The two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the dominions of Miss Abbey Potterson, to whom their escort (presenting them and their pretended business over the half-door of the bar, in a confidential way) preferred his figurative request that ‘a mouthful of fire’ might be lighted in Cosy. Always well disposed to assist the constituted authorities, Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen to that retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. Of this commission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way with a flaming wisp of paper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy seemed to leap out of a dark sleep and embrace them warmly, the moment they passed the lintels of its hospitable door.
‘They burn sherry very well here,’ said Mr Inspector, as a piece of local intelligence. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen might like a bottle?’
The answer being By all means, Bob Gliddery received his instructions from Mr Inspector, and departed in a becoming state of alacrity engendered by reverence for the majesty of the law.
‘It’s a certain fact,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘that this man we have received our information from,’ indicating Riderhood with his thumb over his shoulder, ‘has for some time past given the other man a bad name arising out of your lime barges, and that the other man has been avoided in consequence. I don’t say what it means or proves, but it’s a certain fact. I had it first from one of the opposite sex of my acquaintance,’ vaguely indicating Miss Abbey with his thumb over his shoulder, ‘down away at a distance, over yonder.’
Then probably Mr Inspector was not quite unprepared for their visit that evening? Lightwood hinted.
‘Well you see,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘it was a question of making a move. It’s of no use moving if you don’t know what your move is. You had better by far keep still. In the matter of this lime, I certainly had an idea that it might lie betwixt the two men; I always had that idea. Still I was forced to wait for a start, and I wasn’t so lucky as to get a start. This man that we have received our information from, has got a start, and if he don’t meet with a check he may make the running and come in first. There may turn out to be something considerable for him that comes in second, and I don’t mention who may or who may not try for that place. There’s duty to do, and I shall do it, under any circumstances; to the best of my judgment and ability.’
‘Speaking as a shipper of lime —’ began Eugene.
‘Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, you know,’ said Mr Inspector.
‘I hope not,’ said Eugene; ‘my father having been a shipper of lime before me, and my grandfather before him — in fact we having been a family immersed to the crowns of our heads in lime during several generations — I beg to observe that if this missing lime could be got hold of without any young female relative of any distinguished gentleman engaged in the lime trade (which I cherish next to my life) being present, I think it might be a more agreeable proceeding to the assisting bystanders, that is to say, lime-burners.’
‘I also,’ said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with a laugh, ‘should much prefer that.’
‘It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conveniently,’ said Mr Inspector, with coolness. ‘There is no wish on my part to cause any distress in that quarter. Indeed, I am sorry for that quarter.’
‘There was a boy in that quarter,’ remarked Eugene. ‘He is still there?’
‘No,’ said Mr Inspector.’ He has quitted those works. He is otherwise disposed of.’
‘Will she be left alone then?’ asked Eugene.
‘She will be left,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘alone.’
Bob’s reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the conversation. But although the jug steamed forth a delicious perfume, its contents had not received that last happy touch which the surpassing finish of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Bob carried in his left hand one of those iron models of sugar-loaf hats, before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the pointed end of which he thrust deep down into the fire, so leaving it for a few moments while he disappeared and reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses. Placing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously sensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of steam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one gentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the steam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession; finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the applause of his fellow-creatures.
It was bestowed (Mr Inspector having proposed as an appropriate sentiment ‘The lime trade!’) and Bob withdrew to report the commendations of the guests to Miss Abbey in the bar. It may be here in confidence admitted that, the room being close shut in his absence, there had not appeared to be the slightest reason for the elaborate maintenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been regarded by Mr Inspector as so uncommonly satisfactory, and so fraught with mysterious virtues, that neither of his clients had presumed to question it.
Two taps were now heard on the outside of the window. Mr Inspector, hastily fortifying himself with another glass, strolled out with a noiseless foot and an unoccupied countenance. As one might go to survey the weather and the general aspect of the heavenly bodies.
‘This is becoming grim, Mortimer,’ said Eugene, in a low voice. ‘I don’t like this.’
‘Nor I’ said Lightwood. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and I won’t leave you. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark hair runs in my head. It was little more than a glimpse we had of her that last time, and yet I almost see her waiting by the fire to-night. Do you feel like a dark combination of traitor and pickpocket when you think of that girl?’
‘Rather,’ returned Lightwood. ‘Do you?’
‘Very much so.’
Their escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested of its various lime-lights and shadows, his report went to the effect that Gaffer was away in his boat, supposed to be on his old look-out; that he had been expected last high-water; that having missed it for some reason or other, he was not, according to his usual habits at night, to be counted on before next high-water, or it might be an hour or so later; that his daughter, surveyed through the window, would seem to be so expecting him, for the supper was not cooking, but set out ready to be cooked; that it would be highwater at about one, and that it was now barely ten; that there was nothing to be done but watch and wait; that the informer was keeping watch at the instant of that present reporting, but that two heads were better than one (especially when the second was Mr Inspector’s); and that the reporter meant to share the watch. And forasmuch as crouching under the lee of a hauled-up boat on a night when it blew cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of hail at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed with the recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain, for a while at any rate, in their present quarters, which were weather-tight and warm.
They were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they wanted to know where they could join the watchers when so disposed. Rather than trust to a verbal description of the place, which might mislead, Eugene (with a less weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usually had) would go out with Mr Inspector, note the spot, and come back.
On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a causeway — not the special causeway of the Six Jolly Fellowships, which had a landing-place of its own, but another, a little removed, and very near to the old windmill which was the denounced man’s dwelling-place — were a few boats; some, moored and already beginning to float; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of these latter, Eugene’s companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed its position with reference to the other boats, and had made sure that he could not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he had been told, the lonely girl with the dark hair sat by the fire.
He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhaps it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with the express intention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, there was no difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: it was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard mud some three or four feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to the window by that means.
She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, as shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire.
It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not curtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It showed him the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned people starting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them, though he looked long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of colour, with the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair, though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the falling of the fire.
She started up. He had been so very still that he felt sure it was not he who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew from the window and stood near it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the door, and said in an alarmed tone, ‘Father, was that you calling me?’ And again, ‘Father!’ And once again, after listening, ‘Father! I thought I heard you call me twice before!’
No response. As she re-entered at the door, he dropped over the bank and made his way back, among the ooze and near the hidingplace, to Mortimer Lightwood: to whom he told what he had seen of the girl, and how this was becoming very grim indeed.
‘If the real man feels as guilty as I do,’ said Eugene, ‘he is remarkably uncomfortable.’
‘Influence of secrecy,’ suggested Lightwood.
‘I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the vault and a Sneak in the area both at once,’ said Eugene. ‘Give me some more of that stuff.’
Lightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it had been cooling, and didn’t answer now.
‘Pooh,’ said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. ‘Tastes like the wash of the river.’
‘Are you so familiar with the flavour of the wash of the river?’
‘I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, and swallowing a gallon of it.’
‘Influence of locality,’ suggested Lightwood.
‘You are mighty learned to-night, you and your influences,’ returned Eugene. ‘How long shall we stay here?’
‘How long do you think?’
‘If I could choose, I should say a minute,’ replied Eugene, ‘for the Jolly Fellowship P............