Hunted Down: The Detective Stories of Charles Dickens Page 6

hunthim down and be the death of him, mercilessly expressed from head tofoot, was, in the first shock, too much for him. Without any figure ofspeech, he staggered under it. But there is no greater mistake than tosuppose that a man who is a calculating criminal, is, in any phase of hisguilt, otherwise than true to himself, and perfectly consistent with hiswhole character. Such a man commits murder, and murder is the naturalculmination of his course; such a man has to outface murder, and will doit with hardihood and effrontery. It is a sort of fashion to expresssurprise that any notorious criminal, having such crime upon hisconscience, can so brave it out. Do you think that if he had it on hisconscience at all, or had a conscience to have it upon, he would everhave committed the crime?

  Perfectly consistent with himself, as I believe all such monsters to be,this Slinkton recovered himself, and showed a defiance that wassufficiently cold and quiet. He was white, he was haggard, he waschanged; but only as a sharper who had played for a great stake and hadbeen outwitted and had lost the game.

  ‘Listen to me, you villain,’ said Beckwith, ‘and let every word you hearme say be a stab in your wicked heart. When I took these rooms, to throwmyself in your way and lead you on to the scheme that I knew myappearance and supposed character and habits would suggest to such adevil, how did I know that? Because you were no stranger to me. I knewyou well. And I knew you to be the cruel wretch who, for so much money,had killed one innocent girl while she trusted him implicitly, and whowas by inches killing another.’

  Slinkton took out a snuff-box, took a pinch of snuff, and laughed.

  ‘But see here,’ said Beckwith, never looking away, never raising hisvoice, never relaxing his face, never unclenching his hand. ‘See what adull wolf you have been, after all! The infatuated drunkard who neverdrank a fiftieth part of the liquor you plied him with, but poured itaway, here, there, everywhere—almost before your eyes; who bought overthe fellow you set to watch him and to ply him, by outbidding you in hisbribe, before he had been at his work three days—with whom you haveobserved no caution, yet who was so bent on ridding the earth of you as awild beast, that he would have defeated you if you had been ever soprudent—that drunkard whom you have, many a time, left on the floor ofthis room, and who has even let you go out of it, alive and undeceived,when you have turned him over with your foot—has, almost as often, on thesame night, within an hour, within a few minutes, watched you awake, hadhis hand at your pillow when you were asleep, turned over your papers,taken samples from your bottles and packets of powder, changed theircontents, rifled every secret of your life!’

  He had had another pinch of snuff in his hand, but had gradually let itdrop from between his fingers to the floor; where he now smoothed it outwith his foot, looking down at it the while.

  [Picture: He had another pinch of snuff in his hand, but gradually let it drop from between his fingers]

  ‘That drunkard,’ said Beckwith, ‘who had free access to your rooms at alltimes, that he might drink the strong drinks that you left in his way andbe the sooner ended, holding no more terms with you than he would holdwith a tiger, has had his master-key for all your locks, his test for allyour poisons, his clue to your cipher-writing. He can tell you, as wellas you can tell him, how long it took to complete that deed, what dosesthere were, what intervals, what signs of gradual decay upon mind andbody; what distempered fancies were produced, what observable changes,what physical pain. He can tell you, as well as you can tell him, thatall this was recorded day by day, as a lesson of experience for futureservice. He can tell you, better than you can tell him, where thatjournal is at this moment.’

  Slinkton stopped the action of his foot, and looked at Beckwith.

  ‘No,’ said the latter, as if answering a question from him. ‘Not in thedrawer of the writing-desk that opens with a spring; it is not there, andit never will be there again.’

  ‘Then you are a thief!’ said Slinkton.

  Without any change whatever in the inflexible purpose, which it was quiteterrific even to me to contemplate, and from the power of which I hadalways felt convinced it was impossible for this wretch to escape,Beckwith returned,

  ‘And I am your niece’s shadow, too.’

  With an imprecation Slinkton put his hand to his head, tore out somehair, and flung it to the ground. It was the end of the smooth walk; hedestroyed it in the action, and it will soon be seen that his use for itwas past.

  Beckwith went on: ‘Whenever you left here, I left here. Although Iunderstood that you found it necessary to pause in the completion of thatpurpose, to avert suspicion, still I watched you close, with the poorconfiding girl. When I had the diary, and could read it word by word,—itwas only about the night before your last visit to Scarborough,—youremember the night? you slept with a small flat vial tied to yourwrist,—I sent to Mr. Sampson, who was kept out of view. This is Mr.Sampson’s trusty servant standing by the door. We three saved your nieceamong us.’

  Slinkton looked at us all, took an uncertain step or two from the placewhere he had stood, returned to it, and glanced about him in a verycurious way,—as one of the meaner reptiles might, looking for a hole tohide in. I noticed at the same time, that a singular change took placein the figure of the man,—as if it collapsed within his clothes, and theyconsequently became ill-shapen and ill-fitting.

  ‘You shall know,’ said Beckwith, ‘for I hope the knowledge will be bitterand terrible to you, why you have been pursued by one man, and why, whenthe whole interest that Mr. Sampson represents would have expended anymoney in hunting you down, you have been tracked to death at a singleindividual’s charge. I hear you have had the name of Meltham on yourlips sometimes?’

  I saw, in addition to those other changes, a sudden stoppage come uponhis breathing.

  ‘When you sent the sweet girl whom you murdered (you know with whatartfully made-out surroundings and probabilities you sent her) toMeltham’s office, before taking her abroad to originate the transactionthat doomed her to the grave, it fell to Meltham’s lot to see her and tospeak with her. It did not fall to his lot to save her, though I know hewould freely give his own life to have done it. He admired her;—I wouldsay he loved her deeply, if I thought it possible that you couldunderstand the word. When she was sacrificed, he was thoroughly assuredof your guilt. Having lost her, he had but one object left in life, andthat was to avenge her and destroy you.’

  I saw the villain’s nostrils rise and fall convulsively; but I saw nomoving at his mouth.

  ‘That man Meltham,’ Beckwith steadily pursued, ‘was as absolutely certainthat you could never elude him in this world, if he devoted himself toyour destruction with his utmost fidelity and earnestness, and if hedivided the sacred duty with no other duty in life, as he was certainthat in achieving it he would be a poor instrument in the hands ofProvidence, and would do well before Heaven in striking you out fromamong living men. I am that man, and I thank God that I have done mywork!’

  If Slinkton had been running for his life from swift-footed savages, adozen miles, he could not have shown more emphatic signs of beingoppressed at heart and labouring for breath, than he showed now, when helooked at the pursuer who had so relentlessly hunted him down.

  ‘You never saw me under my right name before; you see me under my rightname now. You shall see me once again in the body, when you are triedfor your life. You shall see me once again in the spirit, when the cordis round your neck, and the crowd are crying against you!’

  When Meltham had spoken these last words, the miscreant suddenly turnedaway his face, and seemed to strike his mouth with his open hand. At thesame instant, the room was filled with a new and powerful odour, and,almost at the same instant, he broke into a crooked run, leap, start,—Ihave no name for the spasm,—and fell, with a dull weight that shook theheavy old doors and windows in their frames.

  That was the fitting end of him.

  When we saw that he was dead, we drew away from the room, and Meltham,giving me his hand, sa
id, with a weary air,

  ‘I have no more work on earth, my friend. But I shall see her againelsewhere.’

  It was in vain that I tried to rally him. He might have saved her, hesaid; he had not saved her, and he reproached himself; he had lost her,and he was broken-hearted.

  ‘The purpose that sustained me is over, Sampson, and there is nothing nowto hold me to life. I am not fit for life; I am weak and spiritless; Ihave no hope and no object; my day is done.’

  In truth, I could hardly have believed that the broken man who then spoketo me was the man who had so strongly and so differently impressed mewhen his purpose was before him. I used such entreaties with him, as Icould; but he still said, and always said, in a patient, undemonstrativeway,—nothing could avail him,—he was broken-hearted.

  He died early in the next spring. He was buried by the side of the pooryoung lady for whom he had cherished those tender and unhappy regrets;and he left all he had to her sister. She lived to be a happy wife andmother; she married my sister’s son, who succeeded poor