Johnny Ludlow, Third Series. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ wakened up and come home long ago. As to the Ravine, in spite of Tod’s suspicions that he might be there, I was sure the little fellow would not have ventured into it.

      I stood on, in the dark night, waiting for Tod to come back again. It felt awfully desolate now Luke Mackintosh had gone. The ghost light did not show again. I rather wished it would, for company. He came at last—Tod, not the ghost. I had heard him shouting, and nothing answered but the echoes. A piece of his coat was torn, and some brambles were sticking to him, and the lantern was broken; what dangerous places he had pushed himself into could never be told.

      “I wonder you’ve come out with whole limbs, Tod.”

      “Hold your peace, Johnny,” was all the retort I got; and his voice rose nearly to a shout in its desperate sorrow.

      Morning came, but no news with it, no Hugh. Tod had been about all night. With daylight, the fields, and all other seemingly possible places, were searched. Tom Coney went knocking at every house in North and South Crabb, and burst into cottages, and turned over, so to say, all the dwellings in that savoury locality, Crabb Lane, but with no result. The Squire was getting anxious; but none of us had ventured to tell him of our especial cause for anxiety, or to speak of Alfred Arne.

      It appeared nearly certain now, to us, that he had gone with Alfred Arne, and, after a private consultation with Mrs. Todhetley, Tod and I set out in search of the man. She still wished to spare the knowledge of his visit to the Squire, if possible.

      We had not far to go. Mrs. Todhetley’s fears went ranging abroad to London, or Liverpool, or the Coral Islands beyond the sea, of which Arne had talked to Hugh: but Arne was found at Timberdale. In an obscure lodging in the further outskirts of the place, the landlord of which, a man named Cookum, was a bad character, and very shy of the police, Arne was found. We might have searched for him to the month’s end, but for Luke Mackintosh. When Luke arrived at Timberdale in the middle of the night, ordered there by Tod to make inquiries at the police-station, he saw a tipsy man slink into Cookum’s house, and recognized him for the one who had recently been exciting speculation at home. Luke happened to mention this to Tod, not connecting Hugh with it at all, simply as a bit of gossip: of course it was not known who Arne was, or his name, or what he had been waiting for.

      We had a fight to get in. Cookum came leaping down the crazy stairs, and put himself in our way in the passage, swearing we should not go on. Tod lifted his strong arm.

      “I mean to go on, Cookum,” he said, in a slow, quiet voice that had determination in every tone of it. “I have come to see a man named Arne. I don’t want to do him any ill, or you either; but, see him, I will. If you do not move out of my way I’ll knock you down.”

      Cookum stood his ground. He was short, slight, and sickly, with a puffy face and red hair; a very reed beside Tod.

      “There ain’t no man here of that name. There ain’t no man here at all.”

      “Very well. Then you can’t object to letting me see that there is not.”

      “I swear that you shan’t see, master. There!”

      Tod flung him aside. Cookum, something like an eel, slipped under Tod’s arm, and was in front of him again.

      “I don’t care to damage you, Cookum, as you must see I could do, and force my way in over your disabled body; you look too weak for it. But I’ll either go in so, or the police shall clear an entrance for me.”

      The mention of the police scared the man; I saw it in his face. Tod kept pushing on and the man backing, just a little.

      “I won’t have no police here. What is it you want?”

      “I have told you once. A man named Arne.”

      “I swear then that I never knowed a man o’ that name; let alone having him in my place.”

      And he spoke with such passionate fervour that it struck me Arne did not go by his own name: which was more than probable. They were past the stairs now, and Cookum did not seem to care to guard them. The nasty passage, long and narrow, had a door at the end. Tod thought that must be the fortress.

      “You are a great fool, Cookum. I’ve told you that I mean no harm to you or to any one in the place; so to make this fuss is needless. You may have a band of felons concealed here, or a cart-load of stolen goods; they are all safe for me. But if you force me to bring in the police it might be a different matter.”

      Perhaps the argument told on the man; perhaps the tone of reason it was spoken in; but he certainly seemed to hesitate.

      “You can’t prove that to me, sir: not that there’s any felons or things in here. Show me that you don’t mean harm, and you shall go on.”

      “Have you a stolen child here?”

      Cookum’s mouth opened with genuine surprise. “A stolen child!”

      “We have lost a little boy. I have reason to think that a man who was seen to enter this passage in the middle of the night knows something of him, and I have come to ask and see. Now you know all. Let me go on.”

      The relief on the man’s face was great. “Honour bright, sir.”

      “Don’t stand quibbling, man,” roared Tod passionately. “Yes!”

      “I’ve got but one man in all the place. He have no boy with him, he haven’t.”

      “But he may know something of one. What’s his name?”

      “All the name he’ve given me is Jack.”

      “I dare say it’s the same. Come! you are wasting time.”

      But Cookum, doubtful still, never moved. They were close to the door now, and he had his back against it. Tod turned his head.

      “Go for the two policemen, Johnny. They are both in readiness, Cookum. I looked in at the station as I came by, to say I might want them.”

      Before I could get out, Cookum howled out to me not to go, as one in mortal fear. He took a latch-key from his pocket, and put it into the latch of the door, which had no other fastening outside, not even a handle. “You can open it yourself,” said he to Tod, and slipped away.

      It might have been a sort of kitchen but that it looked more like a den, with nothing to light it but a dirty sky-light above. The floor was of red brick; a tea-kettle boiled on the fire; there was a smell of coffee. Alfred Arne stood on the defensive against the opposite wall, a life-preserver in his hand, and his thin hair on end with fright.

      “I am here on a peaceable errand, if you will allow it to be so,” said Tod, shutting us in. “Is your name Arne?”

      Arne dropped the life-preserver into the breast-pocket of his coat, and came forward with something of a gentleman’s courtesy.

      “Yes, my name is Arne, Joseph Todhetley. And your mother—as I make no doubt you know—was a very near relative of mine. If you damage me, you will bring her name unpleasantly before the public, as well as your own and your father’s.”

      That he thought our errand was to demand back the fifty pounds, there could be no doubt: perhaps to hand him into custody if he refused to give it up.

      “I have not come to damage you in any way,” said Tod in answer. “Where’s Hugh?”

      Arne СКАЧАТЬ