It might have been a sort of kitchen but that it looked more like a den, with nothing to light it but a dirty sky-light above. The floor was of red brick; a tea-kettle boiled on the fire; there was a smell of coffee. Alfred Arne stood on the defensive against the opposite wall, a life-preserver in his hand, and his thin hair on end with fright.
“I am here on a peaceable errand, if you will allow it to be so,” said Tod, shutting us in. “Is your name Arne?”
Arne dropped the life-preserver into the breast-pocket of his coat, and came forward with something of a gentleman’s courtesy.
“Yes, my name is Arne, Joseph Todhetley. And your mother—as I make no doubt you know—was a very near relative of mine. If you damage me, you will bring her name unpleasantly before the public, as well as your own and your father’s.”
That he thought our errand was to demand back the fifty pounds, there could be no doubt: perhaps to hand him into custody if he refused to give it up.
“I have not come to damage you in any way,” said Tod in answer. “Where’s Hugh?”
Arne looked as surprised as the other man had. “Hugh!”
“Yes, Hugh: my little brother. Where is he?”
“How can I tell?”
Tod glanced round the place; there was not any nook or corner capable of affording concealment. Arne gazed at him. He stood on that side the dirty deal table, we on this.
“We have lost Hugh since mid-day yesterday. Do you know anything of him?”
“Certainly not,” was the emphatic answer, and I at least saw that it was a true one. “Is it to ask that, that you have come here?”
“For that, and nothing else. We have been up all night searching for him.”
“But why do you come after him here? I am not likely to know where he is.”
“I think you are likely.”
“Why?”
“You have been talking to the boy about carrying him off with you to see coral islands. You hinted, I believe, to Mrs. Todhetley that you might really take him, if your demands were not complied with.”
Arne slightly laughed. “I talked to the boy about the Coral Islands because it pleased him. As to Mrs. Todhetley, if she has the sense of a goose, she must have known I meant nothing. Take off a child with me! Why, if he were made a present to me, I should only drop him at his own door at Crabb Cot, as they drop the foundlings at the gate of the Maison Dieu in Paris. Joseph Todhetley, I could not be encumbered with a child: the life of shifts and concealment I have to lead would debar it.”
I think Tod saw he was in earnest. But he stood in indecision: this dashed out his great hope.
“I should have been away from here last night, but that I got a drop too much and must wait till dark again,” resumed Arne. “The last time I saw Hugh was on Thursday afternoon. He was in the meadow with you.”
“I did not see you,” remarked Tod.
“I saw you, though. And that is the last time I saw him. Don’t you believe me? You may. I like the little lad, and would find him for you if I could, rather than help to lose him. I’d say take my honour upon this, Joseph Todhetley, only you might retort that it has not been worth anything this many a year.”
“And with justice,” said Tod, boldly.
“True. The world has been against me and I against the world. But it has not come yet with me to stealing children. With the loan of the money now safe in my pocket, I shall make a fresh start in life. A precious long time your step-mother kept me waiting for it.”
“She did her best. You ought not to have applied to her at all.”
“I know that: it should have been to the other side of the house. She prevented me: wanting, she said, to spare you and your father.”
“The knowledge of the disgrace. Yes.”
“There’s no need to have recourse to hard names, Joseph Todhetley. What I am, I am, but you have not much cause to grumble, for I don’t trouble you often. As many thousand miles away as the seas can put between me and England, I’m going now: and it’s nearly as many chances to one against your ever seeing me again.”
Tod turned to depart: the intensely haughty look his face wore at odd moments had been upon it throughout the interview. Had he been a woman he might have stood with his skirts picked up, as if to save them contamination from some kind of reptile. He stayed for a final word.
“Then I may take your answer in good faith—that you know nothing of Hugh?”
“Take it, or not, as you please. If I knew that I was going to stand next minute in the presence of Heaven, I could not give it more truthfully. For the child’s own sake, I hope he will be found. Why don’t you ask the man who owns the rooms?—he can tell you I have had no boy here. If you choose to watch me away to-night, do so; you’ll see I go alone. A child with me! I might about as well give myself up to the law at once, for I shouldn’t long remain out of its clutches, Joseph Todhetley.”
“Good-morning,” said Tod shortly. I echoed the words, and we were civilly answered. As we went out, Arne shut the door behind us. In the middle of the passage stood Cookum.
“Have you found he was who you wanted, sir?”
“Yes,” answered Tod, not vouchsafing to explain. “Another time when I say I do not wish to harm you, perhaps you’ll take my word.”
Mrs. Todhetley, pale and anxious, was standing under the mulberry-tree when we got back. She came across the grass.
“Any news?” cried Tod. As if the sight of her was not enough, that he need have asked!
“No, no, Joseph. Did you see him?”
“Yes, he had not left. He knows nothing of Hugh.”
“I had no hope that he did,” moaned poor Mrs. Todhetley. “All he wanted was the money.”
We turned into the dining-room by the glass-doors, and it seemed to strike out a gloomy chill. On the wall near the window, there was a chalk drawing of Hugh in colours, hung up by a bit of common string. It was only a rough sketch that Jane Coney had done half in sport; but it was like him, especially in the blue eyes and the pretty light hair.
“Where’s my father?” asked Tod.
“Gone riding over to the brick-fields again,” she answered: “he cannot get it out of his mind that Hugh must be there. Joseph, as Mr. Arne has nothing to do with the loss, we can still spare your father the knowledge that he has been here. Spare it, I mean, for good.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Hugh was uncommonly fond of old Massock’s brick-fields; he would go there on any occasion that offered, had once or twice strayed there a truant; sending Hannah, for the time being, into a state of mortal fright. The Squire’s opinion was that Hugh must have decamped there some time in the course of the Friday afternoon, perhaps followed the gig; and was staying there, afraid to come home.
“He might have hung on to the tail of the gig itself, and I and Johnny never have seen him, the ’cute Turk,” argued the Squire.
Which I knew was just as likely as that he had, unseen, hung on to the moon. In the state he had brought his clothes to, he wouldn’t have gone to the brick-fields at all. The Squire did not seem so uneasy as he might have been. Hugh would be sure to turn up, he said, and should get the soundest whipping any young rascal ever had.
But he came riding back from the brick-fields as before—without him. Tod, awfully impatient, met him in the road by the yellow barn. The Squire got off his horse there, for Luke Mackintosh was at hand to take it.
“Father, I cannot think