I’ve
giv’ notice of the circumstarnce to the police, and the police have took
possession of it. No time ain’t been lost, on any hand. The police have
put into print already, and here’s what the print says of it.’
Taking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near a paper on the
wall, with the police heading, BODY FOUND. The two friends read the
handbill as it stuck against the wall, and Gaffer read them as he held the
light.
‘Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see,’ said Lightwood, glancing from
the description of what was found, to the finder.
‘Only papers.’
Here the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went out at the door.
‘No money,’ pursued Mortimer; ‘but threepence in one of the
skirt-pockets.’
‘Three. Penny. Pieces,’ said Gaffer Hexam, in as many sentences.
‘The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out.’
Gaffer Hexam nodded. ‘But that’s common. Whether it’s the wash of the tide
or no, I can’t say. Now, here,’ moving the light to another similar
placard, ‘his pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here,’
moving the light to another, ‘her pocket was found empty, and turned
inside out. And so was this one’s. And so was that one’s. I can’t read,
nor I don’t want to it, for I know ‘em by their places on the wall. This
one was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm.
Look and see if he warn’t.’
‘Quite right.’
‘This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen marked with a
cross. Look and see if she warn’t.’
‘Quite right.’
‘This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two young
sisters what tied themselves together with a handkecher. This the drunken
old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot had offered—it
afterwards come out—to make a hole in the water for a quartern of
rum stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first and last time in
his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; but I know ‘em all.
I’m scholar enough!’
He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of his
scholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and stood behind
it looking intently at his visitors. He had the special peculiarity of
some birds of prey, that when he knitted his brow, his ruffled crest stood
highest.
‘You did not find all these yourself; did you?’ asked Eugene.
To which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, ‘And what might your name be,
now?’
‘This is my friend,’ Mortimer Lightwood interposed; ‘Mr Eugene Wrayburn.’
‘Mr Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr Eugene Wrayburn have asked
of me?’
‘I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself?’
‘I answer you, simply, most on ‘em.’
‘Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, beforehand,
among these cases?’
‘I don’t suppose at all about it,’ returned Gaffer. ‘I ain’t one of the
supposing sort. If you’d got your living to haul out of the river every
day of your life, you mightn’t be much given to supposing. Am I to show
the way?’
As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, an extremely
pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway—the face of a man
much agitated.
‘A body missing?’ asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short; ‘or a body found?
Which?’
‘I am lost!’ replied the man, in a hurried and an eager manner.
‘Lost?’
‘I—I—am a stranger, and don’t know the way. I—I—want
to find the place where I can see what is described here. It is possible I
may know it.’ He was panting, and could hardly speak; but, he showed a
copy of the newly-printed bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps
its newness, or perhaps the accuracy of his observation of its general
look, guided Gaffer to a ready conclusion.
‘This gentleman, Mr Lightwood, is on that business.’
‘Mr Lightwood?’
During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each other. Neither
knew the other.
‘I think, sir,’ said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with his airy
self-possession, ‘that you did me the honour to mention my name?’
‘I repeated it, after this man.’
‘You said you were a stranger in London?’
‘An utter stranger.’
‘Are you seeking a Mr Harmon?’
‘No.’
‘Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless errand, and
will not find what you fear to find.