing side by side in the saloon, waiting, with the dreary mingling of dread and impatience which characterises all scenes of parting, for the signal 'for shore.'

'What shall I say for you to Mrs. Griswold?' she asks, with her hand in his.

'What shall you say? Have I not given you a thousand messages to Mrs. Griswold?'

'You have,' she answered, and yet she looked at him with such a look as might have shone in his mother's eyes, 'and I will not ask you for another. But I will say this to you as my parting words--and you must forgive me, Mr. Carey, and think me not too bold--see your year out in England, and then come home _for your reward!_'

She pressed his hand, close, close, and clung to him, as a mother might cling to a son, for a minute or two, and he spoke no word, but stooped over her, and kissed her on the forehead; and then the signal was given 'for shore,' and they parted.

A NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.

The story which I have here narrated is not original. I hasten to avow it, lest I should be detected, and obliged to confess the fact. It is one of those truths which look like fiction, only because they are so truly true. I am indebted for the 'heads' from which I have constructed it to Thornton S. Carey, the well-known merchant and _millionnaire_ of New York, U.S.A., whose acquaintance, together with his charming wife, formerly Mrs. Helen Griswold, and his if possible more charming stepdaughter, I had the privilege of forming, last fall, at Saratoga Springs.

THE END.

LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Impending Sword (Vol. 3 of 3), by Edmund Yates