Hunted Down: The Detective Stories of Charles Dickens by Charles Dickens (fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

much, for the rest of us seemed to force it upon him—I became quite angry with myself.  I took his face to pieces in my mind, like a watch, and examined it in detail.  I could not say much against any of his features separately; I could say even less against them when they were put together.  ‘Then is it not monstrous,’ I asked myself, ‘that because a man happens to part his hair straight up the middle of his head, I should permit myself to suspect, and even to detest him?’

(I may stop to remark that this was no proof of my sense.  An observer of men who finds himself steadily repelled by some apparently trifling thing in a stranger is right to give it great weight.  It may be the clue to the whole mystery.  A hair or two will show where a lion is hidden.  A very little key will open a very heavy door.)

I took my part in the conversation with him after a time, and we got on remarkably well.  In the drawing-room I asked the host how long he had known Mr. Slinkton.  He answered, not many months; he had met him at the house of a celebrated painter then present, who had known him well when he was travelling with his nieces in Italy for their health.  His plans in life being broken by the death of one of them, he was reading with the intention of going back to college as a matter of form, taking his degree, and going into orders.  I could not but argue with myself that here was the true explanation of his interest in poor Meltham, and that I had been almost brutal in my distrust on that simple head.

III.

On the very next day but one I was sitting behind my glass partition, as before, when he came into the outer office, as before.  The moment I saw him again without hearing him, I hated him worse than ever.

It was only for a moment that I had this opportunity; for he waved his tight-fitting black glove the instant I looked at him, and came straight in.

‘Mr. Sampson, good-day!  I presume, you see, upon your kind permission to intrude upon you.  I don’t keep my word in being justified by business, for my business here—if I may so abuse the word—is of the slightest nature.’

I asked, was it anything I could assist him in?

‘I thank you, no.  I merely called to inquire outside whether my dilatory friend had been so false to himself as to be practical and sensible.  But, of course, he has done nothing.  I gave him your papers with my own hand, and he was hot upon the intention, but of course he has done nothing.  Apart from the general human disinclination to do anything that ought to be done, I dare say there is a specialty about assuring one’s life.  You find it like will-making.  People are so superstitious, and take it for granted they will die soon afterwards.’

‘Up here, if you please; straight up here, Mr. Sampson.  Neither to the right nor to the left.’  I almost fancied I could hear him breathe the words as he sat smiling at me, with that intolerable parting exactly opposite the bridge of my nose.

‘There is such a feeling sometimes, no doubt,’ I replied; ‘but I don’t think it obtains to any great extent.’

‘Well,’ said he, with a shrug and a smile, ‘I wish some good angel would influence my friend in the right direction.  I rashly promised his mother and sister in Norfolk to see it done, and he promised them that he would do it.  But I suppose he never will.’

He spoke for a minute or two on indifferent topics, and went away.

I had scarcely unlocked the drawers of my writing-table next morning, when he reappeared.  I noticed that he came straight to the door in the glass partition, and did not pause a single moment outside.

‘Can you spare me two minutes, my dear Mr. Sampson?’

‘By all means.’

‘Much obliged,’ laying his hat and umbrella on the table; ‘I came early, not to interrupt you.  The fact is, I am taken by surprise in reference to this proposal my friend has made.’

‘Has he made one?’ said I.

‘Ye-es,’ he answered, deliberately looking at me; and then a bright idea seemed to strike him—‘or he only tells me he has.  Perhaps that may be a new way of evading the matter.  By Jupiter, I never thought of that!’

Mr. Adams was opening the morning’s letters in the outer office.  ‘What is the name, Mr. Slinkton?’ I asked.

‘Beckwith.’

I looked out at the door and requested Mr. Adams, if there were a proposal in that name, to bring it in.  He had already laid it out of his hand on the counter.  It was easily selected from the rest, and he gave it me.  Alfred Beckwith.  Proposal to effect a policy with us for two thousand pounds.  Dated yesterday.

‘From the Middle Temple, I see, Mr. Slinkton.’

‘Yes.  He lives on the same staircase with me; his door is opposite.  I never thought he would make me his reference though.’

‘It seems natural enough that he should.’

‘Quite so, Mr. Sampson; but I never thought of it.  Let me see.’  He took the printed paper from his pocket.  ‘How am I to answer all these questions?’

‘According to the truth, of course,’ said I.

‘O, of course!’ he answered, looking up from the paper with a smile; ‘I meant they were so many.  But you do right to be particular.  It stands to reason that you must be particular.  Will you allow me to use your pen and ink?’

‘Certainly.’

‘And your desk?’

‘Certainly.’

He had been hovering about between his hat and his umbrella for a place to write on.  He now sat down in my chair, at my blotting-paper and inkstand, with the long walk up his head in accurate perspective before me, as I stood with my back to the fire.

Before answering each question he ran over it aloud, and discussed it.  How long had he known Mr. Alfred Beckwith?  That he had to calculate by years upon his fingers.  What were his habits?  No difficulty about them; temperate in the last degree, and took a little too much exercise, if anything.  All the answers were satisfactory.  When he had written them all, he looked them over, and finally signed them in a very pretty hand.  He supposed he had now done with the business.  I told him he was not likely to be troubled any farther.  Should he leave the papers there? If he pleased.  Much obliged.  Good-morning.

I had had one other visitor before him; not at the office, but at my own house.  That visitor had come to my bedside when it was not yet daylight, and had been seen by no one else but by my faithful confidential servant.

A second reference paper (for we required always two) was sent down into Norfolk, and was duly received back by post.  This, likewise, was satisfactorily answered in every respect.  Our forms were all complied with; we accepted the proposal, and the premium for one year was paid.

IV.

For six or seven months I saw no more of Mr. Slinkton.  He called once at my house, but I was not at home; and he once asked me to dine with him in the Temple, but I was engaged.  His friend’s assurance was effected in March.  Late in September or early in October I was down at Scarborough for a breath of sea-air, where I met him on the beach.  It was a hot evening; he came toward me with his hat in his hand; and there was the walk I had felt so strongly disinclined to take in perfect order again, exactly in front of the bridge of my nose.

He was not alone, but had a young lady on his arm.

She was dressed in mourning, and I looked at her with great interest.  She had the appearance of being extremely delicate, and her face was remarkably pale and melancholy; but she was very pretty.  He introduced her as his niece, Miss Niner.

‘Are you strolling, Mr. Sampson?  Is it possible you can be idle?’

It was possible, and I was strolling.

‘Shall we stroll together?’

‘With pleasure.’

The young lady walked between us, and we walked on the cool sea sand, in the direction of Filey.

‘There have been wheels here,’ said Mr. Slinkton.  ‘And now I look again, the wheels of a hand-carriage!  Margaret, my love, your shadow without doubt!’

‘Miss Niner’s shadow?’ I repeated, looking down at it on the sand.

‘Not that one,’ Mr. Slinkton returned, laughing.  ‘Margaret, my dear, tell Mr. Sampson.’

‘Indeed,’ said the young lady, turning to me, ‘there is nothing to tell—except that I constantly see the same invalid old gentleman at all times, wherever I go.  I have mentioned it to my uncle, and he calls the gentleman my shadow.’

‘Does he live in Scarborough?’ I asked.

‘He is staying here.’

‘Do you live in Scarborough?’

‘No, I am staying here.  My uncle has placed me with a family here, for my health.’

‘And your shadow?’ said I, smiling.

‘My shadow,’ she answered, smiling too, ‘is—like myself—not very robust, I fear; for I lose my shadow sometimes, as my shadow loses me at other times.  We both seem liable to confinement to the house.  I have not seen my shadow for days and days; but it does oddly happen, occasionally, that wherever I go, for many days together, this gentleman goes.  We have come together in the most unfrequented nooks on this shore.’

‘Is this he?’ said I, pointing before us.

The wheels had swept down to the water’s edge, and described a great loop on the sand in turning.  Bringing the loop back towards us, and spinning it out as it came, was a hand-carriage, drawn by a man.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Niner, ‘this really is my shadow, uncle.’

As the carriage approached us and we approached the carriage, I saw within it an old man, whose head was sunk on his breast, and who was enveloped in a variety of wrappers.  He was drawn by a very quiet but very keen-looking man, with iron-gray hair, who was slightly lame.  They had passed us, when the carriage stopped, and the old gentleman within, putting out his arm, called to me by my name.  I went back, and was absent from Mr. Slinkton and his niece for about five minutes.

When I rejoined them, Mr. Slinkton was the first to speak.  Indeed, he said to me in a raised voice before I came up with him:

‘It is well you have not been longer, or my niece might have died of curiosity to know who her shadow is, Mr. Sampson.’

‘An old East India Director,’ said I.  ‘An intimate friend of our friend’s, at whose house I first had the pleasure of meeting you.  A certain Major Banks.  You have heard of him?’

‘Never.’

‘Very rich, Miss Niner; but very old, and very crippled.  An amiable man, sensible—much interested in you.  He has just been expatiating on the affection that he has observed to exist between you and your uncle.’

Mr. Slinkton was holding his hat again, and he passed his hand up the straight walk, as if he himself went up it serenely, after me.

‘Mr. Sampson,’ he said, tenderly pressing his niece’s arm in his, ‘our affection was always a strong one, for we have had but few near ties.  We have still fewer now.  We have associations to bring us together, that are not of this world, Margaret.’

‘Dear uncle!’ murmured the young lady, and turned her face aside to hide her tears.

‘My niece and I have such remembrances and regrets in common, Mr. Sampson,’ he feelingly pursued, ‘that it would be strange indeed if the relations between us were cold or indifferent.  If I remember a conversation we once had together, you will understand the reference I make.  Cheer up, dear Margaret.  Don’t droop, don’t droop.  My Margaret!  I cannot bear to see you droop!’

The poor young lady was very much affected, but controlled herself.  His feelings, too, were very acute.  In a word, he found himself under such great need of a restorative, that he presently went away, to take a bath of sea-water, leaving the young lady and me sitting by a point of rock, and probably presuming—but that you will say was a pardonable indulgence in a luxury—that she would praise him with all her heart.

She did, poor thing!  With all her confiding heart, she praised him to me, for his care of her dead sister, and for his untiring devotion in her last illness.  The sister had wasted away very slowly, and wild and terrible fantasies had come over her toward the end, but he had never been impatient with her, or at a loss; had always been gentle, watchful, and self-possessed.  The sister had known him, as she had known him, to be the best of men, the kindest of men, and yet a man of such admirable strength of character, as to be a very tower for the support of their weak natures while their poor lives endured.

‘I shall leave him, Mr. Sampson,