BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la sumar

    CHAPTER LIII  

The Track

Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together  under existing circumstances.  When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this  pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems  to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon.  He puts it to his  ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it  enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens  his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to  his destruction. 

The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably  predict that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much  conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long.  Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on  the whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon  the follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses  and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance  rather languishing for want of an object.  He is in the friendliest  condition towards his species and will drink with most of them.  He  is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his  conversation--but through the placid stream of his life there  glides an under-current of forefinger. 

Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket.  Like man in the abstract,  he is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed,  he is here again the next day.  This evening he will be casually  looking into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester  Dedlock's house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking  on the leads at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose  ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas.  Drawers, desks,  pockets, all things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines.  A few  hours afterwards, he and the Roman will be alone together comparing  forefingers.  It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home  enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go  home.  Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.  Bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been  improved by professional exercise, might have done great things,  but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds  himself aloof from that dear solace. 

Mrs. Bucket is dependent on  their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an  interest) for companionship and conversation.  A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the  funeral.  Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;  strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that  is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin  (thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable  carriages is immense.  The peerage contributes more four-wheeled  affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood.  Such is  the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the  Herald's College might be supposed to have lost its father and  mother at a blow.  The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust  and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last  improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on  behind, in a bunch of woe.  All the state coachmen in London seem  plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb  be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it  must be highly gratified this day. 

Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so  many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of  the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd  through the lattice blinds.  He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for  what not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the  carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now  along the people's heads, nothing escapes him. 

"And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself,  apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps  of the deceased's house. 

"And so you are.  And so you are!  And  very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" 

The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of  its assemblage to be brought out.  Mr. Bucket, in the foremost  emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the  lattice a hair's breadth open while he looks.  And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he  is still occupied with Mrs. B. 

"There you are, my partner, eh?" he  murmuringly repeats. 

"And our lodger with you.  I'm taking notice  of you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my  dear!" 

Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive  eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought down-- Where are all those secrets now?  Does he keep them yet?  Did they  fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession  moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed.  After which he composes  himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the  carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.  Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark  carriage and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS.  Between the immeasurable  track of space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into  the fixed sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the  streets, and the narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the  watchful state expressed in every hair of his head!  But it is all  one to both; neither is troubled about that.  Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and  glides from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with  himself arrives.  He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at  present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes  at all hours', where he is always welcome and made much of, where  he knows the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of  mysterious greatness.  No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket.  He has caused himself to be  provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure.  As he is  crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for  you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him. 

"Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket.  If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity  as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to  gratify it.  Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of  some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same. 

"Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket.  Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker. 

"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket.   

"Thankee.  It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the  kind.  Thankee!" 

Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from  somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable  show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with  the other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the  right sort and goes on, letter in hand.  Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within  the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of  letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not  incidental to his life.  He is no great scribe, rather handling his  pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always  convenient to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with  himself in others as being too artless and direct a way of doing  delicate business.  Further, he often sees damaging letters  produced in evidence and has occasion to reflect that it was a  green thing to write them.  For these reasons he has very little to  do with letters, either as sender or receiver.  And yet he has  received a round half-dozen within the last twenty-four hours. 

"And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in  the same hand, and consists of the same two words." 

What two words?  He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book  of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly  written in each, "Lady Dedlock." 

"Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. 

"But I could have made the money  without this anonymous information." 

Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,  he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is  brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry.  Mr. Bucket  frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no  restraint, that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East  Inder sherry better than anything you can offer him. 

Consequently  he fills and empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is  proceeding with his refreshment when an idea enters his mind.  Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room  and the next and looks in.  The library is deserted, and the fire  is sinking low.  Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight  round the room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put  as they arrive.  Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it.   Mr. Bucket draws near and examines the directions. 

"No," he says,  "there's none in that hand.  It's only me as is written to.  I can  break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow."  With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and  after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room.  Sir  Leicester has received him there these several evenings past to  know whether he has anything to report. 

The debilitated cousin  (much exhausted by the funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance.  Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three  people.  A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to  Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to  whom it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me,  and I know you." 

Having distributed these little specimens of his  tact, Mr. Bucket rubs his hands.  "Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir  Leicester.  "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in  private?"  "Why--not tonight, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." 

"Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your  disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of  the law."  Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as  though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a  pretty creetur.  I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of  life, I have indeed." 

The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing  influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes  and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace.  Mr. Bucket prices  that decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that  Volumnia is writing poetry. 

"If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic  manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this  atrocious case, I particularly desire to take the present  opportunity of rectifying any omission I may have made. 

Let no  expense be a consideration.  I am prepared to defray all charges.   You can incur none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken  that I shall hesitate for a moment to bear." 

Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this  liberality. 

"My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as  may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late  diabolical occurrence.  It is not likely ever to recover its tone.   But it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal  of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a  devoted adherent." 

Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his  head.  Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is  aroused. 

"I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is  discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel  as if there were a stain upon my name.  A gentleman who has devoted  a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the  last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at  my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own,  and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. 

I  cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house,  watched at my house, even first marked because of his association  with my house--which may have suggested his possessing greater  wealth and being altogether of greater importance than his own  retiring demeanour would have indicated.  If I cannot with my means  and influence and my position bring all the perpetrators of such a  crime to light, I fail in the assertion of my respect for that  gentleman's memory and of my fidelity towards one who was ever  faithful to me."  While he makes this protestation with great emotion and  earnestness, looking round the room as if he were addressing an  assembly, Mr. Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in  which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch  of compassion. 

"The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly  illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a  stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held  by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have  received from this most horrible and audacious crime. 

If it were  my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him."  Mr. Bucket looks very grave.  Volumnia remarks of the deceased that  he was the trustiest and dearest person! 

"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss, replies Mr. Bucket  soothingly, "no doubt.  He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm  sure he was."  Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her  sensitive mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as  long as she lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that  she has not the least expectation of ever smiling again.  Meanwhile  she folds up a cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath,  descriptive of her melancholy condition.  "It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket  sympathetically, "but it'll wear off." 

Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing?  Whether they  are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier?   Whether he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in  the law?  And a great deal more to the like artless purpose. 

"Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into  persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had  almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at  the present moment.  Not at the present moment.  I've kept myself  on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket  takes into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning,  noon, and night.  But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I  could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. 

I  COULD answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it.  Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with  all that has been traced.  And I hope that he may find it"--Mr.  Bucket again looks grave--"to his satisfaction."  The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample.   Thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get  man place ten thousand a year.  Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better  hang wrong fler than no fler. 

"YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a  complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you  can confirm what I've mentioned to this lady.  YOU don't want to be  told that from information I have received I have gone to work.   You're up to what a lady can't be expected to be up to.  Lord!   Especially in your elevated station of society, miss," says Mr.  Bucket, quite reddening at another narrow escape from "my dear." 

"The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to  his duty, and perfectly right."  Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation,  Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." 

"In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up  a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as  you have put to him.  He is the best judge of his own  responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility.  And it does not  become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere  with those who carry them into execution.  Or," says Sir Leicester  somewhat sternly, for Volumnia was going to cut in before he had  rounded his sentence, "or who vindicate their outraged majesty."  Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the  plea of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her  sex in general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and  interest for the darling man whose loss they all deplore. 

"Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. 

"Then you cannot be  too discreet."  Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again. 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling  this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon  the case as pretty well complete.  It is a beautiful case--a  beautiful case--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect  to be able to supply in a few hours." 

"I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. 

"Highly  creditable to you." 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very  seriously, "I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and  prove satisfactory to all.  When I depict it as a beautiful case,  you see, miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir  Leicester, "I mean from my point of view.  As considered from other  points of view, such cases will always involve more or less  unpleasantness.  Very strange things comes to our knowledge in  families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be  phenomenons, quite." 

Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. 

"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great  families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester  aside. 

"I have had the honour of being employed in high families  before, and you have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not  even YOU have any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what  games goes on!"  The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a  prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very  likely."  Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here  majestically interposes with the words, "Very good.  Thank you!"  and also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is  an end of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low  habits they must take the consequences. 

"You will not forget,  officer," he adds with condescension, "that I am at your disposal  when you please."  Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would  suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be.  Sir  Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me."  Mr. Bucket makes  his three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to  him. 

"Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously  returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase."  "I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester. 

"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,  if I was to ask you why?" 

"Not at all.  I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house.  I  think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole  establishment.  I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity  of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness  of escape.  At the same time, officer, if you in your better  knowledge of the subject see any objection--" 

Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better  not be taken down.  Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing  the door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her  remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue  Chamber.  In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr.  Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm  on the early winter night--admiring Mercury. 

"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket. 

"Three," says Mercury. 

"Are you so much?  But then, you see, you're broad in proportion  and don't look it.  You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you  ain't.  Was you ever modelled now?" 

Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the  expression of an artist into the turn of his eye and head.  Mercury never was modelled. 

"Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of  mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would  stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for  the marble.  My Lady's out, ain't she?" 

"Out to dinner." 

"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" 

"Yes." 

"Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. 

"Such a fine woman as  her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh  lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes.  Was your  father in the same way of life as yourself?"  Answer in the negative. 

"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. 

"My father was first a page, then a  footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper.  Lived  universally respected, and died lamented.  Said with his last  breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his  career, and so it was.  I've a brother in service, AND a brother- in-law.  My Lady a good temper?"  Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect." 

"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. 

"A little spoilt?  A little capricious?   Lord!  What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that?   And we like 'em all the better for it, don't we?" 

Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom  small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of  a man of gallantry and can't deny it.  Come the roll of wheels and  a violent ringing at the bell. 

"Talk of the angels," says Mr.  Bucket.  "Here she is!" 

The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall.  Still  very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two  beautiful bracelets.  Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms  is particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket.  He looks at them with an  eager eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps.  Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the  other Mercury who has brought her home. 

"Mr. Bucket, my Lady." 

Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar  demon over the region of his mouth. 

"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?" 

"No, my Lady, I've seen him!" 

"Have you anything to say to me?" 

"Not just at present, my Lady." 

"Have you made any new discoveries?" 

"A few, my Lady." 

This is merely in passing.  She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps  upstairs alone.  Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot,  watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his  grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their  shadowy weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks  at going by, out of view. 

"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming  back to Mercury. 

"Don't look quite healthy though."  I

s not quite healthy, Mercury informs him.  Suffers much from  headaches.  Really?  That's a pity!  Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for  that.  Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins.  Walks sometimes  for two hours when she has them bad.  By night, too. 

"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr.  Bucket. 

"Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?"  Not a doubt about it. 

"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it.  But  the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so  straggling.  Walks by night, does she?  When it's moonlight,  though?"  Oh, yes.  When it's moonlight!  Of course.  Oh, of course!   Conversational and acquiescent on both sides. 

"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr.  Bucket. 

"Not much time for it, I should say?"  Besides which, Mercury don't like it.  Prefers carriage exercise. 

"To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. 

"That makes a difference.  Now I  think of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking  pleasantly at the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of  this business." 

"To be sure she did!  I let her into the garden over the way. 

"And left her there.  Certainly you did.  I saw you doing it." 

"I didn't see YOU," says Mercury. 

"I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to  visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to  the old original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a  single woman, and got a little property.  Yes, I chanced to be  passing at the time.  Let's see.  What time might it be?  It wasn't  ten." 

"Half-past nine." 

"You're right.  So it was.  And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady  was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" 

"Of course she was." 

Of course she was.  Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has  to get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in  acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is  all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of  bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of  both parties?

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