There was again something so sincere and so natural in the manner and emphasis of this young lad, that Markham surveyed him with sentiments of mingled interest and surprise. Then all the thoughts of our hero were directed towards the one grand object he had in view—that of delivering a horde of ruffians over to justice.
"The gang may be more numerous than I imagine," said Markham; "indeed, I know that there are a third man and hideous woman connected with those two assassins whom you have already named. It will therefore be advisable to lay such a trap that will lead to the capture of them all."
"Oh! by all means, sir," exclaimed Holford, enthusiastically: "I do not wish to show them any mercy now!"
"We have no time to lose: it is now four o'clock," said Markham; "and we must arrange the plan of proceeding with the police. You will accompany me on this enterprise."
"Mr. Markham," returned Holford, respectfully but firmly, "I have no objection to aid you in any shape or way in capturing these miscreants, and rooting out their head quarters; but I must beg of you not to place me in a position where I shall be questioned how I came to make this appointment for to-night with those two wretches. It would compel me to make a revelation of the manner in which I employed my time during the last few days; and that—for certain reasons—I could not do!"
Markham appeared to reflect profoundly.
"I do not see how your presence can be dispensed with," he observed at the expiration of some minutes. "In order to discover the exact spot where the murderers dwell, it will be advisable for you to allow yourself to be inveigled thither, and myself and the police would be close behind you."
"Oh! never—never, sir!" cried Holford, turning deadly pale. "Were you to miss us only for a moment—or were you to force an entrance a single instant too late—my life would be sacrificed to those wretches."
"True—true," said Markham: "it would be too great a risk in a dark night—in narrow streets, and with such desperadoes as those. No—I must devise some other means to detect the den of this vile gang. But first of all I must communicate with the police. You can remain here until my return. To-morrow inquiry shall be made relative to your honesty and industry; and, those points satisfactorily ascertained, I will take you into my service, without asking any farther questions."
Holford expressed his gratitude for this kindness on the part of Markham, and was then handed over to the care of Whittingham.
Having partaken of some hasty refreshment, and armed himself with a brace of pistols, in preparation for his enterprise, Richard proceeded with all possible speed into London.
CHAPTER LXV.
THE WRONGS AND CRIMES OF THE POOR.
THE parlour of the Dark-House was, as usual, filled with a very tolerable sprinkle of queer-looking customers. One would have thought, to look at their beards, that there was not a barber in the whole district of the Tower Hamlets; and yet it appears to be a social peculiarity, that the lower the neighbourhood, the more numerous the shaving-shops. Amongst the very rich classes, nobles and gentlemen are shaved by their valets: the males of the middle grade shave themselves; and the men of the lower orders are shaved at barbers' shops. Hence the immense number of party-coloured poles projecting over the pavement of miserable and dirty streets, and the total absence of those signs in wealthy districts.
The guests in the Dark-House parlour formed about as pleasant an assemblage of scamps as one could wish to behold. The establishment was a notorious resort for thieves and persons of the worst character; and no one who frequented it thought it worth while to shroud his real occupation beneath an air of false modesty. The conversation in the parlour, therefore, usually turned upon the tricks and exploits of the thieves frequenting the place; and many entertaining autobiographical sketches were in this way delivered. Women often constituted a portion of the company in the parlour; and they were invariably the most noisy and quarrelsome of all the guests. Whenever the landlord was compelled to call in the police, to have a clearance of the house—a proceeding to which he only had recourse when his guests were drunk and penniless, and demanded supplies of liquor upon credit—a woman was sure to be at the bottom of the row; and a virago of Spitalfields would think no more of smashing every window in the house, or dashing out the landlord's brains with one of his own pewter-pots, than of tossing off a tumbler of raw gin without winking.
On the evening of which we are writing there were several women in the parlour of the Dark-House. These horrible females were the "blowens" of the thieves frequenting the house, and the principal means of disposing of the property stolen by their paramours. They usually ended by betraying their lovers to the police, in fits of jealousy; and yet—by some strange infatuation on the part of those lawless men—the women who acted in this way speedily obtained fresh husbands upon the morganatic system. For the most part, these females are disfigured by intemperance; and their conversation is far more revolting than that of the males. Oh! there is no barbarism in the whole world so truly horrible and ferocious—so obscene and shameless—as that which is found in the poor districts of London!
Alas! what a wretched mockery it is to hold grand meetings at Exeter Hall, and proclaim, with all due pomp and ceremony, how many savages in the far-off islands of the globe have been converted to Christianity, when here—at home, under our very eyes—even London itself swarms with infidels of a more dangerous character:—how detestable is it for philanthropy to be exercised in clothing negroes or Red Men thousands of miles distant, while our own poor are cold and naked at our very doors:—how monstrously absurd to erect twelve new churches in Bethnal Green, and withhold the education that would alone enable the poor to appreciate the doctrines enunciated from that dozen of freshly-built pulpits!
But to return to the parlour of the Dark-House.
In one corner sate the Resurrection Man and the Cracksman, each with a smoking glass of gin-and-water before him. They mingled but little in the conversation, contenting themselves with laughing an approval of any thing good that fell upon their ears, and listening to the discourse that took place around them.
"Now, come, tell us, Joe," said a woman with eyes like saucers, hair like a bundle of tow, and teeth like dominoes, and addressing herself to a man who was dressed like a coal-heaver—"tell us, Joe, how you come to be a prig?"
"Ah! do, Joe—there's a good feller," echoed a dozen voices, male and female.
"Lor' it's simple enough," cried the man thus appealed to: "every poor devil must become a thief in time."
"That's what you say, Tony," whispered the Cracksman to the Resurrection Man.
"Of course he must," continued the coal-heaver; "more partickler them as follows my old trade—for though I've got on the togs of a whipper, I ain't one no longer. The dress is convenient—that's all."
"The Blue-bottles don't twig—eh?" cried the woman with the domino teeth.
"That's it: but you asked me how I come to be a prig—I'll tell you. My father was a coal-whipper, and had three sons. He brought us all up to be coal-whippers also. My eldest brother was drownded in the pool one night when he was drunk, after only drinking about two pots of the publicans' beer: my other brother died of hunger in Cold-Bath Fields prison, where he was sent for three months for taking home a bit of coal one night to his family when he couldn't get his wages paid him by the publican that hired the gang in which he worked. My father died when he was forty—and any one to have seen him would have fancied he was sixty-five at least—so broke down