Johnny Ludlow, Second Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ when a man’s life or liberty was at stake. They pressed for an adjournment, that the pills might be examined by some competent authority. The coroner, as good as telling them they were fools to their faces, had adjourned the inquest in suppressed passion to that day week.

      “And I’ve got to take care of you, Abel Crew,” said old Jones, floundering up on his gouty legs to Abel as the jury and crowd dispersed. “You’ve got to come along o’ me.”

      “To come where?” asked Abel, who was hobbling towards home on his scalded foot, by the help of his stick and the arm of Gibbon the gamekeeper.

      “To the lock-up,” said old Jones.

      “To the lock-up!” echoed Abel Crew.

      “In course,” returned old Jones. “Where else but the lock-up? Did you think it was to the pound?”

      Abel Crew, lifting the hand that held his stick to brush a speck of dirt off his handsome velvet coat, turned to the constable; his refined face, a little paler than usual, gazing inquiringly at old Jones’s, his silver hair glistening in the setting sun.

      “I don’t understand you, Mr. Jones,” he said calmly. “You cannot mean to lock me up?”

      “Well, I never!” cried old Jones, who had a knack of considering every suspected person guilty, and treating them accordingly. “You have a cheek, you have, Abel Crew! ‘Not going to take me to the lock-up, Mr. Jones,’ says you! Where would you be took to?”

      “But there’s no necessity for it,” said Abel. “I shall not run away. I shall be in my house if I’m wanted again.”

      “I dare say you would!” said old Jones, ironically. “You might or you mightn’t, you know. You be as good as committed for the killing and slaying o’ them there two twins, and it’s my business to see as you don’t make your escape aforehand, Abel Crew.”

      Quite a company of us, sauntering out of the inquest-room, were listening by this time. I gave old Jones a bit of my mind.

      “He is not yet committed, Jones, therefore you have no right to take him or to lock him up.”

      “You don’t know nothing about it, Mr. Ludlow. I do. The crowner gave me a hint, and I’m acting on it. ‘Don’t you go and let that man escape,’ says his worship to me: ‘it’ll be at your peril if you do.’ ‘I’ll see to him, your worship,’ says I. And I be a-doing of it.”

      But it was hardly likely that the coroner meant Abel Crew to be confined in that precious lock-up for a whole week. One night there was bad enough. At least, I did not think he meant it; but the crowd, to judge by their comments, seemed divided on the point.

      “The shortest way to settle the question will be to ask the coroner, old Jones,” said I, turning back to the Silver Bear. “Come along.”

      “You’d be clever to catch him, Master Johnny,” roared out old Jones after me. “His worship jumped into his gig; it was a-waiting for him when he come out; and his clerk druv him off at a slapping pace.”

      It was true. The coroner was gone; and old Jones had it all his own way; for, you see, none of us liked to interfere with the edict of an official gentleman who held sway in the county and sat on dead people. Abel Crew accepted the alternative meekly.

      “Any way, you must allow me to go home first to lock my house up, and to see to one or two other little matters,” said he.

      “Not unless you goes under my own eyes,” retorted old Jones. “You might be for destroying your stock o’ pills for fear they should bear evidence again’ you, Abel Crew.”

      “My pills are, of all things, what I would not destroy,” said Abel. “They would bear testimony for me, instead of against me, for they are harmless.”

      So Abel Crew hobbled to his cottage on the common, attended by old Jones and a tail of followers. Arrived there, he attended the first thing to his scalded foot, dressing it with some of his own ointment. Then he secured some bread and butter, not knowing what the accommodation at the lock-up might be in the shape of eatables, and changed his handsome quaint suit of clothes for those he wore every day. After that, he was escorted back to the lock-up.

      Now, the lock-up was in Piefinch Cut, nearly opposite to Dovey the blacksmith’s. The Squire remembered the time when the lock-up stood alone; when Piefinch Cut had no more houses in it than Piefinch Lane now has; but since then Piefinch Cut had been built upon and inhabited; houses touching even the sacred walls of the lock-up. A tape-and-cotton and sweetstuff shop supported it on one side, and a small pork-butcher’s on the other. Pettipher’s drug shop, should anybody be curious on the point, was next to the tape-and-cotton mart.

      To see Abel Crew arriving in the custody of old Jones the constable, the excited stragglers after them, astonished Piefinch Cut not a little. Figg the pawnbroker—who was originally from Alcester—considered himself learned in the law. Anyway, he was a great talker, and liked to give his opinion upon every topic that might turn up. His shop joined Dovey’s forge: and when we arrived there, Figg was outside, holding forth to Dovey, who had his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows as usual, his leather apron on. Mrs. Dovey stood listening behind, in the smart gown and red-ribboned bonnet she had worn at the inquest.

      “Why—what on earth!—have they been and gone and took up Crew?” cried Figg in surprise.

      “It is an awful shame of old Jones,” I broke in; speaking more to Dovey than Figg, for Figg was no favourite of mine. “A whole week of the lock-up! Only think of it, Dovey!”

      “But have they brought it in again’ him, Master Johnny?” cried Dovey, unfolding his grimy arms to touch his paper cap to me as he spoke.

      “No; that’s what they have not done. The inquest is adjourned for a week; and I don’t believe old Jones has a right to take him at all. Not legally, you know.”

      “That’s just what her brought word,” said Dovey, with a nod in the direction of his wife. “ ‘Well, how be it turned, Ann?’ says I to her when her come back—for I’d a sight o’ work in to-day and couldn’t go myself. ‘Oh, it haven’t turned no ways yet, Jack,’ says her; ‘it be put off to next week.’ There he goes! right in.”

      This last remark applied to Abel Crew. After fumbling in his pocket for the two big keys, tied together with string, and then fumbling at the latch, old Jones succeeded in opening the door. Not being much used, the lock was apt to grow rusty. Then he stood back, and with a flourish of hands motioned Abel in. He made no resistance.

      “They must know for certain as ’twere his pills what done it,” struck in Mrs. Dovey.

      “No, they don’t,” said I. “What’s more, I do not think it was his pills. Abel Crew says he never put poison in his pills yet, and I believe him.”

      “Well, and no more it don’t stand to reason as he would, Mr. Ludlow,” said Figg, a man whose self-complaisance was not to be put down by any amount of discouragement. “I were just a-saying so to Dovey—— Why have old Jones took him up?” went on Figg to Gibbon the gamekeeper, who came striding by.

      “Jones says he has the coroner’s orders for it,” answered Gibbon.

      “Look here, I know СКАЧАТЬ