CHAPTER CLXXV.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE IN STAMFORD STREET.

We must now carry our narrative backward for a few hours, in order to explain the incident which has just been described.

At the corner of Stamford Street and the Blackfriars Road, there are three houses in a most dismantled and dilapidated condition. They seem to have been ravaged by fire; but time and neglect have in reality produced that deplorable appearance. The walls are blackened with accumulated dirt; and the state of the windows bears unequivocal evidence to the fact that every pane has been broken, individually and separately, by stones flung from the streets by vagabond boys or other mischievous persons. The fragments of glass that remain, seem as if the material never could have been transparent, but had even in its manufacture been stained with an inky dye; and the shutters wherewith the casements are closed inside, are equally blackened, as if by a smoke as dense as that which proceeds from the funnel of a steam-packet or the chimney of a factory.

For the last twenty years have these three houses been thus left to fall into ruin: for the fifth part of a century has the work of dilapidation and decay been going on! That they were once habited is evident from the fact that the blinds, pulled up round their rollers, still remain--but so begrimed with black dust and dirt that it is scarcely possible to believe they were ever white. The cords used to pull them down, with the tassels at the end, are likewise still there, and totally discoloured also. Very mournful is the aspect of those ruined tenements, with these indications that they once were comfortable dwellings,--that cheerful fires once burnt in the grates--that lights streamed from the casements in years gone by--and that the walls echoed to the gay pealing laughter of merry children!

Desolate--desolate, indeed, are the three houses,--a disfigurement to the entire vicinity, and having an appearance well calculated to throw a damp upon the spirits even of the most strong-minded of the neighbours.

There is something picturesque in the aspect which ruins in the open country--perhaps on the summit of a hill--assume from gradual decay; because there the ivy grows upon the walls, and the naked hideousness of dilapidation is concealed by the invasion of a wilderness of shrubs and sweets. But when the golden rays of a summer sun pour upon the blackened walls and shattered casements of houses in the midst of a populous city,--houses which have dwelling-places adjoining them and all around,--the effect is sombre, sad, and sinister in the extreme.

Such is the impression produced by those three houses in Stamford-street. Not that the street itself is otherwise cheerful in aspect: on the contrary, the entire thoroughfare stretching between the Blackfriars and Waterloo Roads, is gloomy and inhospitable in aspect. The exterior of the houses has a dinginess of wall and a darkness of window that are unrelieved by the aristocratic grandeur and the richness of curtains inside, which characterise the rows of smoke-dyed dwellings in more fashionable quarters.

The inhabitants of Stamford Street are amazingly prone to the letting of lodgings, when they can find any persons willing to take them. But that such pliant and easily-persuaded tenants are rare in that quarter, is proved to demonstration by the numbers of cards and bills in the windows announcing furnished apartments to let.

It is a curious study, and one that affords matter for speculation, to examine the cards and bills thus displayed. Some are written in a neat feminine hand, so small that the passer-by must protrude his head far over the railings to enable his vision to decipher the delicate announcements: others are penned in a bold, coarse hand--and, in them, the chances are ten to one that the word _let_ is spelt with a double t;--while others, again, are printed in the types which the experienced eye has no difficulty in tracing to Peel’s famed establishment in the New Cut.

More than half of Stamford Street constantly appears to let; and, from all accounts, landlords experience no trifling difficulty in collecting the rents from the occupants of their houses. If you pass along Stamford Street just before quarter-day, and at a very early hour in the morning, or at a late hour in the night, you will be sure to perceive several vans loading with furniture; for the habit of “moon-shining it,” or flitting surreptitiously, is unfortunately of frequent occurrence in that district.

But these are not the only indications that the affairs of the inhabitants and lodgers in Stamford Street are far from being in the most blooming condition: the fact may also be gathered from the careworn countenance of the tax-gatherer as he leaves a fresh notice at every door, and from the common occurrence of the water being cut off. Nor less does the Poor Rates’ collector feel his task to be a most unpleasant one; while the tradesmen in the Blackfriars Road wonder, as they look over their ledgers, what the deuce Stamford Street is coming to. Visitors are frequently answered from the area--an unmistakeable precaution against the intrusion of sheriff’s officers; and even when the butcher delivers in his meat or the baker his bread at the front door, the chain is in many instances kept up.

Such is the prevalent state of affairs in the long thoroughfare which we have thus briefly described: but it is with the dilapidated houses--or rather with one of them--that we have now to occupy ourselves.

As soon as it was dusk, two men emerged from the miserable rookery constituted by the district of Broad Wall; and, entering Stamford Street, they proceeded stealthily along until they reached the ruined house which was next to the dwelling of the Misses Theobald. One of the men--a tall, stout, ruffian-like fellow, whom we shall presently describe more particularly--took a key from his pocket and opened the door of the dilapidated tenement, into which he hastily entered, his companion closely following him. We should however observe that this ingress was effected at a moment when no other persons were near; and that the door was opened and shut in a noiseless manner, so that no sound might reach the ears of the occupants of the adjacent dwelling.

“Now give us your hand, old feller,” said the ruffian-like individual, when they were safe inside the passage: “because the stairs is summut broke away, and the bannisters isn’t to be trusted. Lord! how you tremble! Why--what the hell are you afeard on?”

“Nothing--nothing, my good friend,” was the answer, delivered in a nervous tone: “only--it’s--it’s--so--very--very--dark.”

“Dark!” cried the ruffian, with a hoarse laugh: “why, it wery often _is_ dark in a house at night-time, and where there’s no candle alight. But p’raps you’re afeard of ghosteses,” he continued, as he dragged rather than led the nervous old man down the crazy, rotting stairs towards the lower region of the place: “and if so, you’re in the right quarters to see a speret--for they do say the young gal which was murdered here, walks in her shroud;--but, for my part, I never see her--and I han’t got no fear of that sort.”

By the time these words were uttered, in a tone of coarse jocularity, the ruffian had conducted his companion to the bottom of the stairs; and, halting at that point, he struck a lucifer-match against the wall, and lighted a piece of candle which he took from his pocket.

He then led the way into the front kitchen of the house, bidding the old man close the door behind him.

The place was black all over with accumulated dust and dirt: the ceiling appeared as if it had been originally painted a sable hue; and the floor, broken in several parts, conveyed the same impression. The shelves above the dresser were in a most dilapidated condition; and the dense cob-webs clung to them, as well as to the corners of the ceiling, like masses of rotten rags. The shutters were closed; and over their entire surface were pasted sheets of thick brown paper--evidently to prevent the light of candles from peeping through their chinks and being noticed in the street. There was an old ricketty table in the middle of the kitchen: there were likewise two chairs, which, being made of a tough wood, had withstood the ravages of time; and an empty beer-barrel was placed upright near the table, as if it occasionally served as a third seat.

The ruffian stuck the candle in the neck of a bottle; and, opening one of the dresser-drawers, he drew forth a bottle and a couple of small tumblers:--then, placing himself on the barrel, he proceeded in a leisurely manner to light his pipe, while the old man--his companion--sank, nervous and trembling, into one of the Windsor-chairs.

The reader has no doubt already guessed that these two individuals were Vitriol Bob and Torrens;--and, if so, the surmise is correct.

The latter person needs no description; but the former character must be more elaborately dealt with on the present occasion. He was indeed, as Jack Rily had represented him, one of the greatest miscreants that ever disgraced humanity,--not only in reality, but also in personal appearance. Of tall stature, athletic frame, and muscular build, he possessed vast physical strength. He was about thirty-six years of age: his countenance was naturally ugly even to repulsiveness--but huge black whiskers meeting under his chin, rendered it positively ferocious;--and the small, dark, reptile-like eyes glared from beneath thick, overhanging brows. His lips were remarkably coarse and of a livid hue; and his nose, broken in the middle, had a deep indentation, giving an appearance of death’s-head flatness to the broad countenance. His apparel consisted of a seedy suit of black--a hat with very wide brims bent even to slouching--and a pair of heavy Wellington boots; and in his hand he carried a thick stick with a huge nob at one end and a massive ferrule at the other. This was his “life-preserver;” but he seldom had occasion to use it--for his proceedings were usually of the savage and diabolical nature described by the Doctor, and whence he derived the appellation of _Vitriol Bob_.

This terrible individual was well known to the police: but those functionaries trembled at the idea of molesting him. They would have experienced no such dread had his defensive weapons been confined to life-preservers or pistols: but there was something so horrible in the thought of having a bottle of burning, blinding fluid broken over the countenance, that the officers shuddered at the bare idea of tackling Vitriol Bob. Thus, whenever information was given of some nefarious deed which he had attempted or perpetrated, the police took very good care to search for him where they knew he was not to be found; and if they even met him in one of the bye-streets or obscure alleys on the Surrey side of the metropolis--the quarter which he chiefly honoured with his presence--they were suddenly seized with an inclination to look stedfastly into a picture-shop, or gaze up abstractedly at the sky, until he had passed.

Vitriol Bob knew that he was an object of terror to the functionaries of justice in general: but he was also well aware that there were exceptions to the rule, and that amongst so large a body as the police-force, some few individuals would pounce upon him at all risks. In fact, the impunity he enjoyed was not so completely assured as to render precaution unnecessary; and there was moreover such a thing as being taken by surprise. For these reasons he accordingly made use of one of the “haunted houses,”--for so they were denominated,--as a place of concealment whenever he had committed a deed calculated to lead to the institution of unpleasant enquiries.

Such was the individual whom we now find in company with Torrens; and the circumstance that threw them together in the first instance, will presently transpire through the medium of the conversation that took place as soon as they were seated in the kitchen of the haunted house.

“Well, here we are safe at last, old feller,” cried Vitriol Bob, puffing deliberately at his pipe, as if he savoured deliciously the soothing influences of the tobacco. “By goles! it is one of the best larks I ever was engaged in. Such a lot of tin, and so easily got!”

“Two thousand seven hundred a piece--eh?” said Torrens, eyeing his companion with nervous suspense, as if he were eager to assure himself that a fair and equitable division of the booty would take place.

“Hah!” observed the ruffian, in a complacent manner, as he filled the two tumblers with brandy from the black bottle: “drink!”--and he emptied one of the glasses at a draught, just as if it were a mere thimble-full of the fiery liquid. “It was a good job, old feller,” he continued, after a short pause, “that you fell in with such a prime chap as I am--or rayther, it was fortnit that I lodged in the same house, and as I came in heard you moaning and groaning away in your cellar. It was also lucky that you let me worm out of you all that had happened--although you was precious chary of making a confidant of me. You remember that I couldn’t believe you at fust--I looked on you as a perfect madman. Thinks I to myself, ‘_There’s a precious lu-nattic just ’scaped out of Bedlam_:’ for how was I to fancy that you’d raly been robbed of such an amount, living in a cellar as you was!”

“But you believed me at last--you saw that it was all true and correct,” exclaimed Torrens, perceiving that it suited the man’s humour to talk on the subject.

“Well, I did,” returned Vitriol Bob: “and now,” he added, tapping his breeches pockets significantly, “I have got plenty of proof that you didn’t tell no lies. But, Lord bless ye! you could have done nothink without me: you would have sat down quietly under your loss. But I told you that I’d find the old voman out, if so be she was in London at all; and so I did. The description you gave me of her was not to be mistaken--’specially by a genelman of eggs-sperience like myself. I went about all over London, looking for her; and then, behold ye! arter all she’s living within a stone’s throw of us, as one may say. By goles! I never shall forget how my heart jumped in my buzzim when I clapped eyes on her yesterday, as she came out of the coffee-house: but you don’t know how I found out that she actiwaliy lived there?”

“No--I do not,” said Torrens, observing that his companion bent upon him a look of mysterious importance, as much as to invite a query that should furnish him with the opportunity of giving an explanation relative to the point alluded to. “How did it happen, then?”

“Why, when I see the old voman come out of the coffee-house, I went straight away to my blewen--that’s Pig-faced Polly, as she’s called--and I tells her to go to the place, take tea and toast, and wait till she found out whether the old voman lived there, or not. But I orders Polly not to make inquiries, for fear of eggs-citing suspicion. Well, my gal did as I told her--and waited, and waited a good long time; and when she’d had three teas and four or five buttered toastesses, she see the old voman come in, and she hears the landlady come out and say, ‘_Here’s your key, Mrs. Mortimer_.’ Then up goes Mrs. Mortimer--for such her name seems to be--to her room; and Pig-faced Poll returns to me with the hintelligence. I knowed that my game was now safe enough; and it was me which dewised the plan of our going as officers with a search-warrant, when we’d watched the old voman leave the coffee-house this morning.”

“Yes--yes: I know that you did it all,” said Torrens, terribly alarmed lest he who experienced the lion’s share of the trouble, should now claim the lion’s share of the booty. “But how long shall we be obliged to remain here? I am in a hurry to get away--with my share--my fair share of my own money----”

“Your own money, indeed!” ejaculated Vitriol Bob, with a chuckling laugh. “Was it your’n when Mother Mortimer had it safe in her own box? And I should just like to know how you fust come by it? Not honestly, I’ll swear, old feller. Such a seedy-looking cove, living in such a way as you was, couldn’t have got near upon six thousand pound by wot’s called legitimate means. But that’s neether here nor there: I don’t care two figs how you got the tin--and if I ask no questions, I shan’t have no lies told me. Von thing is wery certain--that I’ve got it now.”

“But--but--you surely--my dear friend--you--” stammered Torrens, absolutely aghast at the idea, of still remaining a beggar.

“Come, let’s have no more of this drivelling nonsense,” interrupted Vitriol Bob, in a tone of unmitigated contempt: then, as he refilled and relighted his pipe, be observed, “Why, you have been in a fidget and a stew all day, ever since we secured the swag at the coffee-house. Don’t you see, my dear feller, that people in our sitiwations must act with somethink like common prudence? The old voman may rouse hell’s delight about her loss; and that was why I thought we’d better keep ourselves scarce for a time. So I made you stay close with me at the flash lodging-ken in the Mint all the arternoon till it was dusk; and then I brought you here. And here,” added Vitriol Bob, “we are safe enow: ’cos only Pig-faced Poll, Jack Rily, and one or two others of my pals knows anythink about this place being my haunt when I’m afeard of getting into trouble;--and there’s no danger of them splitting on us. So far from that, the Pig-faced will be sure to come here presently, when she finds I don’t wisit her own quarters this evening; and she’ll bring a basket of prog along with her--so that we shall have a jolly good supper in due time. Drink, old feller!”

Thus speaking, the ruffian refilled his own tumbler, and pushed the brandy bottle across the dirty table to Torrens, who did not, however, touch it--for his glass was only half emptied; and he experienced such lively sensations of alarm, that he felt as if his brain were reeling and his intellects were leaving him.

There he was--a feeble, helpless, weak old man, entirely in the power of an individual whom he knew to be of the most desperate character, but with whom he had joined in companionship only through the hope of recovering at least one-half of that treasure to gain which, in the first instance, he had imbrued his hands in blood. There he was--alone with that miscreant, in a place the aspect of which was sufficient to fill his attenuated soul with the gloomiest thoughts and the most melancholy forebodings,--alone with a demon in human shape, in a ruined and desolate tenement, to augment the cheerless influence of which superstition had lent its aid,--alone with a very fiend, in a haunt the ominous features of which were dimly shadowed forth and rendered more hideous by the dull, glimmering light of the solitary candle with its long wick and its sickly flame.

“Well--what are you thinking of?--and why don’t you drink?” were the words which, suddenly falling on the old man’s ears after a pause, awoke him as it were from a lethargy--a lethargy, however, in which the mind had been painfully active, though the body was motionless--petrified!

“I--I--was wondering how long we should have to remain here,” stammered Torrens, starting as if shaken by a strong spasm or moved by an electric shock.

“I asked you the question just now--and--and you did not give me a reply.”

“Well--it all depends, my fine feller,” answered Vitriol Bob. “Three or four days, perhaps----”

“Three or four days!” almost shrieked Torrens. “I shall die if I linger so long in this horrible place!”

“Die, indeed!” ejaculated the ruffian, in a contemptuous tone. “Why, Lord bless you--I’ve stayed here for three veeks at a time, afore now--without ever budging out. Not be able to linger, as you call it, in this comfortable crib--smoke and drink all day long--or drink only, if you don’t like smoking--and sleep in one of them Windsor-cheers as cozie as a bug in a rug! Besides, won’t you have me for a companion----”

“No--no: I can not--will not endure it!” exclaimed Torrens, starting up from his chair,--his countenance hideous with its workings--his nerves strung to the most painful state of tension--and a thousand frightful thoughts rushing in, with the speed and fury of a torrent, upon his appalled soul.

“Hold your cursed jaw, you fool!” growled Vitriol Bob, in a tone of sudden rage: “you will be heard in the street--and----”

“I care not!” screamed Torrens, louder than before. “Give me my share of the money--let me depart----”

“Be quiet, I say!” spoke the ruffian, in a still more irritated voice, while he sprang from his seat on the barrel; “or I shall do you a mischief.”

“I care not!” again cried Torrens--and again his tone grew still more piercing and shriekingly hysterical; for he was wrought up to a state of utter despair. “Give me my money, I say--give me----”

“Fool--be still!” exclaimed Vitriol Bob, rushing round the table, and grasping the old man by the throat.

But Torrens, inspired with a sudden strength that astonished the ruffian, broke away from his gripe, and rushed towards the door, crying “Murder--murder!”

“Damnation!” thundered Bob; and bounding after him, he sprang upon the old man with the fury and the force of a tiger.

“Murder!” again yelled the affrighted, desperate Torrens: but in another instant he was dashed violently against the wall.

A moan succeeded his agonising cry--and he fell heavily upon the floor. Vitriol Bob then jumped upon him--and the attenuated form of the wretched old man writhed beneath the heavy feet of the murderous ruffian.

There was a faint and stifling appeal for “Mercy! mercy!”--but the miscreant silenced it with a ferocious stamp of his heel on the mouth of the dying man;--and in a few moments all was over!

Vitriol Bob was now alone, in the gloomy, cheerless place, with the crushed and disfigured corpse of him whom he had literally trampled to death.

But scarcely was the deed accomplished, when a noise, as of gravel thrown from the street against the kitchen window, fell upon the ears of the murderer, whose countenance instantly expanded into an expression of grim delight at the well-known signal.

“Here’s Pig-faced Poll!” he exclaimed hastily: and then he paused to listen again.

At the expiration of about a minute the signal was repeated; and Vitriol Bob, no longer harbouring the slightest doubt, hurried up the stairs to open the street-door.