Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ and believed he had not: neither could he learn that Brook had departed by any other vessel. A friend of his told him that he feared Brook was dead. The day before the Dart went out of port, a young man, who bore out in every respect the description of Brook, was drowned in the harbour.

      Comforting news! Delightfully comforting for Ellin Delorane, not to speak of Brook’s people. Aunt Hester came over to Crabb Cot, and burst into tears as she told it.

      But the next morning brought a turn in the tide; one less sombre, though uncertain still. Mrs. Brook, who had bedewed her pillow with salt tears, for her youngest son was very dear to her heart, received a letter from her son Reginald in London, enclosing one he had just received from the West Indies. She brought them to Mr. Delorane’s office during the morning, and the Squire and I happened to be there.

      “How should Reginald know anything about it?” demanded St. George, in the haughty manner he could put on when not pleased; and his countenance looked dark as he gazed across his desk at Mrs. Brook, for which I saw no occasion. Evidently he did not like having his brother’s news disputed.

      “Reginald wrote to Kingston by the same mail that you wrote,” she said. “He received an introduction to some mercantile firm out there, and this is their answer to him.”

      They stated, these merchants, that they had made due inquiries according to request, and found that William Brook had secured a passage on board the Dart; but that, finding himself unable to go in her, his business in Kingston not being finished, he had, at the last moment, made over his berth and ticket to another gentleman, who found himself called upon to sail unexpectedly: and that he, Brook, had departed by the Idalia, which left two days later than the Dart and was also bound for Liverpool.

      “I have ascertained here, dear mother,” wrote Reginald from London, “that the Idalia made a good passage and reached Liverpool on the 18th of October. If the statement which I enclose you be correct, that William left Jamaica in her, he must have arrived in her at Liverpool, unless he died on the way. It is very strange where he can be, and what can have become of him. Of course, inquiries must now be made in Liverpool. I only wish I could go down myself, but our patients are all on my hands just now, for Dr. Croft is ill.”

      The first thought, flashing into the mind of Mr. Delorane, was, that the 18th of October was the eve of the day on which William Brook was said to have been seen by Mrs. James Ashton. He paused to consider, a sort of puzzled doubt on his face.

      “Why, look you here,” cried he quickly, “it seems as though that was Brook at Worcester Station. If he reached Liverpool on the 18th, the probabilities are that he would be at Worcester on the 19th. What do you make of it?”

      We could not make anything. Mrs. Brook looked pale and distressed. The Squire, in his impulsive good-nature, offered to be the one to go, off-hand, to make the inquiries at Liverpool. St. George opposed this: he was the proper person to go, he said; but Mrs. Delorane reminded him that he could be ill spared just then, when the assizes were at hand. For the time had gone on to spring.

      “I will start to-night,” said the Squire, “and take Johnny with me. My time is my own. We will turn Liverpool upside down but what we find Brook—if he is to be found on earth.”

      That the Squire might have turned Liverpool “upside down” with the confusion of his inquiries was likely enough, only that Jack Tanerton was there, having brought his own good ship, the Rose of Delhi, into port but a few days before. Jack and William Brook had been boys together, and Jack took up the cause in warm-hearted zeal. His knowledge of the town and its shipping made our way plain before us. That is, as plain as a way can be made which seems to have neither inlet nor outlet.

      The Idalia was then lying in the Liverpool docks, not long in again from the West Indies. We ascertained that William Brook had come in her the previous autumn, making the port of Liverpool on the 18th of October.

      “Then nothing happened to him half-way?” cried the Squire to the second mate, a decent sort of fellow who did all he could for us. “He was not lost, or—or—anything of that sort?”

      “Why no,” said the mate, looking surprised. “He was all right the whole of the voyage and in first-rate spirits—a very nice young fellow altogether. The Idalia brought him home, all taut and safe, take our word for that, sir; and he went ashore with the rest, and his luggage also: of which he had but little; just a big case and the small one that was in his cabin.”

      All this was certain. But from the hour Brook stepped ashore, we were unable to trace anything certain about him. The hotels could not single him out in memory from other temporary sojourners. I think it was by no means a usual occurrence in those days for passing guests to give in their names. Any way, we found no record of Brook’s. The railway porters remembered no more of him than the hotels—and it was hardly likely they would.

      Captain Tanerton—to give Jack his title—was indefatigable; winding himself in and out of all kinds of places like a detective eel. In some marvellous way he got to learn that a gentleman whose appearance tallied with Brook’s had bought some tan-coloured kid gloves and also a white comforter in a shop in Bold Street on the morning of the 19th of October. Jack took us there that we might question the people, especially the young woman who served him. She said that, while choosing the gloves, he observed that he had just come off a sea-voyage and found the weather here very chilly. He wore a lightish great-coat, a sort of slate or grey. She was setting out the window when he came in, and had to leave it to serve him; it was barely eight o’clock, and she remarked that he was shopping betimes; he replied yes, for he was going off directly by train. He bought two pair of the gloves, putting one pair of them on in the shop; he next bought a warm knitted woollen scarf, white, and put that on. She was quite certain it was the 19th of October, and told us why she could not be mistaken. And that was the last trace we could get of Brook in Liverpool.

      Well, well; it is of no use to linger. We went away from Liverpool, the Squire and I, no better off than we were when we entered it. That William Brook had arrived safely by the Idalia, and that he had landed safely, appeared to be a fact indisputable: but after that time he seemed to have vanished into air. Unless, mark you, it was he who had come on to Worcester.

      The most concerned of all at our ill-luck was Mr. St. George. He had treated the matter lightly when thinking Brook was only lingering over the seas; now that it was proved he returned by the Idalia, the case was different.

      “I don’t like it at all,” he said to the Squire frankly. “People may begin to think it was really Brook I had with me that night, and ask me what I did with him.”

      “What could you have done with him?” dissented the Squire.

      “Not much—that I see. I couldn’t pack him up in a parcel to be sent back over seas, and I couldn’t bury him here. I wish with all my heart it had been Brook! I won’t leave a stone unturned now but what I find him,” added St. George, his eyes flashing, his face flushing hotly. “Any way, I’ll find the man who was with me.”

      St. George set to work. Making inquiries here, there, and everywhere for William Brook, personally and by advertising. But little came of it. A porter at the Worcester railway-station, who had seen the traveller talking with St. George on the platform, came forward to state that they (the gentleman and Mr. St. George) had left the station together, walking away from it side by side, down the road. St. George utterly denied this. He admitted that the other might have followed him so closely as to impart a possible appearance of their being together, but if so, he was not conscious of it. Just as he had denied shaking hands with the stranger, which Mrs. James Ashton insisted upon.

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