Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/286

282 surprise, it emitted a sharp metallic sound. It was not empty, then, although it appeared so. A moment's examination showed the detective that he had succeeded in obtaining the object of his search; the bag had been used for money, and a small coin had lodged in the seam at one corner of the bottom of it, and had stuck so firmly as not to be easily shaken out. This, in the murderer's hurried ransacking of the cabinet, in his blind fury at not finding the sum he expected to obtain, had naturally escaped him. The piece of money was a small gold coin, only half the value of the one found by the landlord, but of the same date and style.

Mr. Peters gave his fingers a triumphant snap, which aroused the attention of Mr. Darley; and, with a glance expressive of the pride in his art which is peculiar to your true genius, held up the little piece of dingy gold.

"By Jove!" exclaimed the admiring Gus, "you've got it, then! Egad, Peters, I think you'd make evidence, if there wasn't any."

"Eight years of that young man's life, sir," said the rapid fingers, "has been sacrificed to the stupidity of them as should have pulled him through."

Mr. Peters, assisted by Richard's sincere friend, the young surgeon, made the visit above described, Daredevil Dick counted the hours in London. It was essential to the success of his cause, Gus and Peters urged, that he should not show himself, or in any way reveal the fact of his existence, till the real murderer was arrested. Let the truth appear to all the world, and then time enough for Richard to come forth, with an unbranded forehead, in the sight of his fellow-men. But when he heard that Raymond Marolles had given his pursuers the slip, and was off, no one knew where, it was all that his mother, his friend Percy Cordonner, Isabella Darley, and the lawyers to whom he had intrusted his cause, could do, to prevent his starting that instant on the track of the guilty man. It was a weary day, this day of the failure of the arrest, for all. Neither his mother's tender consolation, nor his solicitor's assurances that all was not yet lost, could moderate the young man's impatience. Neither Isabella's tearful prayers that he would leave the issue in the hands of Heaven, nor Mr. Cordonner's philosophical recommendation to take it quietly and let the "beggar" go, could keep him quiet. He felt like a caged lion, whose ignoble bonds kept him from the vile object of his rage. The day wore out, however, and no tidings came of the fugitive. Mr. Cordonner insisted on stopping with his friend till three o'clock in the morning, and at that very late hour set out, with the