Rogues and Vagabonds. George R. Sims

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СКАЧАТЬ and where we can’t exactly tell,’ answered Mr. Duck; ‘but from information received, as they say at Scotland Yard, he left America in the Bon Espoir, that was wrecked last summer; and as he has never been heard of since, the conclusion is obvious.’

      ‘But he might not have come in the Boney’s Paw.’

      ‘We are certain that he did sail in her. The information that he was among the passengers reached our firm only this week, though the wreck took place six months ago. But the information is correct; the owners confirm it upon application.’

      ‘But he may be heard of yet. There were some persons saved.’

      ‘Every one of them is accounted for. The boats were all picked up, and the passengers our firm have written to all state that a Mr. Gurth Egerton was on board. The Diana passed the scene of the wreck, and reported, on her arrival at Baltimore, that she had saved one passenger—a Mr. George Englehardt. Besides, if he had been saved we should, of course, have heard from him. Dr. Birnie was his intimate friend, and is left executor to the will. Dr. Birnie agrees with the firm that Mr. Gurth Egerton went down, my dear Mrs. Turvey, in the Bon Espoir.’

      When she realised that her master was actually dead, Mrs. Turvey felt she ought to cry, and she begged Mr. Duck to excuse her while she did so. What was to become of her? She’d lived in the house this ten years, first as servant and then as housekeeper, and of course it wouldn’t be kept on. Oh, it was very dreadful, and she didn’t know what she should do.

      Mr. Duck let her have a good cry, and then he shone upon her. ‘My poor soul,’ he said, when the paroxysm was over, ‘you distress yourself needlessly. I think I may tell you, without a breach of confidence, that you are provided for. The will was opened by the firm to-day.’

      Mrs. Turvey sobbed again.

      Mr. Duck edged his chair a little nearer to her. ‘Susan,’ he said, softly, ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so abruptly but for this. Oh, Susan, you need never want a home.’

      Mrs. Turvey looked up through her tears and beheld the shining face of Messrs. Grigg and Limpet’s clerk so close to hers that it almost made her blink. At least that must have been the reason that she turned her head away.

      Mr. Duck took her hand.

      ‘Susan,’ he said, pressing the imprisoned member gently against his shiny satin waistcoat, ‘don’t spurn me. You are alone in the world now, but I can offer you a shelter.

      Come, weep on my bosom, my own stricken deer,

      Though the world all turn from thee, thy shelter is here.

      Those are lines, Susan, which I composed myself the first time I saw you, but which I dared not utter till now.’

      The stricken deer sighed, but declined to weep upon the shiny bosom of her adorer.

      ‘It is very sudden,’ she faltered. ‘I—I really never thought there was anything——’

      Jabez assured her there had always been a suspicion; that now it had ripened into a fact.

      For an hour or more the conversation was a mixture of poetical quotations, business suggestions, reminiscences of Mr. Gurth Egerton, and tender declarations in Mr. Duck’s shiniest and sweetest manner.

      Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door.

      Mrs. Turvey jumped up from her chair and straightened her cap.

      ‘Who is it?’ exclaimed Mr. Duck, nervously.

      ‘Why, it must be Topsey,’ said the lady, after a moment’s thought. ‘Dear me! I’d no idea it was so late. I think you’d better go, Mr. Duck.’

      ‘And when shall I call again, Susan?—for your answer.’

      Mr. Duck showed his shiny teeth and rolled his shiny eyes so sweetly that Mrs. Turvey could not resist him any more.

      ‘To-morrow, Jabez.’

      There was a soft sound as of the sudden collision of a pair of lips and a cheek, and then Mrs. Turvey, followed by Mr. Duck, went upstairs to the front door.

      It was Topsey brought back. Mr. Duck bade Mrs. Turvey good-night on the steps as though nothing had happened, for Topsey’s sharp little ears were open, and he went off whistling ‘’Tis my delight on a shiny night,’ and Topsey went downstairs with her aunt.

      She was full of the ghost. She acted the ghost. She showed her aunty how the ghost looked, and how it rose mysteriously from nothing and walked towards its victim.

      Mrs. Turvey did not enter very heartily into the scene. She did not like ghosts at any time, but to-night, when her master’s death had been so suddenly communicated to her, she positively hated ghosts.

      Do what she would, she could not shake off the idea that she was in a dead man’s house. All the stories of uneasy spirits visiting their earthly dwelling-places floated across her brain, and presently she turned sharply to the child, and told her not to chatter but to get ready for bed.

      They slept on the ground floor, in a room that had been a servant’s room in the days when Mr. Egerton kept up an establishment.

      Now in her confusion at parting with her elderly admirer right under Topsey’s watchful eye, Mrs. Turvey had forgotten to fasten up the front door. As a matter of fact, she had closed it so carelessly that the lock had not caught at all.

      She suddenly recollected her omission to examine the fastenings with her usual care, so she sent Topsey to do it, while she got the bread and cheese out of the larder for her frugal supper.

      Topsey ran up and got half-way down the hall. Then she started back, trembling in every limb. It was quite dark in the passage, but the door was slowly swinging back on its hinges. As it opened and the pale light of the street lamp wandered in, the figure of a man with a face ghastly in the glare of the flickering illumination from without glided towards her. Her brain was full of the ghost illusion she had seen that evening. This was just how the apparition had walked.

      Slowly it came nearer and nearer to her.

      With a sudden effort the terrified child found her voice and gave a wild cry.

      ‘Aunty!’ she shrieked. ‘Save me! The ghost! the ghost!’

      Mrs. Turvey ran upstairs, terrified at the child’s cries.

      She reached the hall, held up her arms, and fell down in a swoon.

      The sea had given up its dead.

      There, in the hall of his earthly dwelling, stood the ghost of Gurth Egerton.

CHAPTER III. MR. EDWARD MARSTON MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.

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      N ow, gentlemen, please!’

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