'Aha! so this is Mr Dickson?' said he.
The trump of judgement could scarce have rung with a more dreadful note in the ears of Pitman and the lawyer. To Morris this erroneous name seemed a legitimate enough continuation of the nightmare in which he had so long been wandering. And when Michael, with his brand-new bushy whiskers, broke from the grasp of the stranger and turned to run, and the weird little shaven creature in the low-necked shirt followed his example with a bird-like screech, and the stranger (finding the rest of his prey escape him) pounced with a rude grasp on Morris himself, that gentleman's frame of mind might be very nearly expressed in the colloquial phrase: 'I told you so!'
'I have one of the gang,' said Gideon Forsyth.
'I do not understand,' said Morris dully.
'O, I will make you understand,' returned Gideon grimly.
'You will be a good friend to me if you can make me understand anything,' cried Morris, with a sudden energy of conviction.
'I don't know you personally, do I?' continued Gideon, examining his unresisting prisoner. 'Never mind, I know your friends. They are your friends, are they not?'
'I do not understand you,' said Morris.
'You had possibly something to do with a piano?' suggested Gideon.
'A piano!' cried Morris, convulsively clasping Gideon by the arm. 'Then you're the other man! Where is it? Where is the body? And did you cash the draft?'
'Where is the body? This is very strange,' mused Gideon. 'Do you want the body?'
'Want it?' cried Morris. 'My whole fortune depends upon it! I lost it. Where is it? Take me to it?
'O, you want it, do you? And the other man, Dickson--does he want it?' enquired Gideon.
'Who do you mean by Dickson? O, Michael Finsbury! Why, of course he does! He lost it too. If he had it, he'd have won the tontine tomorrow.'
'Michael Finsbury! Not the solicitor?' cried Gideon. 'Yes, the solicitor,' said Morris. 'But where is the body?'
'Then that is why he sent the brief! What is Mr Finsbury's private address?' asked Gideon.
'233 King's Road. What brief? Where are you going? Where is the body?' cried Morris, clinging to Gideon's arm.
'I have lost it myself,' returned Gideon, and ran out of the station.
CHAPTER XV. The Return of the Great Vance
Morris returned from Waterloo in a frame of mind that baffles description. He was a modest man; he had never conceived an overweening notion of his own powers; he knew himself unfit to write a book, turn a table napkin-ring, entertain a Christmas party with legerdemain--grapple (in short) any of those conspicuous accomplishments that are usually classed under the head of genius. He knew--he admitted--his parts to be pedestrian, but he had considered them (until quite lately) fully equal to the demands of life. And today he owned himself defeated: life had the upper hand; if there had been any means of flight or place to flee to, if the world had been so ordered that a man could leave it like a place of entertainment, Morris would have instantly resigned all further claim on its rewards and pleasures, and, with inexpressible contentment, ceased to be. As it was, one aim shone before him: he could get home. Even as the sick dog crawls under the sofa, Morris could shut the door of John Street and be alone.
The dusk was falling when he drew near this place of refuge; and the first thing that met his eyes was the figure of a man upon the step, alternately plucking at the bell-handle and pounding on the panels. The man had no hat, his clothes were hideous with filth, he had the air of a hop-picker. Yet Morris knew him; it was John.
The first impulse of flight was succeeded, in the elder brother's bosom, by the empty quiescence of despair. 'What does it matter now?' he thought, and drawing forth his latchkey ascended the steps.
John turned about; his face was ghastly with weariness and dirt and fury; and as he recognized the head of his family, he drew in a long rasping breath, and his eyes glittered.
'Open that door,' he said, standing back.