The Mysteries of London. George W. M. Reynolds
villains that ever disgraced the name of man. There was no species of crime with which he was not familiar; and he had a suitable helpmate in his wife, who was the sister of Dick Flairer—a character that disappeared from the stage of life in the early part of this history.
In person, the Buffer was slight, short, and rather well-made—extremely active, and endowed with great physical power. His countenance was by no means an index to his mind; for it was inexpressive, stolid, and vacant.
His wife was a woman of about five-and-twenty, being probably ten years younger than her husband. She was not precisely ugly; but her countenance—the very reverse of that of the Buffer—was so indicative of every evil passion that can possibly disgrace womanhood, as to be almost repulsive.
The two new-comers seated themselves near the fire, for their clothes were dripping with the rain, which continued to pour in torrents. The warmth of the apartment and a couple of glasses of smoking grog soon, however, put them into good humour and made them comfortable; and the Resurrection Man then proposed that they should "proceed to business."
"In the first place, Jack," said the Resurrection Man, addressing himself to the Buffer, "what news about Markham?"
"He will attend to the appointment," was the answer.
"He will?" exclaimed the Resurrection Man, as if the news were almost too good to be true: "you are sure?"
"As sure as I am that I've got this here glass in my mawley," said the Buffer.
"To-morrow night?"
"To-morrow night he'll meet his brother at Twig Folly," answered the Buffer, with a laugh.
"Tell me all that took place," cried the Resurrection Man; "and then I shall be able to judge for myself."
"As you told me," began the Buffer, "I made myself particklerly clean and tidy, and went up to Holloway this morning at about eleven o'clock. I knocked at the door of the swell's crib; and an old butler-like looking feller, with a port-wine face, and a white napkin under his arm, come and opened it. He asked me what my business was. I said I wanted to speak to Mr. Markham in private. He asked me to walk in; and he showed me into a library kind of a place, where I see a good-looking young feller sitting reading. He was very pale, and seemed as if he'd been ill."
"Fretting about that business at the theatre, no doubt," observed the Resurrection Man.
"What business?" cried the Buffer.
"No matter—go on."
"Well—so I went into this library and see Mr. Markham. The old servant left us alone together. 'What do you want with me, my good man?' says Markham in a very pleasant tone of voice.—'I have summut exceeding partickler to say to you, sir,' says I.—'Well, what is it?' he asks—'Have you heerd from your brother lately, sir?' says I, throwing out the feeler you put me up to. If so be he had said he had, and I saw that he really knew where he was, and every thing about him, I should have invented some excuse, and walked myself off; but there was no need of that; for the moment I mentioned his brother, he was quite astonished.—'My brother!' he says in a wery excited tone: 'many years has elapsed since I heerd from him. Do you know what has becomed on him?'—'Perhaps I knows a trifle about him, sir,' says I; 'and that is wery trifling indeed. In a word,' I says, 'he wants to see you.'—'He wants to see me!' cries my gentleman: 'then why doesn't he come to me? But where is he? tell me, that I may fly to him.'—So then I says, 'The fact of the matter is this, sir; your brother has got his-self into a bit of a scrape, and don't dare show. He's living down quite in the east of London, close by the Regent's Canal; and he has sent me to say that if so be you'll meet him to-morrow night at ten o'clock in Twig Folly, he'll be there.'—Then Mr. Markham cries out, 'But why can I not go to him now? If he is in distress or difficulty, the sooner he sees me the better.'—'Softly, sir,' says I. 'All I know of the matter is this, that I'm a honest man as airns his livelihood by running on messages and doing odd jobs. A gentleman meets me on the bank of the canal, close by Twig Folly, very early this morning and says, 'Do you want to airn five shillings?' Of course I says 'Yes.'—'Then,' says the gentleman, 'go up to Markham Place without delay, and ask to see Mr. Markham. He lives at Holloway. Tell him that you come from his brother, who is in trouble, and can't go to him; but that his brother will meet him to-morrow night at ten o'clock on the banks of the canal, near Twig Folly. And,' says the gentleman, 'if he should ask you for a token that you're tellin' the truth, say that this appointment must be kept instead of the one on the top of the hill where two ash trees stand planted.'—Well, the moment I tells Mr. Markham all this, he begins to blubber, and then to laugh, and to dance about the room, crying, 'Oh! my dear—dear brother, shall I then embrace you so soon again?' and such-like nonsense. Then he gives me half a sovereign his-self, and sends me into the kitchen, where the cook makes me eat and drink till I was well-nigh ready to bust. The old butler was rung for; and I've no doubt that his master told him the good news, for when he come back into the kitchen, he treated me with the greatest civility, but asked me a lot of questions about Master Eugene, as he called him. I satisfied him in all ways; and at last I rises, takes my leave of the servants, and comes off."
"Well done!" cried the Resurrection Man, whose cadaverous countenance wore an expression of superlative satisfaction. "And you do not think he entertained the least suspicion?"
"Not a atom," returned the Buffer.
"Nor the old butler?" asked the Resurrection Man.
"Not a bit. But do jest satisfy me on one point, Tony; how come you to know that anythink about this young feller's brother would produce such a powerful excitement?"
"Have I not before told you that this Richard Markham was a fellow-prisoner with me in Newgate some four years and more ago? Well, I often overheard him talking about his affairs to another man that was also there, and whose name was Armstrong. Markham and this Armstrong were very thick together; and Markham spoke quite openly to him about his family matters, his brother, and one thing or another. That's the way I came to hear of the strange appointment made between the two brothers."
"Well, there's no doubt that the fish has bit and can be hooked to-morrow night," said the Buffer.
"Yes—he is within my reach—and now I shall be revenged," exclaimed the Resurrection Man, grinding his teeth together. "I will tell you my plans in this respect presently," he added. "Let us now talk about the old man that your wife nurses."
"Or did nurse, rather," cried Moll, with a coarse laugh.
Both the Resurrection Man and Margaret Flathers turned a glance of inquiry and surprise upon the Buffer's wife.
"The old fellow's dead," she added, after a moment's pause.
"Dead already!" exclaimed Tidkins.
"Just as I tell you," answered Moll. "He seemed very sinking and low this morning; and so I was more attentive to him than ever."
"But the money?" said the Resurrection Man.
"All a dream on her part," cried the Buffer, sulkily, pointing towards his wife.
"Now don't you go for to throw all the blame on me, Jack," retorted the woman; "for you know as well as I do that you was as sanguine as me. And who wouldn't have taken him for an old miser? Here you and me," she continued, addressing herself to her husband, "go to hire a lodging in a home in Smart Street, about three months ago, and we find out that there's an old chap living overhead, on the first floor, who had been there three months before that time, and had always lived in the same regular, quiet way—never going out except after dusk, doing nothing to earn his bread, paying his way, and owing nobody a penny. Then he was dressed in clothes that wasn't worth sixpence, and yet he had gold to buy others if he chose, because he used to change a sovereign every week, when he paid his rent. Well, all these things put together, made me think he was a miser, and had a store somewhere or another; and when I said to you——"
"I know what you said, fast enough," interrupted the Buffer, sulkily: "what's the use of telling us all this over again?
"Just to show that if I was deceived, you was