"Now this looks like business," said he, "and is an earnest that you will do the thing that's right. Where and when for the remainder?"
"In a fortnight I will meet you at any place you may name in London," answered Markham.
"Well, make it a fortnight. Do you know the Dark House, in Brick Lane, Bethnal Green?"
"What is it?" asked Richard, shuddering at the name.
"A public-house. Any one will tell you where it is. This day fortnight I shall expect to find you there at eight o'clock in the evening. If I don't happen to be punctual, you can wait for me; and if I don't come that night, I shall the next. Remember how much depends upon your fulfilment of the contract."
"I shall not fail," answered Richard, with a sinking of the heart which none can understand who have not been placed in a similar position. "And you, on your part, will adhere to your side of the agreement?"
"Mute as a mouse," said the Resurrection Man; "and should I afterwards meet you by accident, I shall not know you. Farewell."
With these words the Resurrection Man turned away, and pursued his course towards London.
Markham followed him with his eyes until he turned an angle of the road and was no longer to be seen.
Then only did Richard breathe freely.
CHAPTER XLI.
MR. GREENWOOD.
ABOUT six o'clock in the evening—ten days after the incident which concluded the preceding chapter—a handsome cabriolet drove up to the door of a house in Spring Gardens.
Down jumped the tiger—an urchin not much bigger than a walking stick—and away went the knocker, rat-tat-tat, for upwards of fifteen seconds. A servant in livery opened the door, and an elegantly-dressed gentleman, about six or seven and twenty years of age, alighted from the vehicle.
This gentleman rushed up stairs to his study, drew forth his cheque-book, wrote an order upon his banker for a thousand pounds, enclosed it in an envelope, and immediately despatched the letter to Lord Tremordyn by one of his numerous domestics. He had that afternoon lost the money to his lordship in some sporting-bet; and, "as it was a debt of honour," he could not possibly think of sitting down to dinner, or even pulling off his boots (which, being fashionable, pinched him excessively) without settling it.
As soon as he had done this, another servant entered the room, and said, "If you please, sir, Mrs. Mangles has called, and is waiting below to see you. She has been here these three hours, and wishes very much to say a few words to you, sir."
"What! that bothering upholsterer's wife!" ejaculated the gentleman, in a tone of indignation which would have induced a stranger to believe that he was the most persecuted man in the world. "Why—her husband's account hasn't been owing quite a year yet; and here she is boring from morning to night."
"Please, sir, she says that her husband is locked up in a spunging-house."
"Serve him right!"
"But he is a hard-working sober man——"
"He shouldn't run into debt."
"And he has five children."
"It is really disgusting! these lower orders literally swarm with children!"
"And if you would only pay a quarter of the money, he would get out to-night."
"I won't pay a sixpence till January."
"Then he will be totally ruined, sir, his wife says."
"Well—he must be ruined, then. Go and turn her out, and send up Lafleur."
And the fashionable gentleman, who would not owe a debt of honour for half an hour, thought no more of the sum which was due to a tradesman, which had been already owing for nearly a year, and which he could have immediately settled without the slightest inconvenience to himself.
For this man was rich; and, having got his money in the City (God knows how), had now come to the West End to make the most of it.
"Lafleur," said the fashionable gentleman to the French valet, "you must dismiss that fellow John to-morrow morning."
"Yes, sir."
"He actually had the impertinence to bring me a message from a dun, while I was in a hurry to get dressed for dinner."
"Indeed, sir—you don't say so sir!" ejaculated the valet, who had as much horror of a dun as an overseer has of a pauper. "Yes, sir—I will dismiss him to-morrow, sir—and without a character too."
"Do, Lafleur. And now to dress. Are the company come?"
"Mr. Chichester and Sir Rupert Harborough are in the drawing-room, sir."
"Oh!" said Mr. Greenwood—for such was the gentleman's name—"very well!"
Having carelessly perused three or four letters which he found upon his table, he repaired to his dressing-room, where he washed his hands in a silver basin, while the poor upholsterer's wife returned to her husband in the lock-up house, to say that their last hope had failed, and that nothing but a debtor's gaol awaited them. Accordingly, while the poor man was being carried off to Whitecross Street Prison, Mr. Greenwood repaired to his elegantly furnished drawing-room to welcome the guests whom he had invited that day to dinner.
"My dear Sir Rupert," said Mr. Greenwood, "I am delighted to see you. Chichester, how are you? Where have you both been for the last six months? Scarcely had I the pleasure of forming your acquaintance, when you were off like shots: and I have never seen nor heard of you till this morning."
"Upon my honour, I hardly know what we have been doing—or indeed, what we have not been doing," ejaculated the baronet. "We have been in Paris and Brussels, and enjoyed all the pleasures of the Continent."
"And we found our way into the good graces of the Parisian ladies, and the purses of their husbands," observed Chichester, with a complacent smile.
"Ah! ah!" said Mr. Greenwood, laughing. "Trust you both for allowing yourselves to starve in a land of plenty."
"And so here we are, come back to England quite fresh and ready for new sport," said Chichester. "You see that it is useful to go abroad for a season every now and then. Immediately after I passed through the Insolvents' Court, two years ago, I went to Paris for six months, and came home again with a new reputation, as it were."
"By the bye, Sir Rupert," exclaimed Mr. Greenwood, "I lost a cool thousand to your father-in-law this afternoon at Tattersall's."
"What! does the old lord do things in so spirited a way as that?" cried the baronet.
"Yes—now and then. I believe you and he are not on very good terms? When I asked him after you a month or two ago, he appeared to evade the conversation."
"The fact is," said the baronet, "old Lord and Lady Tremordyn pretend that I treat their daughter with neglect—just because I cannot and will not be tied to my wife's apron strings. I did not want to marry her; but Lady Tremordyn intrigued to catch me; and the old lord came down handsome—and so the match was made up."
The baronet did not think of informing his friend that he had stipulated for twenty thousand pounds to pay his debts, ere he would do justice to the young and beautiful creature whom he had seduced, and whose pathetic appeal to her mother has been already laid before the reader in the chapter which treats of the Black Chamber of the General Post Office.
"Do you know what has become