Уилки Коллинз - A Rogue's Life

“Screw, I suppose?” said the doctor, looking inquiringly at the officers.

“Exactly,” said the principal man of the two. “We have been secretly corresponding with him for weeks past. We have nabbed the man who went out with him, and got him safe at Barkingham. Don’t expect Screw back with the ledger. As soon as he has made sure that the rest of you are in the house, he is to fetch another man or two of our Bow Street lot, who are waiting outside till they hear from us. We only want an old man and a young one, and a third pal of yours who is a gentleman born, to make a regular clearance in the house. When we have once got you all, it will be the prettiest capture that’s ever been made since I was in the force.”

What the doctor answered to this I cannot say. Just as the officer had done speaking, I heard footsteps approaching the room in which I was listening. Was Screw looking for me? I instantly closed the peephole and got behind the door. It opened back upon me, and, sure enough, Screw entered cautiously.

An empty old wardrobe stood opposite the door. Evidently suspecting that I might have taken the alarm and concealed myself inside it, he approached it on tiptoe. On tiptoe also I followed him; and, just as his hands were on the wardrobe door, my hands were on his throat. He was a little man, and no match for me. I easily and gently laid him on his back, in a voiceless and half-suffocated state—throwing myself right over him, to keep his legs quiet. When I saw his face getting black, and his small eyes growing largely globular, I let go with one hand, crammed my empty plaster of Paris bag, which lay close by, into his mouth, tied it fast, secured his hands and feet, and then left him perfectly harmless, while I took counsel with myself how best to secure my own safety.

I should have made my escape at once; but for what I heard the officer say about the men who were waiting outside. Were they waiting near or at a distance? Were they on the watch at the front or the back of the house? I thought it highly desirable to give myself a chance of ascertaining their whereabouts from the talk of the officers in the next room, before I risked the possibility of running right into their clutches on the outer side of the door.

I cautiously opened the peephole once more.

The doctor appeared to be still on the most friendly terms with his vigilant guardians from Bow Street.

“Have you any objection to my ringing for some lunch, before we are all taken off to London together?” I heard him ask in his most cheerful tones. “A glass of wine and a bit of bread and cheese won’t do you any harm, gentlemen, if you are as hungry as I am.”

“If you want to eat and drink, order the victuals at once,” replied one of the runners, sulkily. “We don’t happen to want anything ourselves.”

“Sorry for it,” said the doctor. “I have some of the best old Madeira in England.”

“Like enough,” retorted the officer sarcastically. “But you see we are not quite such fools as we look; and we have heard of such a thing, in our time, as hocussed wine.”

“O fie! fie!” exclaimed the doctor merrily. “Remember how well I am behaving myself, and don’t wound my feelings by suspecting me of such shocking treachery as that!”

He moved to a corner of the room behind him, and touched a knob in the wall which I had never before observed. A bell rang directly, which had a new tone in it to my ears.

“Too bad,” said the doctor, turning round again to the runners; “really too bad, gentlemen, to suspect me of that!”

Shaking his head deprecatingly, he moved back to the corner, pulled aside something in the wall, disclosed the mouth of a pipe which was a perfect novelty to me, and called down it.

“Moses!”

It was the first time I had heard that name in the house.

“Who is Moses?” inquired the officers both together, advancing on him suspiciously.

“Only my servant,” answered the doctor. He turned once more to the pipe, and called down it:

“Bring up the Stilton Cheese, and a bottle of the Old Madeira.”

The cheese we had in use at that time was of purely Dutch extraction. I remembered Port, Sherry, and Claret in my palmy dinner-days at the doctor’s family-table; but certainly not Old Madeira. Perhaps he selfishly kept his best wine and his choicest cheese for his own consumption.

“Sam,” said one of the runners to the other, “you look to our civil friend here, and I’ll grab Moses when he brings up the lunch.”

“Would you like to see what the operation of coining is, while my man is getting the lunch ready?” said the doctor. “It may be of use to me at the trial, if you can testify that I afforded you every facility for finding out anything you might want to know. Only mention my polite anxiety to make things easy and instructive from the very first, and I may get recommended to mercy. See here—this queer-looking machine, gentlemen (from which two of my men derive their nicknames), is what we call a Mill-and-Screw.”

He began to explain the machine with the manner and tone of a lecturer at a scientific institution. In spite of themselves, the officers burst out laughing. I looked round at Screw as the doctor got deeper into his explanations. The traitor was rolling his wicked eyes horribly at me. They presented so shocking a sight, that I looked away again. What was I to do next? The minutes were getting on, and I had not heard a word yet, through the peephole, on the subject of the reserve of Bow Street runners outside. Would it not be best to risk everything, and get away at once by the back of the house?

Just as I had resolved on venturing the worst, and making my escape forthwith, I heard the officers interrupt the doctor’s lecture.

“Your lunch is a long time coming,” said one of them.

“Moses is lazy,” answered the doctor; “and the Madeira is in a remote part of the cellar. Shall I ring again?”

“Hang your ringing again!” growled the runner, impatiently. “I don’t understand why our reserve men are not here yet. Suppose you go and give them a whistle, Sam.”

“I don’t half like leaving you,” returned Sam. “This learned gentleman here is rather a shifty sort of chap; and it strikes me that two of us isn’t a bit too much to watch him.”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Sam’s comrade, suspiciously.

A crash of broken crockery in the lower part of the house had followed that last word of the cautious officer’s speech. Naturally, I could draw no special inference from the sound; but, for all that, it filled me with a breathless interest and suspicion, which held me irresistibly at the peephole—though the moment before I had made up my mind to fly from the house.

“Moses is awkward as well as lazy,” said the doctor. “He has dropped the tray! Oh, dear, dear me! he has certainly dropped the tray.”

“Let’s take our learned friend downstairs between us,” suggested Sam. “I shan’t be easy till we’ve got him out of the house.”

“And I shan’t be easy if we don’t handcuff him before we leave the room,” returned the other.

“Rude conduct, gentlemen—after all that has passed, remarkably rude conduct,” said the doctor. “May I, at least, get my hat while my hands are at liberty? It hangs on that peg opposite to us.” He moved toward it a few steps into the middle of the room while he spoke.

“Stop!” said Sam; “I’ll get your hat for you. We’ll see if there’s anything inside it or not, before you put it on.”

The doctor stood stockstill, like a soldier at the word, Halt.

“And I’ll get the handcuffs,” said the other runner, searching his coat-pockets.

The doctor bowed to him assentingly and forgivingly.

“Only oblige me with my hat, and I shall be quite ready for you,” he said—paused for one moment, then repeated the words, “Quite ready,” in a louder tone—and instantly disappeared through the floor!