BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la Sumar

CHAPTER LIV  

Springing a Mine 

Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and  prepares for a field-day.  Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt  and a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of  ceremony, he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his  life of severe study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton  chops as a foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast,  and marmalade on a corresponding scale.  Having much enjoyed these  strengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his  familiar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury "just to mention  quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready  for me, I'm ready for him." 

A gracious message being returned that  Sir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the  library within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment  and stands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at  the blazing coals.  Thoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do,  but composed, sure, confident.  From the expression of his face he  might be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred  guineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high  reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in  a masterly way.  Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr.  Bucket when Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as  he comes slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of  yesterday in which there might have been yesterday, but for the  audacity of the idea, a touch of compassion. 

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather  later than my usual hour this morning.  I am not well.  The  agitation and the indignation from which I have recently suffered  have been too much for me.  I am subject to--gout"--Sir Leicester  was going to say indisposition and would have said it to anybody  else, but Mr. Bucket palpably knows all about it--"and recent  circumstances have brought it on." 

As he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain,  Mr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large  hands on the library-table. 

"I am not aware, officer," Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes  to his face, "whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely  as you please.  If you do, well and good.  If not, Miss Dedlock  would be interested--" 

"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket with his  head persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear  like an earring, "we can't be too private just at present.  You  will presently see that we can't be too private.  A lady, under the  circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of  society, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view  to myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we  can't be too private." 

"That is enough." 

"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket resumes,  "that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key  in the door." 

"By all means."  Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that  precaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of  habit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in  from the outerside. 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that  I wanted but a very little to complete this case.  I have now  completed it and collected proof against the person who did this  crime." 

"Against the soldier?" 

"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier." 

Sir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, "Is the man in  custody?"  Mr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, "It was a woman."  Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates,  "Good heaven!" 

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket begins, standing  over him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the  forefinger of the other in impressive use, "it's my duty to prepare  you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to  say that will, give you a shock.  But Sir Leicester Dedlock,  Baronet, you are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and  what a gentleman is capable of.  A gentleman can bear a shock when  it must come, boldly and steadily.  A gentleman can make up his  mind to stand up against almost any blow.  Why, take yourself, Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.  If there's a blow to be inflicted on  you, you naturally think of your family.  You ask yourself, how  would all them ancestors of yours, away to Julius Caesar--not to go  beyond him at present--have borne that blow; you remember scores of  them that would have borne it well; and you bear it well on their  accounts, and to maintain the family credit.  That's the way you  argue, and that's the way you act, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet."  Sir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows,  sits looking at him with a stony face. 

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "thus preparing  you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to  anything having come to MY knowledge.  I know so much about so many  characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less  don't signify a straw.  I don't suppose there's a move on the board  that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken  place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move  whatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move  according to my experience.  Therefore, what I say to you, Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be  put out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family  affairs." 

"I thank you for your preparation," returns Sir Leicester after a  silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which I hope is  not necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended.  Be  so good as to go on.  Also"--Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the  shadow of his figure--"also, to take a seat, if you have no  objection."  None at all.  Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow. 

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I  come to the point.  Lady Dedlock--" 

Sir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him  fiercely.  Mr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient.  "Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired.  That's what her  ladyship is; she's universally admired," says Mr. Bucket. 

"I would greatly prefer, officer," Sir Leicester returns stiffly,  "my Lady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion." 

"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but--it's impossible." 

"Impossible?"  Mr. Bucket shakes his relentless head. 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible.  What  I have got to say is about her ladyship.  She is the pivot it all  turns on." 

"Officer," retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering  lip, "you know your duty.  Do your duty, but be careful not to  overstep it.  I would not suffer it.  I would not endure it.  You  bring my Lady's name into this communication upon your  responsibility--upon your responsibility.  My Lady's name is not a  name for common persons to trifle with!" 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no  more." 

"I hope it may prove so.  Very well.  Go on.  Go on, sir!"   

Glancing at the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry  figure trembling from head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr.  Bucket feels his way with his forefinger and in a low voice  proceeds.  "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you  that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and  suspicions of Lady Dedlock." 

"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--I  would have killed him myself!" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his  hand upon the table.  But in the very heat and fury of the act he  stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is  slowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes  his head. 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and  close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I  can't quite take upon myself to say.  But I know from his lips that  he long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through  the sight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you  yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present--the existence, in  great poverty, of a certain person who had been her lover before  you courted her and who ought to have been her husband." 

Mr.  Bucket stops and deliberately repeats, "Ought to have been her  husband, not a doubt about it.  I know from his lips that when that  person soon afterwards died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting  his wretched lodging and his wretched grave, alone and in secret.   I know from my own inquiries and through my eyes and ears that Lady  Dedlock did make such visit in the dress of her own maid, for the  deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed me to reckon up her ladyship--if  you'll excuse my making use of the term we commonly employ--and I  reckoned her up, so far, completely.  I confronted the maid in the  chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a witness who had been Lady  Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the shadow of a doubt that  she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown to her.  Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the way a  little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying  that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes.   

All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and  through your own Lady.  It's my belief that the deceased Mr.  Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death  and that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon  the matter that very night.  Now, only you put that to Lady  Dedlock, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship  whether, even after he had left here, she didn't go down to his  chambers with the intention of saying something further to him,  dressed in a loose black mantle with a deep fringe to it."  Sir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that  is probing the life-blood of his heart. 

"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from  me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective.  And if her ladyship makes  any difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no  use, that Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the  soldier as you called him (though he's not in the army now) and  knows that she knows she passed him on the staircase.  Now, Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, why do I relate all this?" 

Sir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a  single groan, requests him to pause for a moment.  By and by he  takes his hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward  calmness, though there is no more colour in his face than in his  white hair, that Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him.  Something  frozen and fixed is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell  of haughtiness, and Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in  his speech, with now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which  occasions him to utter inarticulate sounds.  With such sounds he  now breaks silence, soon, however, controlling himself to say that  he does not comprehend why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as  the late Mr. Tulkinghorn should have communicated to him nothing of  this painful, this distressing, this unlooked-for, this  overwhelming, this incredible intelligence.  "Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket, "put  it to her ladyship to clear that up.  Put it to her ladyship, if  you think it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective.  You'll  find, or I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had  the intention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he  considered it ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so  to understand.  Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very  morning when I examined the body!  You don't know what I'm going to  say and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester  Dedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you  might wonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?" 

True.  Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive  sounds, says, "True." 

At this juncture a considerable noise of  voices is heard in the hall.  Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to  the library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again.   Then he draws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly,  "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has  taken air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn  being cut down so sudden.  The chance to hush it is to let in these  people now in a wrangle with your footmen.  Would you mind sitting  quiet--on the family account--while I reckon 'em up?  And would you  just throw in a nod when I seem to ask you for it?" 

Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, "Officer.  The best you can,  the best you can!" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook  of the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices  quickly die away.  He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead  of Mercury and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed  smalls, who bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old  man.  Another man and two women come behind.  Directing the  pitching of the chair in an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket  dismisses the Mercuries and locks the door again.  Sir Leicester  looks on at this invasion of the sacred precincts with an icy  stare.  "Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen," says Mr.  Bucket in a confidential voice. 

"I am Inspector Bucket of the  Detective, I am; and this," producing the tip of his convenient  little staff from his breast-pocket, "is my authority.  Now, you  wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.  Well! You do see  him, and mind you, it ain't every one as is admitted to that  honour.  Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your  name is; I know it well." 

"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!" cries Mr. Smallweed in  a shrill loud voice. 

"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?" retorts  Mr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper. 

"No!" 

"Why, they killed him," says Mr. Bucket, "on account of his having  so much cheek.  Don't YOU get into the same position, because it  isn't worthy of you.  You ain't in the habit of conversing with a  deaf person, are you?" 

"Yes," snarls Mr. Smallweed, "my wife's deaf." 

"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high.  But as she  ain't here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and  I'll not only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit,"  says Mr. Bucket. 

"This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I  think?" 

"Name of Chadband," Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a  much lower key. 

"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says Mr.  Bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it.   Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?" 

"And Mrs. Snagsby," Mr. Smallweed introduces.  "Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says Mr. Bucket.   "Love him like a brother!  Now, what's up?"  "Do you mean what business have we come upon?" Mr. Smallweed asks,  a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn. 

"Ah! You know what I mean.  Let us hear what it's all about in  presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.  Come."  Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel  with him in a whisper.  Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable  amount of oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his  hands, says aloud, "Yes.  You first!" and retires to his former  place. 

"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather  Smallweed then; "I did business with him.  I was useful to him, and  he was useful to me.  Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law.   He was own brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed.   I come into Krook's property.  I examined all his papers and all  his effects.  They was all dug out under my eyes.  There was a  bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid  away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his  cat's bed.  He hid all manner of things away, everywheres.  Mr.  Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and got 'em, but I looked 'em over first.   I'm a man of business, and I took a squint at 'em.  They was  letters from the lodger's sweetheart, and she signed Honoria.  Dear  me, that's not a common name, Honoria, is it?  There's no lady in  this house that signs Honoria is there?  Oh, no, I don't think so!   Oh, no, I don't think so!  And not in the same hand, perhaps?  Oh,  no, I don't think so!"  Here Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of  his triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, "Oh, dear me!  Oh, Lord!  I'm  shaken all to pieces!" 

"Now, when you're ready," says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his  recovery, "to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock,  Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know." 

"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?" cries Grandfather Smallweed.   

"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet?  Not with Captain Hawdon, and  his ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain?   Come, then, I want to know where those letters are.  That concerns  me, if it don't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock.  I will know where  they are.  I won't have 'em disappear so quietly.  I handed 'em  over to my friend and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody  else." 

"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too," says Mr.  Bucket. 

"I don't care for that.  I want to know who's got 'em.  And I tell  you what we want--what we all here want, Mr. Bucket.  We want more  painstaking and search-making into this murder.  We know where the  interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough.  If  George the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an  accomplice, and was set on.  You know what I mean as well as any  man." 

"Now I tell you what," says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering  his manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary  fascination to the forefinger, "I am damned if I am a-going to have  my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as  half a second of time by any human being in creation.  YOU want  more painstaking and search-making!  YOU do?  Do you see this hand,  and do you think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out  and put it on the arm that fired that shot?" 

Such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is  that he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to  apologize.  Mr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him. 

"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the  murder.  That's my affair.  You keep half an eye on the newspapers,  and I shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before  long, if you look sharp.  I know my business, and that's all I've  got to say to you on that subject.  Now about those letters.  You  want to know who's got 'em.  I don't mind telling you.  I have got  'em.  Is that the packet?" 

Mr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr.  Bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifles  it as the same. 

"What have you got to say next?" asks Mr. Bucket. 

"Now, don't open  your mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do  it." 

"I want five hundred pound." 

"No, you don't; you mean fifty," says Mr. Bucket humorously.  It appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred. 

"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to  consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of  business," says Mr. Bucket--Sir Leicester mechanically bows his  head--"and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred  pounds.  Why, it's an unreasonable proposal!  Two fifty would be  bad enough, but better than that.  Hadn't you better say two  fifty?" 

Mr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not.  "Then," says Mr. Bucket, "let's hear Mr. Chadband.  Lord!  Many a  time I've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate  man he was in all respects, as ever I come across!" 

Thus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek  smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands,  delivers himself as follows, "My friends, we are now--Rachael, my  wife, and I--in the mansions of the rich and great.  Why are we now  in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends?  Is it because  we are invited?  Because we are bidden to feast with them, because  we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play  the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them?  No.   Then why are we here, my friends?  Air we in possession of a sinful  secret, and do we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much  the same thing, money, for the keeping thereof?  Probably so, my  friends." 

"You're a man of business, you are," returns Mr. Bucket, very  attentive, "and consequently you're going on to mention what the  nature of your secret is.  You are right.  You couldn't do better." 

"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love," says Mr. Chadband  with a cunning eye, "proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!"  Mrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her  husband into the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard,  frowning smile. 

"Since you want to know what we know," says she, "I'll tell you.  I  helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter.  I was in  the service of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the  disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her  ladyship, that the child was dead--she WAS very nearly so--when she  was born.  But she's alive, and I know her."  With these words, and  a laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," Mrs.  Chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket. 

"I suppose now," returns that officer, "YOU will he expecting a  twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?"  Mrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can  "offer" twenty pence.  

"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there," says Mr.  Bucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. 

"What may  YOUR game be, ma'am?"  Mrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from  stating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes  to light that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs,  whom Mr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to  keep in darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions,  has been the sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so  much commiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's  Court in the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late  habitually carried to him all her woes.  Everybody it appears, the  present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace.   

There is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as  open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as  midnight, under the influence--no doubt--of Mr. Snagsby's suborning  and tampering.  There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived  mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes.  There  was Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo,  deceased; and they were "all in it."  In what, Mrs. Snagsby does  not with particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr.  Snagsby's son, "as well as if a trumpet had spoken it," and she  followed Mr. Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and  if he was not his son why did he go?  The one occupation of her  life has been, for some time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and  fro, and up and down, and to piece suspicious circumstances  together--and every circumstance that has happened has been most  suspicious; and in this way she has pursued her object of detecting  and confounding her false husband, night and day. 

Thus did it come  to pass that she brought the Chadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn  together, and conferred with Mr. Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr.  Guppy, and helped to turn up the circumstances in which the present  company are interested, casually, by the wayside, being still and  ever on the great high road that is to terminate in Mr. Snagsby's  full exposure and a matrimonial separation.  All this, Mrs.  Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the friend of Mrs. Chadband, and  the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the mourner of the late Mr.  Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the seal of confidence, with  every possible confusion and involvement possible and impossible,  having no pecuniary motive whatever, no scheme or project but the  one mentioned, and bringing here, and taking everywhere, her own  dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the ceaseless working of her  mill of jealousy.  While this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--Mr. Bucket,  who has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at  a glance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd  attention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed.  Sir Leicester  Dedlock remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him,  except that he once or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying  on that officer alone of all mankind. 

"Very good," says Mr. Bucket. 

"Now I understand you, you know, and  being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this  little matter," again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in  confirmation of the statement, "can give it my fair and full  attention. 

Now I won't allude to conspiring to extort money or  anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world  here, and our object is to make things pleasant.  But I tell you  what I DO wonder at; I am surprised that you should think of making  a noise below in the hall.  It was so opposed to your interests.   That's what I look at." 

"We wanted to get in," pleads Mr. Smallweed. 

"Why, of course you wanted to get in," Mr. Bucket asserts with  cheerfulness; "but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what I  call truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as I have  no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which  occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to  consider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as  close as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious!   You see your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost  ground," says Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way. 

"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to  Sir Leicester Dedlock," returns Mr. Smallweed. 

"That's it!  That's where your temper got the better of you. Now,  you keep it under another time and you'll make money by it.  Shall  I ring for them to carry you down?" 

"When are we to hear more of this?" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands. 

"Bless your heart for a true woman!  Always curious, your  delightful sex is!" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. 

"I shall  have the pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not  forgetting Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty." 

"Five hundred!" exclaims Mr. Smallweed.  "All right!  Nominally five hundred." 

Mr. Bucket has his hand on  the bell-rope. 

"SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the  part of myself and the gentleman of the house?" he asks in an  insinuating tone.  Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it,  and the party retire as they came up.  Mr. Bucket follows them to  the door, and returning, says with an air of serious business, "Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not  to buy this up.  I should recommend, on the whole, it's being  bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap.  You  see, that little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used  by all sides of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in  bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it.  Mr.  Tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand and  could have drove 'em his own way, I haven't a doubt; but he was  fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs  over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways.   So it is, and such is life.  The cat's away, and the mice they  play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs.  Now, with regard to  the party to be apprehended."  Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open,  and he looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his  watch. 

"The party to be apprehended is now in this house," proceeds Mr.  Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising  spirits, "and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence.   Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir.   There'll be no noise and no disturbance at all.  I'll come back in  the course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to  meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the  nobbiest way of keeping it quiet.  Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,  Baronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at  present coming off.  You shall see the whole case clear, from first  to last."  Mr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts  the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded.  After a  suspense of a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman  enters.  Mademoiselle Hortense.  The moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts  his back against it.  The suddenness of the noise occasions her to  turn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in  his chair. 

"I ask you pardon," she mutters hurriedly.  "They tell me there was  no one here."  Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr.  Bucket.  Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns  deadly pale. 

"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock," says Mr. Bucket,  nodding at her. 

"This foreign young woman has been my lodger for  some weeks back." 

"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns  mademoiselle in a jocular strain.  "Why, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket, "we shall see."  Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face,  which gradually changes into a smile of scorn, "You are very  mysterieuse.  Are you drunk?" 

"Tolerable sober, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket. 

"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife.   Your wife have left me since some minutes.  They tell me downstairs  that your wife is here.  I come here, and your wife is not here.   What is the intention of this fool's play, say then?" mademoiselle  demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in  her dark cheek beating like a clock.  Mr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her. 

"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!" cries mademoiselle with a  toss of her head and a laugh.  "Leave me to pass downstairs, great  pig."  With a stamp of her foot and a menace. 

"Now, mademoiselle," says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, "you  go and sit down upon that sofy."  "I will not sit down upon nothing," she replies with a shower of  nods. 

"Now, mademoiselle," repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration  except with the finger, "you sit down upon that sofy." 

"Why?"  "Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you  don't need to be told it.  Now, I want to be polite to one of your  sex and a foreigner if I can.  If I can't, I must be rough, and  there's rougher ones outside.  What I am to be depends on you.  So  I recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment  has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy."

  Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that  something in her cheek beats fast and hard, "You are a devil." 

"Now, you see," Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, "you're  comfortable and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign  young woman of your sense to do.  So I'll give you a piece of  advice, and it's this, don't you talk too much.  You're not  expected to say anything here, and you can't keep too quiet a  tongue in your head.  In short, the less you PARLAY, the better,  you know." 

Mr. Bucket is very complacent over this French  explanation.  Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her  black eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a  rigid state, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might  suppose--muttering, "Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!" 

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," says Mr. Bucket, and from  this time forth the finger never rests, "this young woman, my  lodger, was her ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to  you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and  passionate against her ladyship after being discharged--" 

"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. 

"I discharge myself." 

"Now, why don't you take my advice?" returns Mr. Bucket in an  impressive, almost in an imploring, tone.  "I'm surprised at the  indiscreetness you commit.  You'll say something that'll be used  against you, you know.  You're sure to come to it.  Never you mind  what I say till it's given in evidence.  It is not addressed to  you." 

"Discharge, too," cries mademoiselle furiously, "by her ladyship!   Eh, my faith, a pretty ladyship!  Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character hy  remaining with a ladyship so infame!" 

"Upon my soul I wonder at you!" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. 

"I  thought the French were a polite nation, I did, really.  Yet to  hear a female going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock,  Baronet!" 

"He is a poor abused!" cries mademoiselle. 

"I spit upon his house,  upon his name, upon his imbecility," all of which she makes the  carpet represent.  "Oh, that he is a great man!  Oh, yes, superb!   Oh, heaven!  Bah!"  "Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "this  intemperate foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she  had established a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by  attending on the occasion I told you of at his chambers, though she  was liberally paid for her time and trouble."  "Lie!" cries mademoiselle. 

"I ref-use his money all togezzer."  "If you WILL PARLAY, you know," says Mr. Bucket parenthetically,  "you must take the consequences. 

Now, whether she became my  lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then  of doing this deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she  lived in my house in that capacity at the time that she was  hovering about the chambers of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a  view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening  the life out of an unfortunate stationer."  

"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. 

"All lie!" 

"The murder was commttted, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you  know under what circumstances.  Now, I beg of you to follow me  close with your attention for a minute or two.  I was sent for, and  the case was entrusted to me.  I examined the place, and the body,  and the papers, and everything.  From information I received (from  a clerk in the same house) I took George into custody as having  been seen hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the  time of the murder, also as having been overheard in high words  with the deceased on former occasions--even threatening him, as the  witness made out.  If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether  from the first I believed George to be the murderer, I tell you  candidly no, but he might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough  against him to make it my duty to take him and get him kept under  remand.  Now, observe!"  As Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and  inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his  forefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes  upon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly  together. 

"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found  this young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket.  She had  made a mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first  offering herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than  ever--in fact, overdid it.  Likewise she overdid her respect, and  all that, for the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn.   By the living Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at  the table and saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done  it!" 

Mademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and  lips the words, "You are a devil." 

"Now where," pursues Mr. Bucket, "had she been on the night of the  murder?  She had been to the theayter.  (She really was there, I  have since found, both before the deed and after it.)  I knew I had  an artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very  difficult; and I laid a trap for her--such a trap as I never laid  yet, and such a venture as I never made yet.  I worked it out in my  mind while I was talking to her at supper.  When I went upstairs to  bed, our house being small and this young woman's ears sharp, I  stuffed the sheet into Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a  word of surprise and told her all about it.  My dear, don't you  give your mind to that again, or I shall link your feet together at  the ankles."  Mr. Bucket, breaking off, has made a noiseless  descent upon mademoiselle and laid his heavy hand upon her  shoulder. 

"What is the matter with you now?" she asks him. 

"Don't you think any more," returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory  finger, "of throwing yourself out of window.  That's what's the  matter with me.  Come!  Just take my arm.  You needn't get up; I'll  sit down by you.  Now take my arm, will you?  I'm a married man,  you know; you're acquainted with my wife.  Just take my arm."  Vaiuly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound  she struggles with herself and complies. 

"Now we're all right again.  Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this  case could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who  is a woman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand!  To  throw this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our  house since, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the  baker's loaves and in the milk as often as required.  My whispered  words to Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'My  dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my  suspicions against George, and this, and that, and t'other?  Can  you do without rest and keep watch upon her night and day?  Can you  undertake to say, "She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she  shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more  escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and  her soul my soul, till I have got her, if she did this murder?"'

Mrs. Bucket says to me, as well as she could speak on account of  the sheet, 'Bucket, I can!'  And she has acted up to it glorious!" 

"Lies!" mademoiselle interposes. 

"All lies, my friend!" 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out  under these circumstances?  When I calculated that this impetuous  young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or  right?  I was right.  What does she try to do?  Don't let it give  you a turn?  To throw the murder on her ladyship."  Sir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again. 

"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always  here, which was done a-purpose.  Now, open that pocket-book of  mine, Sir Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing  it towards you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the  two words 'Lady Dedlock' in it.  Open the one directed to yourself,  which I stopped this very morning, and read the three words 'Lady  Dedlock, Murderess' in it.  These letters have been falling about  like a shower of lady-birds.  What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket,  from her spy-place having seen them all 'written by this young  woman?  What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having, within this half- hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets  and what not?  What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having watched the  posting of 'em every one by this young woman, Sir Leicester  Dedlock, Baronet?" 

Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant in his admiration  of his lady's genius.  Two things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a  conclusion.  First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a  dreadful right of property in mademoiselle.  Secondly, that the  very atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her  as if a close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer  around her breathless figure. 

"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the  eventful period," says Mr. Bucket, "and my foreign friend here saw  her, I believe, from the upper part of the staircase.  Her ladyship  and George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one  another's heels.  But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go  into it.  I found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased  Mr. Tulkinghorn was shot.  It was a bit of the printed description  of your house at Chesney Wold.  Not much in that, you'll say, Sir  Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.  No.  But when my foreign friend here  is so thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear  up the rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces  together and finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like  Queer Street." 

"These are very long lies," mademoiselle interposes. 

"You prose  great deal.  Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you  speaking always?" 

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights  in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with  any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which I am now  going to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business,  and never doing a thing in a hurry.  I watched this young woman  yesterday without her knowledge when she was looking at the  funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there;  and I had so much to convict her, and I saw such an expression in  her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her  ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down  what you may call retribution upon her, that if I had been a  younger hand with less experience, I should have taken her,  certain.  Equally, last night, when her ladyship, as is so  universally admired I am sure, come home looking--why, Lord, a man  might almost say like Venus rising from the ocean--it was so  unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a  murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to want to put  an end to the job.  What should I have lost?  Sir Leicester  Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon.  My prisoner here  proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that  they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea  at a very decent house of entertainment.  Now, near that house of  entertainment there's a piece of water.  At tea, my prisoner got up  to fetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets  was; she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of  wind.  As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs.  Bucket, along with her observations and suspicions.  I had the  piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our  men, and the pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there  half-a-dozen hours.  Now, my dear, put your arm a little further  through mine, and hold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!" 

In a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. 

"That's one,"  says Mr. Bucket. 

"Now the other, darling.  Two, and all told!"  He rises; she rises too. 

"Where," she asks him, darkening her  large eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet  they stare, "where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed  wife?" 

"She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr. Bucket.   

"You'll see her there, my dear." 

"I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting  tigress-like. 

"You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr. Bucket. 

"I would!" making her eyes very large. 

"I would love to tear her  limb from limb." 

"Bless you, darling," says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure,  "I'm fully prepared to hear that.  Your sex have such a surprising  animosity against one another when you do differ.  You don't mind  me half so much, do you?" 

"No.  Though you are a devil still." 

"Angel and devil by turns, eh?" cries Mr. Bucket. 

"But I am in my  regular employment, you must consider.  Let me put your shawl tidy.   I've been lady's maid to a good many before now.  Anything wanting  to the bonnet?  There's a cab at the door."

  Mademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass,  shakes herself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her  justice, uncommonly genteel. 

"Listen then, my angel," says she after several sarcastic nods.   

"You are very spiritual.  But can you restore him back to life?" 

Mr. Bucket answers, "Not exactly." 

"That is droll.  Listen yet one time.  You are very spiritual.  Can  you make a honourahle lady of her?" 

"Don't be so malicious," says Mr. Bucket. 

"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?" cries mademoiselle, referring to  Sir Leicester with ineffable disdain. 

"Eh!  Oh, then regard him!   The poor infant!  Ha! Ha! Ha!" 

"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other," says Mr.  Bucket. 

"Come along!"  "You cannot do these things?  Then you can do as you please with  me.  It is but the death, it is all the same.  Let us go, my angel.   Adieu, you old man, grey.  I pity you, and I despise you!"  With these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth  closed with a spring.  It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket  gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar  to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering  away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of  his affections.  Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though  he were still listening and his attention were still occupied.  At  length he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted,  rises unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a  few steps, supporting himself by the table. 

Then he stops, and  with more of those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems  to stare at something.  Heaven knows what he sees.  The green, green woods of Chesney Wold,  the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers  defacing them, officers of police coarsely handling his most  precious heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands  of faces sneering at him.  But if such shadows flit before him to  his bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with  something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he  addresses his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms. 

It is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for  years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has  never had a selfish thought.  It is she whom he has loved, admired,  honoured, and set up for the world to respect.  It is she who, at  the core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities  of his life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love,  susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he  feels.  He sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot  bear to look upon her cast down from the high place she has graced  so well.  And even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of  his suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like  distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone  of mourning and compassion rather than reproach.

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