Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/138

27, 1861.] “Well, where did you drive the middy after I left you!you? [sic]”

“Eccleston Square, and then the young lady—beg pardon, sir, the young gentleman—gave me two sovereigns, and told me to drive away, and lot look back.”

“You pretended to drive away?”

“I diddid, [sic] sir.”

“You looked back?”

“I did, sir.”

“You know where the midshipman went?”

“I do, sir.”

“You are not rich?”

“I am not, sir.”

“Now just tell me why you have not informed the police.”

“Oh! for several reasons, sir. First place, though I am a poor cabby, I have my feelinxs, and wouldn’t go for to betray a young gentleman who gave me two sovereigns.”

“Nonsense,” interrupted I.

“Next place, sir, you see, I never likes to press hard upon ladies.”

“Cabby, do you take me for a fool?”

“Third place, you see, sir, I have been in trouble more than once, and I don’t like them perlice, and don’t care to show my face before them for any reason.”

“Well, I can understand that,” I said. “Now, there’s a sovereign for you—you don’t mind telling me, I suppose, where the middy went?”

“No, sir, not a bit; but you didn’t hear my fourth and chiefest reason for not going to the perlice. Fact is, I don’t know where the dickens the middy did go to. I did not look back soon enough. I twigged her going towards No. 1, Eccleston Square, and when I looked back she warn’t in sight, so then I drives back to No. 1. A flunkey comes to the door, so says I, ‘John, your young master has left summat in my cab.’ ‘Go to the dogs!’ said he. ‘Oh, yes!’ said I, ‘by all means; but, now, here is half-a-crown, John Thomas, you tell me who your young master is.’ He pocketed my half-crown, and then told me that the middy had nothing to do with the house, that he had only asked if Sir Jasper Blares lived there, and on being told ‘No,’ had bolted round the corner. So then I axed the flunkey to give me back my half-crown, or, at any rate, to come and have it out in drink. The mean fellow told me, if I was not off directly, he would give me in charge at once. So, as I seed a Bobby a-coming up the square, I drove off. Now, sir, I know as little about the middy as you do. If I knew more, do you think I wouldn’t go to the perlice, and get five hundred pounds instead of this here sovereign—much obliged to you for it, all the same. Good morning, sir.”

He drove off.

“Done by a cabman!” was my exclamation. Well, I had done the detectives; that was one consolation.

Six months elapsed, and again I found myself in the detective’s house. Meanwhile the reward for the lady fugitive had been increased to the extraordinary sum of 1000l., while that for the gentleman had been withdrawn.

“Well, Mr. Sharp, any news yet of the runaway?”

“Not a bit, sir; not a bit. It is extraordinary. I did not think we detectives could be so deceived; and let me tell you, sir, that though the reward in the public papers has been increased to £1000, yet that to us actually £3000 is offered, only it is not considered prudent to advertise so large a reward. You would be surprised if you knew what means have been taken to secure the young lady, and without success. A detective at every station out of London—one at each principal port in England; all the lodging-houses, boarding-houses, and public places of assembly in town have been narrowly watched; a detective has been sent to every county in England to pry about—go to inns, farm-houses, schools, and every place he can legally or illegally put his nose into; false entrapping advertisements inserted in the papers, and actually all to no purpose. However, we will have her yet. The reward will not be paid unless she is discovered within a year from this date.”

“You will not find her, I expect,” said I.

“We shall see, sir,” replied he.

After a little more conversation I took my departure. Without being in any way able to account for it, or to reason on the subject, I felt I should first stumble on the lady in question. Not many days later, one idle Saturday afternoon, I went with a friend to a private lunatic asylum some little way out of London; he to see a relation confined there, whom he considered it his duty to have a look at now and then; I, out of mere curiosity to inspect such a place. Arrived at the asylum, he went off at once with the mistress of the establishment; I, under the charge of a female warder, was taken round such parts as are shown to a visitor. In one room was a girl with long dishevelled dark hair, and blue eyes, swinging on a rope hanging from the ceiling. She was dressed in Turkish fashion. Strange! thought I; dark hair, blue eyes. “What is the matter with her?” I inquired.

“Oh, she is mad, but harmless enough; her friends are very rich. She has a fancy for dressing so, and the mistress allows her. At times she is not so bad, and then she lives quite alone with the mistress. She is always worse when she sees strangers, and talks mere nonsense when they are present. Listen to her. She is singing such rubbish now.”

And so she was, but yet there was a method in her jumble of songs, such, I almost fancied, as a person might be driven to use who wished to feign madness. I eyed her intently. She was looking at me with apparent carelessness. ‘Can it be she?’ thought I. ‘Oh, no, it cannot. She would surely recognise me.’ At that moment I bethought me of the pearl ring. Generally I wore it with the pearls turned inside to the palm of the hand. I lifted up my finger, and deliberately turned round to her full view the conspicuous part of the ring. With a shriek of anything but madness she ran away.

“Oh, she is gone,” said my companion, “to the mistress’s private room. She can always go there when she likes.”