vich vos my directions. At last the vhistle come, and a precious cautious vhistle it vas too, as soft as a niteingel vot’s payin’ its addresses to another niteingel; and round I goes to the front, as vos my directions. There, agen’ her door, stands the old ’ag, and agen her stands a young man in an old ragged pair of trousis an’ a shirt. Lookin’ him hard in the face, who does I see but Jim, the old un’s grandson; so I ses, ‘Jim!’ friendly like, but he makes no reply; and then the old un ses, ‘Lend this young gent a ’and ’ere, vill yer?’ So in I goes, and there on the bed I sees something rolled up very careful in a old counterpane. It giv’ me a turn like, and I didn’t much like the looks of it; but I ses nothink; and then the young man, Jim, as I thinks, ses, ‘Lend us a hand with this ’ere, vill yer?’ and it giv’d me another turn like, for though it’s Jim’s face, somehow it ain’t quite Jim’s voice—more genteel and fine like; but I goes up to the bed, and I takes hold of von end of vot lays there; and then I gets turn number three—for I find my suspicions was correct—it was a dead body!”
“A dead body?”
“Yes; but whose it vos there vos no knowin’, it vos wrapped up in that manner. But I feels myself turn dreadful vhite, and I ses, ‘If this ere’s anythink wrong, I vashes my hands ov it, and you may do your dirty vork yourself.’ I hadn’t got the vords out afore this ’ere young man, as I thought at first vos Jim, caught me by the throat sudden, and threw me down on my knee. I ain’t a baby; but, lor’, I vos nothink in his grasp, though his hand vos as vite and as deliket as a young lady’s. ‘Now, you just look ’ere,’ he says; and I looked, as vell as I could, vith my eyes a-startin’ out ov my head in cosekence of bein’ just upon the choke, ‘you see vot this is,’ and vith his left hand he takes a pistol out ov his pocket; ‘you refuse to do vot ve vant done, or you go for to be noisy or in any vay ill-conwenient, and it’s the last time as ever you’ll have the chance ov so doing. Get up,’ he says, as if I vos a dog; and I gets up, and I agrees to do vot he vants, for there vas that there devil in that young man’s hye, that I began to think it vos best not to go agen him.”
Here Mr. Withers paused for refreshment after his exertion and blew his nose very deliberately on a handkerchief which, from its dilapidated condition, resembled a red cotton cabbage-net. Silence reigned throughout the crowded court, broken only by the scratching of the pen with which the counsel for the defence was taking notes of the evidence, and the fluttering of the leaves of the reporters’ pocket-books, as they threw off page after page of flimsy paper.
The prisoner at the bar looked straight before him; the firmly-compressed lips had never once quivered, the golden fringed eyelashes had never drooped.
“Can you tell me,” said the counsel for the prosecution, “whether you have ever, since that night, seen this young man, who so closely resembled your old friend, Jim?”
“Never seen him since, to my knowledge”—there was a flutter in the crowded court, as if every spectator had simultaneously drawn a long breath—“till to-day.”
“Till to-day?” said the counsel. This time it was more than a flutter, it was a subdued murmur that ran through the listening crowd.
“Be good enough to say if you can see him at this present moment.”
“I can,” replied Mr. Withers. “That’s him! or my name ain’t vot I’ve been led to believe it is.” And he pointed with a dirty but decided finger at the prisoner at the bar.
The prisoner slightly elevated his arched eyebrows superciliously, as if he would say, “This is a pretty sort of witness to hang a man of my standing.”
“Be so good as to continue your story,” said the counsel.
“Vell, I does vot he tells me, and I lays the body, vith his ’elp, on the truck. ‘Now,’ he ses, ‘follow this ’ere old voman and do every-think vot she tells you, or you’ll find it considerably vorse for your future ’appiness;’ vith vich he slams the door upon me, the old un, and the truck, and I sees no more of ’im. Vell, I follows the old un through a lot o’ lanes and back slums, till ve leaves the town behind, and gets right out upon the ’eath; and ve crosses over the ’eath, till ve comes to vere it’s precious lonely, yet the hedge of the pathway like; and ’ere she tells me as ve’re to leave the body, and ’ere ve shifts it off the truck and lays it down upon the grass, vich it vas a-rainin’ ’eavens ’ard, and a-thunderin’ and a-lightnin’ like von o’clock. ‘And now,’ she ses, ‘vot you’ve got to do is to go back from vheres you come from, and lose no time about it; and take notice,’ she ses, ‘if ever you speaks or jabbers about this ’ere business, it’ll be the end of your jabberin’ in this world,’ vith vitch she looks at me like a old vitch as she vos, and points vith her skinny arm down the road. So I valks my chalks, but I doesn’t valk ’em very far, and presently I sees the old ’ag a-runnin’ back tovards the town as fast as ever she could tear. ‘Ho!’ I ses, ‘you are a nice lot, you are; but I’ll see who’s dead, in spite of you.’ So I crawls up to vere ve’d left the body, and there it vos sure enuff, but all uncovered now, the face a-starin’ up at the black sky, and it vos dressed, as far as I could make out, quite like a gentleman, all in black, but it vos so jolly dark I couldn’t see the face, vhen all of a sudden, vhile I vos a-kneelin’ down and lookin’ at it, there comes von of the longest flashes of lightnin’ as I ever remember, and in the blue light I sees the face plainer than I could have seen it in the day. I thought I should have fell down all of a-heap. It vos Jim! Jim hisself, as I knowed as well as I ever knowed myself, dead at my feet! My first thought vos as how that young man as vos so like Jim had murdered him; but there vorn’t no marks of wiolence novheres about the body. Now, I hadn’t in my own mind any doubts as how it vos Jim; but still, I ses to myself, I ses, ‘Everythink seems topsy-turvy like this night, so I’ll be sure;’ so I takes up his arm, and turns up his coat-sleeve. Now, vy I does this is this ’ere: there vos a young voman Jim vos uncommon fond ov, vhich her name vos Bess, though he and many more called her, for short, Sillikens: and von day vhen me and Jim vos at a public, ve happened to fall in vith a sailor, vot ve’d both knowed afore he vent to sea. So he vos a-tellin’ of us his adventures and such-like, and then he said promiscus, ‘I’ll show you somethin’ pretty;’ and sure enuff, he slipped up the sleeve ov his Garnsey, and there, all over his arm, vos all manner ov sort ov picters done vith gunpowder, such as ankers, and Rule Britannias, and ships in full sail on the backs of flyin’ alligators. So Jim takes quite a fancy to this ’ere, and he ses, ‘I vish, Joe (the sailor’s name bein’ Joe), I vish, Joe, as how you’d do me my young voman’s name and a wreath of roses on my arm, like that there.’ Joe ses, ‘And so I vill, and velcome.’ And sure enuff, a veek or two artervards, Jim comes to me vith his arm like a picter-book, and Bess as large as life just above the elber-joint. So I turns up his coat-sleeve, and vaits for a flash ov lightnin’. I hasn’t to vait long, and there I reads, ‘B.E.S.S.’ ‘There ain’t no doubt now,’ I ses, ‘this ’ere’s Jim, and there’s some willany or other in it, vot I ain’t up to.’ ”
“Very good,” said the counsel; “we may want you again by-and-by, I think, Mr. Withers; but for the present you may retire.”
The next witness called was Dr. Tappenden, who related the circumstances of the admission of Jabez North into his household, the high character he had from the Board of the Slopperton Union, and the confidence reposed in him.
“You placed great trust, then, in this person?” asked the counsel for the prosecution.
“The most implicit trust,” replied the schoolmaster; “so much so, that he was frequently employed by me to collect subscriptions for a public charity of which I was the treasurer—the Slopperton Orphan Asylum. I think it only right to mention this, as on one occasion it was the cause of his calling upon the unfortunate gentleman who was murdered.”
“Indeed!
