 Hunted Down by Charles Dickens This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read and recorded by SGA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hunted Down Most of us see romances in life. In my capacity of a chief manager of a life insurance office, I think I have within the last 30 years seen more romances than the generality of men, however unpromising the opportunity may at first sight seem. As I have retired and live at my ease, I possess the means that I used to want of considering what I have seen at Leisure. My experiences have a more remarkable aspect, so reviewed, than they had when they were in progress. I have come home from the play now, and can recall the scenes of the drama upon which curtain has fallen, free from the glare, bewilderment and bustle of the theatre. Let me recall one of these romances of the real world. There is nothing truer than the physiognomy taken in connection with manner. The art of reading that book of which eternal wisdom obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with individual character written on it is a difficult one, perhaps, and is little studied. It may require some natural aptitude, and it must require, for everything does, some patience and some pains. That these are not usually given to it, the number of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of the face as the whole list of characteristics to seek, nor know the refinements that are truest. At you, for instance, give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, if you please, and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you. I assume to be five hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps a little self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this. Facial expression requires no study from you. You think it comes by nature to you to know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in. I confess, for my part, that I have been taken in over and over again. I have been taken in by acquaintances, and I have been taken in, of course, by friends, far offener by friends than by any other class or persons. How came I be so deceived? Had I quite misread their faces? No. Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on face and the manner alone, was invariably true. My mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away. The partition which separated by own office from our general outer office in the city was of thick plate glass. I could see through it what passed in the outer office without hearing a word. I had it put in place of a wall that had been there for years, ever since the house was built. It is no matter whether I did or did not make the change in order that I might derive my first impression of strangers who came to us on business from their faces alone without being influenced by anything they said. Enough to mention that I turned my glass partition to that account and that a life assurance office is all times exposed to be practiced upon by the most crafty and cruel of the human race. It was through my glass partition that I first saw the gentleman whose story I am going to tell. He had come in without my observing it and had put his hat and his umbrella on the broad counter and was bending over to take some papers from one of the clerks. He was about 40 or so, dark, exceedingly well dressed in black, being in mourning, and the hand he extended with a polite air had a particularly well fitting black kid club upon it. His hair was elaborately brushed and oiled, was spotted straight up the middle and he presented this parting to the clerk exactly to my thinking. As if he had said in so many words, you must take me if you please my friend just as I show myself. Come straight up here, follow the gravel path, keep up the grass, I allow no trespassing. I conceived a very great aversion to that man the moment I thus saw him. He had asked for some of our printed forms and the clerk was giving them to him and explaining them and obliged an agreeable smile was on his face and his eyes met those of the clerk with a sprightly look. I have known a vast quantity of nonsense being talked about, bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week if there is anything to be got by it. I saw in the corner of his eyelash that he became aware of my looking at him. Immediately he turned the parting in his head towards the glass partition as if he said to me with a sweet smile. Straight up here if you please, off the grass in a few moments he had put on his hat and taken up his umbrella and was gone. I beckoned the clerk into my room and asked who was that? He had a gentleman's guard in his hand, Mr. Julius Slington Middle Temple, a badister, Mr. Adams. I think not, sir. I should have thought him a clergyman but for his having no reverent here, said I. Probably from his appearance, Mr. Adams replied, he is weeding for orders. I should mention that he wore a dainty white cravat and a dainty linen altogether. What did he want, Mr. Adams? Merely a form of proposal, sir, and a form of reference. Recommended here, did he say? Yes. He said he was recommended here by a friend of yours. He noticed you, but said that as he had not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance he would not trouble you. Did you know my name? Oh yes, sir, he said. There is Mr. Samson, I see. A well-spoken gentleman, apparently. Remarkably so, sir. Insinuating manners, apparently. Very much so indeed, sir. Ha! said I. I was nothing at present, Mr. Adams. Within a fortnight of that day I went to dine with a friend of mine, a merchant, a man of taste, who buys pictures and books, and the first man I saw among the company was Mr. Julius Slainton. There he was, standing before the fire with good, large eyes and an open expression of face. But still, I thought, requiring everybody to come at him by the prepared way he offered and by no other. I noticed him ask my friend to introduce him to Mr. Samson, and my friend did so. Mr. Slainton was very happy to see me. Not too happy. There was no overdoing of the matter. Happy in a thoroughly well-bred, perfectly unmeaning way. I thought you had met, our host observed. No, said Mr. Slainton. I did look in at Mr. Samson's office on your recommendation, but I really did not feel justified in troubling Mr. Samson himself on a point in the everyday routine of an ordinary clerk. I said I should have been glad to show him any attention on our friend's introduction. I'm sure of that, said he, and I much obliged. At another time, perhaps, I may be less delicate. Only, however, if I had real business for I know, Mr. Samson, how precious your business time is and what a vast number of impertinent people there are in the world. I acknowledged his consideration with a slight bow. You were thinking, said I, of affecting a policy on your life. Oh, dear no! I'm afraid I'm not so prudent as you pay me the compliment of supposing me to be, Mr. Samson. I'm merely inquired for a friend. But you know what friends are in such matters. Nothing may ever come of it. I have the great reluctance to trouble men of business with inquiries for friends, knowing the probabilities to be a thousand to one that the friends will never follow them up. People are so fickle, so selfish, so inconsiderate. Don't you in your business find them so everyday, Mr. Samson? I was going to give a qualified answer, but he turned his smooth, white parting on me with its straight up here, if you please, and I answered yes. I hear, Mr. Samson, he resumed presently, for our friend had a new cook and dinner was not so punctual as usual, that his profession has recently suffered a great loss. In money, said I, he laughed at my ready association of loss with money and replied, no, in talent and vigor. Not at once following out his illusion, I considered for a moment. Has it sustained the loss of that kind, said I. I was not aware of it. Understand me, Mr. Samson, I don't imagine that you have retired. It's not so bad as that, but Mr. Meltham. Oh, to be sure, said I. Yes, Mr. Meltham, the young actuary of the inestimable. Just so, he returned in a consoling way. He's a great loss. He was at once the most profound, the most original and the most energetic man I've ever known connected with life assurance. I spoke strongly, for I had a highest esteem and admiration for Meltham and my gentleman had indefinitely conveyed to me some suspicion that he wanted to sneer at him. He recalled me to my guard by presenting that trim pathway up his head with its infernal, not on the grass, if you please, to gravel. You knew him, Mr. Slington? Only by reputation. To have known him as an acquaintance or as a friend is an honour I should have sought if he had remained in society, though I might never have had the good fortune to attain it, being a man of far inferior mark. He was scarcely above thirty, I suppose. About thirty? Ah, he signed in his former consoling way. What creatures we are to break up, Mr. Samson, and become incapable of business at that time of life? Any reason assigned for the melancholy fact? Humph, thought I, as I looked at him. But I won't go up the track, and I will go on the grass. What reason have you heard assigned, Mr. Slington? I asked point blank. Most likely a false one. You know what rumour is, Mr. Samson. I never repeat what I hear. It is the only way of batting the nails and shaving the head of rumour. But when you ask me what reason I have heard assigned for Mr. Meltham's passing away from among men, it is another thing. I am not gratifying idle gossip then. I was told, Mr. Samson, that Mr. Meltham had relinquished all his advocations and all its prospects, because he was in fact brokenhearted. A disappointed attachment I heard, though it hardly seems probable in the case of a man so distinguished and so attractive. Attractions and distinctions are no armour against death, said I. Oh, she died? Pray pardon me. I did not hear that. That indeed makes me very, very sad. Poor Mr. Meltham. She died. Ah, dear me. Lamentable, lamentable. I still thought his pity was not quite genuine, and I still suspected an unaccountable sneer under all this, until he said, as we were parted, like the other knots of talkers, by the announcement of dinner, Mr. Samson, you are surprised to see me so moved on behalf of a man whom I have never known. I am not so disinterested as you may suppose. I have suffered, and recently too, from death myself. I have lost one of my two charming nieces, who were my constant companions. She died young, barely three and twenty, and even her remaining sister is far from strong. The world is grave. He said this with deep feeling, and I feel reproached for the coldness of my manner. Coldness and distrust have been engendered in me I knew from my bad experiences. They were not natural to me, and I often thought how much I had lost in life, losing trustfulness, and how little I have gained, gaining hard caution. The state of mind being habitual to me, I troubled myself more about this conversation than I might have troubled myself about a greater matter. I listened to his talk at dinner, and observed how readily other men responded to it, and with what graceful instinct he adapted his subjects to the knowledge and habits of those he talked with. As in talking with me, he had easily started the subject I might have supposed to understand best, and to be the most interested in. So in talking with others, he guided himself by the same rule. The company was a varied character, but he was not at fault, that I could discover with any member of it. He knew just as much of each man's pursuit as made him agreeable to that man in reference to it, and searched as little as made it natural in him to seek the modesty for information when the theme was broached. As he talked and talked, but really not too 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 than 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 apparent 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 the lion is hidden, and a very little key will open a very heavy door. I took 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. Slington. 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 help. 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 a true explanation of his interest in poor Malcolm, and that I had been almost brutal in my distrust on that simple head. 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. Samson, good day! I presume you see my fine 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 call to inquire outside whether my dilate-free 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 that is a specialty about assuring one's life. You find it like will-making. People are so superstitious, and take it for granted that they will die soon afterwards. Up here, if you please. Straight up here, Mr. Samson. Neither to the right, nor to the left. I almost fancied I could hear him breathe those 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, he said 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 different topics and went away. I had scarcely unlocked the drawers of my writing table next morning when he reappeared. I noticed 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. Samson? 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 the reference to this proposal my friend has made. Has he made one? said I. Yes, 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 his name, Mr. Slinkton? I asked. 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 to me. Alfred Beckwith, proposal to effect the policy with us for £2,000, dated yesterday. From 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 would. It seems natural enough that he should. Quite so, Mr. Samson. 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. Oh, of course, he answered, looking up from the paper with a smile. I meant there 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. He now sat down in my chair at my blotting paper and ink stand with a long walk up his head in an accurate perspective before me as I stood with my back to the fire. Before answering each question, he ran it over 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 any. 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 further. Should he leave the papers there? If he pleased, much obliged. Good morning. I had one other visitor before him, not at the office, but at my own home. That visitor had come to my bedside when it was not yet daylight and had been seen by no one else but my faithful, confidential servant. A second reference paper, for we required always to, was sent down into Norfolk and was duly received back by post. This likewise was satisfactorily answered in every respect. Our firms were all complied with. We accepted the proposal and the premium for one year was paid. For six or seven months I saw no more of Mr. Slington. He called once at my house when 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 affected in March. Late in September or early in October, I was down at Scarborough for a breath of sea air when I met him on the beach. It was a hot evening. He came toward me with his hat in his hand and there was a walk I 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 moaning 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. Samson? 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 Philly. There have been wheels here, said Mr. Slington, 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 on the sand. Not that one, Mr. Slington returned laughing. Margaret, my dear, tell Mr. Samson. 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 help. 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. You 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 on the most unfrequented nooks on this shore. Is this he? said I, pointing before us. The wheels had swept down the water's edge and describing a great loop on the sand and turning. Bringing the hoop 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 and 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. Slington and his niece for about five minutes. When I rejoined them, Mr. Slington 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. Samson. An old East India director said, I, an intimate friend of our friends, 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. Slington was holding his hat again and he passed his hand up the straight walk as he himself went up it serenely after me. Mr. Samson, 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. To her uncle, Muhammad the young lady, and turned her face aside to hide her tears. My niece and I had such remembrances and regrets in common, Mr. Samson. He feelingly pursued that it would be strange indeed if the relations between us were cold or indifferent. If I remember a conversation we have 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 a great need of a restorative that he presently went away to take a bath of seawater. 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 her 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 to at 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 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. Samson, very soon, said the young lady. I know my life is drawing to an end and, when I am gone, I hope he will marry and be happy. I am sure he has lived single so long only for my sake and for my poor, poor sisters. The little hand carriage had made another great loop on the damp sand and was coming back again, gradually spinning out a slim figure of eight, half a mile long. Young lady, said I, looking round, laying my hand upon her arm and speaking in a low voice. Time presses. You hear the gentle murmur of that, see? She looked at me with utmost wonder and alarm, saying, Yes. And you know what a voice is in it when the storm comes. Yes. A light and peaceful little light is before us and you know what an awful sight of power without pity it might be this very night. Yes. But if you have never heard or seen it or heard of it in its cruelty, could you believe that it beats every inanimate thing in its way to pieces without mercy and destroys life without remorse? You terrify me, sir, by these questions. To save you, young lady, to save you for God's sake, collect your strength and collect your firmness. If you were here alone and hemmed in by the rising tide on the floor to fifty feet above your head, you could not be in greater danger than the danger you are now to be saved from. The figure on the sand was spun out and straggled off into a crooked little jerk that ended the cliff very near us. As I am before, heaven and the judge of all mankind, your friend and your dear sister's friend, I solemnly entreat you, Miss Naina, without one moment's loss of time to come to this gentleman with me. If the little carriage had been less near to us, I doubt if I could have got her away. But it was so near that we were there before she had recovered the hurry of being urged from the rock. I did not remain there with her two minutes. Certainly within five, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her from the point we had sat on to which I had returned. Half supported and half carried up, some rude steps notched in the cliff by the figure of an active man. With that figure beside her, I knew she was safe anywhere. I sat alone on the rock awaiting Mr. Slington's return. The twilight was deepening and the shadows were heavy when he came round the point, with his hat hanging at his buttonhole smoothing his wet hair with one of his hands and picking up the old path with the other and a pocket comb. My niece not here, Mr. Samson, he said looking around. Miss Naina seemed to feel a little chill in the air after the sun was down and has gone home. He looked surprised and asked him to do anything without him, even to originate, so slight to proceeding. I persuaded Miss Naina, I explained. Ah, said he. She is easily persuaded for her good. Thank you, Mr. Samson. She is better within doors. The bathing place was further than I thought to say the truth. Miss Naina is very delicate, I observed. He shook his head, drew a deep sigh. Very, very, very. You may recollect me saying so. The time that has since intervened has not strengthened her. The gloomy shadow that fell upon her sister so early in life seems in my anxious eyes to gather over her, ever darker, ever darker. Dear Margaret, dear Margaret, but we must hope. The hand carriage was spinning away before us at most in decorous space for an invalid vehicle and was making most irregular curves upon the sand. Mr. Slington, noticing it, after he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said, If I may judge from appearances, your friend will be absurd, Mr. Samson. It looks probable, certainly, said I. The servant must be drunk. The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk sometimes, said I. The Major draws very light, Mr. Samson. The Major does draw light, said I. By this time the carriage, much to my relief, was lost in the darkness. We walked on for a little, side by side over the sand in silence. After a short while, he said, in a voice still affected by the emotion that his niece's state of health had awakened to him. Do you stay here long, Mr. Samson? Oh, I know. I'm going away tonight. So soon. But business always holds you in request. Men like Mr. Samson are too important to others to be spared to their own need of relaxation and enjoyment. I don't know about that, said I. However, I am going back. To London. To London. I shall be there, too, soon after you. I knew that as well as he did. But I did not tell him so. Any more than I told him what defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my pocket as I walked by his side. Any more than I told him why I did not walk on the seaside of him with the night closing in. We left the beach and our ways diverged. We exchanged good night and had parted indeed when he said returning. Mr. Samson, may I ask poor Melton, whom we spoke of, dead yet? Not when I last heard of him, but too broken a man to live long and hopelessly lost to his old calling. Dear, dear, dear, said he with great feeling. Sad, sad, sad. The world is grave. And so went his way. It was not his fault if the world were not a grave. But I did not call that observation after him. Any more than that I had mentioned those other things just now enumerated. He went his way and I went mine with all expedition. This happened as I have said either to the end of September or beginning of October. The next I saw him and the last time was late in November. I had a very particular engagement to breakfast in the temple. It was a bitter northeasterly morning and the sleet and slush lay inches deep in the streets. I could get no conveyance and was soon wed to the knees. But I should have been true to that appointment, though I had to wait to it up to my neck in the same impediments. The appointment took me to the chambers in the temple. They were at the top of the lonely corner house overlooking the river. The name, Mr. Alfred Beckwith, was painted on the outer door. On the door opposite on the same landing the name Mr. Julius Slington. The doors of both sets of chambers stood open so that anything said aloud in one set could be heard in the other. I had never been in those chambers before. They were dismal, close, unwholesome and oppressive. The furniture, originally good and not yet old, was faded and dirty. The rooms were in great disorder. There was a strong, prevailing smell of opium, brandy and tobacco. The grates and fire irons were splashed all over with unsightly blotches of rust and on a sofa by the fire in the room where breakfast had been prepared lay the host, Mr. Beckwith. A man with all appearances of the worst kind of drunkard lay far advanced upon his shameful way to death. Slington has not come yet, said this creature, staggering up when I went in. I'll call him. Hello, Julius Caesar. Come and drink. As he hoarsely roared this out he beat the poker and tongued together in a mad way as if that were his usual manner of summoning his associate. The voice Mr. Slington was heard through the clatter from the opposite side of the staircase, and he came in. He had not expected the pleasure of meeting me. I have seen several artful men brought to a stag, but I never saw a man so aghast as he was when his eyes rested on mine. Julius Caesar, cried Beckwith, staggering between us, Mr. Samson, Mr. Samson, Julius Caesar, Julius, Mr. Samson Mr. Samson is a friend of my soul. Julius keeps me piled with liquor morning, noon and night. Julius is a real benefactor. Julius threw the tea and coffee out of the window when I used to have any. Julius empties all the water jugs of their content and fills them with spirits. Julius winds me up and keeps me going. Boil the brandy, Julius. There was a rusty and furious saucepan in the ashes. The ashes looked like the accumulation of weeks, and Beckwith, rolling and staggering between us as he were going to plunge headlong into the fire, got the saucepan out, and tried to force it into Slington's hand. Boil the brandy, Julius Caesar. Come, do your usual office. Boil the brandy. He became so fierce in his gesticulation with the saucepan that I expected to see him lay open Slington's head with it. I therefore put out my hand to check him. He reeled back to the sofa, sat there panting, shaking and red-eyed, in his rags of a dressing gown, looking at us both. I noticed then that there was nothing to drink on the table but brandy, and nothing to eat but salted herrings and a hot, sickly, highly peppered stew. At all events, Mr. Samson, said Slington, offering me the smooth gravel path for the last time. I thank you for interfering between me and this unfortunate man's violence. However you came here, Mr. Samson, or with whatever motive you came here, at least I thank you for that. Boil the brandy, muttered Beckwith. Without gratifying his desire to know how I came there, I said quietly, how is your niece, Mr. Slington? He looked hard at me and I looked hard at him. I am sorry to say, Mr. Samson, that my niece has proved treacherous and ungrateful to her best friend. She left me without a word of notice or explanation. She was misled, no doubt, by some designing rascal. Perhaps you may have heard of it. I did hear that she was misled by a designing rascal. In fact, I have proof of it. Are you sure of that? said he. Quiet. Boil the brandy, muttered Beckwith. Company to breakfast, Julius Caesar, do your usual office. Provide the usual breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Boil the brandy. The eyes of Slington looked from him to me and he said, after a moment's consideration, Mr. Samson, you're a man of the world and so am I. I will be plain with you. Oh, no, you won't, said I, shaking my head. I tell you, sir, I will be plain with you. And I tell you, you will not, said I. I know all about you. You, plain with anyone? Nonsense. Nonsense. I plainly tell you, Mr. Samson, he went on, with a manner almost composed, that I understand your object. You want to save your funds and escape from your liabilities. These are old tricks of the trade with you office gentlemen. But you will not do it, sir. You will not succeed. You have not an easy adversary to play against when you play against me. We shall have to inquire in due time when and how Mr. Beckwith fell into his present habits. With that remark, sir, I put this poor creature and his incoherent wanderings of speech aside and wish you a good morning and a better case next time. When he was saying this, Beckwith filled the half-pined glass with brandy. At this moment, he threw the brandy at his face and threw the glass extended with the spirit and cut with the glass across the forehead. At the sound of the breakage, a fourth person came into the room closing the door and stood at it. He was a very quiet but very keen-looking man with iron gray hair and slightly lame. Slington pulled out his handkerchief, assuaged the pain in his sparting eyes and dabbled the blood on his forehead. He was a long time about it and I saw that in doing of it a tremendous change came over him occasioned by the change in Beckwith who ceased to pant and tremble, sat upright and never took his eyes off him. I never in my life saw a face in which aberrance and determination was so forcefully painted as in Beckwith's then. Look at me, you villain, said Beckwith, and see me as I really am. I took these rooms to make them a trap for you. I came into them as a drunkard to bait the trap for you. You fell into the trap and you will never leave it alive. On the morning when you last went to see Mr. Samson's office I had seen him first. Your plot had been known to both of us all along and you have been counter-plotted all along. What? Have you been cajoled into putting the prize of two-thousand pounds in your power? I was to be done to death with Brandy and Brandy not proving quick enough with something quicker. Have I never seen you when you thought my sense is gone pouring your little bottle into my glass? Why you murderer and forger alone here with you in the dead of night as I have so often been? I have had my hand upon the trigger of a pistol twenty times to blow your brains out. The sudden starting up the thing that he had supposed to be his imbecile victim into a determined man with a settled resolution to hunt him down and be the death of him mercilessly expressed from head to foot was in the first shock too much for him. Without any figure of speech he staggered under it. But there is no greater mistake than to suppose that a man who is a calculating criminal is in any phase of his guilt otherwise then true to himself and perfectly consistent with his whole character. Such a man commits murder and murder is the natural culmination of his course. Such a man has to outface murder and will do it with hardyhood and effrontery. It is the sort of fashion to express surprise that any notorious criminal having such a crime upon his conscience can so brave it out. Do you think that he had it in his conscience at all or had a conscience to have it upon? He would ever have committed the crime? Perfectly consistent with himself as I believe all such monsters to be the slington recovered himself and showed a defiance that was sufficiently cold and quiet. He was white he was haggard and he was changed but only as a sharper who had played for a great steak and had been outpitted and had lost the game. Listen to me you villain said backward and let every word you hear me say be a stab in your wicked heart. When I took these rooms to throw myself in your way and lead you on the scheme that I knew my appearance and supposed character and habits and such a devil how did I know that? Because you were no stranger to me I knew you to be the cruel wretch who for so much money had killed one innocent girl while she trusted him implicitly and who was by inches killing another. Slington took out a snap box took a pinch of snap and laughed but see here said back with never looking away never raising his voice never relaxing his face never unclenching his hand see what a dull wolf you have been after all the infatuated drunkard who never drank a fiftieth part of liquor you plied him with but poured it away here, there, everywhere almost before your eyes who brought over the fellow you set to watch him and to ply him by outbidding you in his bribe before he had been at his work three days with whom you have observed no caution yet who was so bent on bidding the earth of you as a wild beast that he would have defeated you if you had been ever so prudent that drunkard whom you have many a time left on the floor of this room and who has even let you go out of it alive and undeceived when you had turned him over with your foot has almost as often on the same night within an hour within a few minutes watched you awake had his hand at your pillow when you were asleep turned over your papers taken samples from your bottles and packets of powder changed their content rifled every secret in your life he had had another pinch of snuff in his hand but had gradually let it drop between his fingers to the floor and he now smoothened it out with his foot looking down at it the while that drunkard said back with who had free access to your rooms at all times that he might drink the strong drinks that you left in his way and be sooner ended holding no more terms with you that he would hold with a tiger has had his master key for all your locks his tests for all your poisons his clue to your cipher writing he can tell you as well as you can tell him how long it took to complete the deed what doses there were what intervals what signs of gradual decay upon mind and body what distempered fancies were produced what observable changes what physical pain he can tell you as well as you can tell him that all this was recorded day by day as a lesson of experience for future service he can tell you better than you can tell him where that journal is at this moment slinked and stopped the action of his foot and looked at back with no said the latter as if answering a question from him not in the drawer of the writing desk that opens with the spring it is not there and it never will be there again then you are a thief said slinkton without any change whatever in the inflexible purpose which it was quite terrific even to me to contemplate and from the power of which I had always felt convinced it was impossible for this wretch to escape back with the return and I am your nieces shadow too with an implication slinkton put his hand to his head tore out some hair and flung it to the ground it was the end of the smooth walk he destroyed it in the action and will soon be seen that his use for it was passed back with went on whenever you left here I left here although I understood that you found it necessary to pause in the completion of that purpose to avert suspicion still I watched you close with that poor confiding girl when I had the diary I could read it word by word it was only about the night before your last visit to Scarborough you remember the night you slept with a small flat vial tied to your wrist I sent to Mr. Samson who was kept out of view this is Mr. Samson's trusty servant standing by the door v3 saved your niece among us slinkton looked at us all took an uncertain step or two in the place where he had stood returned to it and glanced about him in a very curious way as one of the meaner reptiles might looking for a hole to hide in I noticed at the same time that a singular change took place in the figure of the man as if it collapsed within his clothes and they consequently became ill-shaven and ill-fitting you shall know said Beckwith for I hope the knowledge will be bitter and terrible to you why you have been pursued by one man and why when the whole interest that Mr. Samson represents would have expended any money in hunting you down you have been tracked to death at a single individual's charge I hear you have had the name of Malthum on your lips sometimes I saw in addition to those other changes a sudden stoppage came upon his breathing when you send the sweet girl whom you murdered you know with what artfully made out surroundings and probabilities you sent her to Malthum's office before taking her abroad to originate the transaction that doomed her to the grave it fell to Malthum's lot to see her and to speak with her it did not fall to his lot to save her though I knew he would freely give up his own life to have done it I admired her I would say he loved her deeply if I thought it possible that you could understand the word when she was sacrificed he was thoroughly assured of your guilt having lost her he had but one object left in life and that was to avenge her and destroy you I saw the villain's nostril rise and fall convulsively but I saw no moving at his mouth that man Malthum Beckwith steadily pursued was as absolutely certain that you could never elude him in this world if he devoted himself to a destruction with his utmost fidelity and earnestness and if he divided the sacred duty with no other duty in life as he was certain that in achieving it he would be a poor instrument in the hand of Providence and would do well before heaven in striking you from among living men I am that man and I thank God that I have done my work if Slington had been running for his life from swift-footed savages a dozen miles he could not have shown more empathetic signs of being oppressed at heart and libering for breath than he showed now when he looked at the pursuer who had so relentlessly hunted him down you never saw me under my right name before you see me under my right name now you shall see me once again in the body when you are tried for your life you shall see me once again in the spirit when the cord is around your neck and the crowds are crying against you when Malthum had spoken these last words the miscreant suddenly turned his face away and seemed to strike his mouth with his open hand at the same instant in new and powerful order and almost at the same time he broke into a crooked run leap-start I have no name for the spasm and fell with a dull weight that shook the heavy old doors and windows in their frames that was a fitting end of him when we saw that he was dead we drew away from the room and Malthum giving me his hand said with a weary air I have no more work on earth my friend but I shall see her again elsewhere it was in vain that I tried to rally him he might have saved her he said he had not saved her and he reproached himself he had lost her and he was broken hearted the purpose that has sustained me over Samson and there is nothing now to hold to life I am not fit for life I am weak and spiritless and I have no object my day is done in truth I could hardly have believed that a broken man who then spoke to me was the man who had so strongly and so differently impressed me when his purpose was before him I used such entries with him as I could but he still said and always said in a patient undemonstrative way nothing could avail him he died early in the next spring he was buried by the side of the poor young lady for whom he had cherished those tender and unhappy regrets and he left all he had to his sister she lived to be a happy wife and mother she married my sister's son who succeeded poor Melton she is living now and her children ride about the garden on my walking stick and go to see her End of Hunted Down by Charles Dickens