The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 256: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“" | qgawe © Geese ow ERR — os 0 THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. See aaa, Yd you go to the public-house that I frequents, ax for a private room, order up the wine, and wait till I come. I eha’n’t be a quarter of an hour.” Thereupon the old man described the whereabouts of the public-house tw which he alluded; and Lady Bees het no time in vanishing from the knacker’s- yard. Right glad was she to escape from the noxious fumes and revolting spectacies of that hor- rible place. The public-house was speedily found— a private room was placed at her disposal--she did not forget to order the bottle of wine—and in abeut twenty minutes Bob Shakerly made his appearance. He was now somewhat more cleanly and presentable in person and in apperel: but nevertheless, if he had expended a bottle of some fragrant essence in expelling, or rather deadening the sickly odour that to him despite his ablutions, i¢ would all the better. Vor the effluvium of a e-yard crime or with the tenacity of a remorse | “ Now,” esid Lady Bees, producing her purse and counting down ten sovereigns upon the table, “ this money is at your services provided you give me the information I desire.” The old man’s eyes glistened like those of a snake at sight of the gold; and eviniently eager to clutch it, he aaked what information it was that Lady Bess soughf. “ About sixteen years ago,” she replied, looking at him very hard in the face to convince him that she hnew something about the matter and that no denial or evasion would do,—“ you were employed by a certain gentleman who since has borne the title «€ a nubleman, to procure the dead body of some foy and introduce it imto a certain house in the suntry. It is concerning this transaction that I tvquire ell the particulars you you can give.” “Wall and good,” returned old Shakerly. “ But how am I to know that I mayn’t got myself into trouble by telling you all about i¢ P° “You will get yourself into trouble if you do nea,” answered Lady Bess, “I have discovered so vomplete a clue to the unravelling of the whole enepiracy of which the transaction of the dead wody forms a part, that I could at once invoke the of the law every one concerned. But my object is to have the matter settled quietly— that is to say, as quictly as possible; andthe way to do this is by convincing the guilty originator of the whole vile scheme that it is discovered in all its ramifications, and that he would do well to surrender his usurped title and estates in the way less liable to ereate exposure.” ; “I understand,” said old Bob Shakerly: “frighten his lordship into it—eh? But ten guineas for euch information as you want from me, is ttle enow,” added the old man, anxious to drive the best bargain possible. “ Here are twenty,” said Lady Bess, producing the remainder of the eum ; “and I will make it up to fifty on the day that the true Lord Everton re- covers his nghts. If you will not take my word for 1, I will give it to you 1n writing: but doubtless those who have already spoken to you of me——" “Your ladyship need not eay any more,” inter- eupted theold knacker. ‘“ Iam perfectly sutisfied :” -. a0 having nelped himself to the wine, ot which Bese refused to partake, he proceeded to ob- re filn ques ——veD a = wwe. =w-e am we ao WEEE ob _ —- Oh, beg pardon!” eaid Mr. Shakerly. “Just adheres to one like the taint of a: ae mm ae op an gap 346 serve, “I suppose your time is preeious, and thare- fore I'll come to the pint at once.” “Do so,” said Lady Bess: “ for I am anxious to be gone. “Well then, it was as you have said,” resumed the old man, “just about sixteen years ago that 2 genelman came to my lodgings—I was then living up Pancras way—and said that if I liked to doa certain job for him he’d pay me well. I axed who recommended him, or how he come to find me out: and he told me as how that he’d been i "quiries in some of the low neighbourhoods of Lon- don for a resurrectionist. Of course in making them “quiries he'd passed hisself off.as a sargeon: and 60 it wasn’t thought odd. Well, in this way did it ap- pear that he came to hear of me. Ho then told mo his business—which was that he wanted the dead body of e lad about twelve yoars old, such and such a height, and with dark hair. I was always s rayther cautious kind of a feller, and didn’t like standing a chance of getting into trouble: so not liking this business overmuch, I said as how I must have more The man then goes on for to say that it suited his purpose, for family reasons and what not, to heve a certain lad of that wery same age put out of the way; but as he didn’t choose to go wery extreme lengths--which of course meant murdering him—his scheme was to have him locked up in a lunacy ‘sylum and make the world believe that he was dead. So then I twigged of course that this was some affair of getting hold of an estate or summut of that sort ; and seeing that f could reckon on good payment, J agreed. But I represented to the genelman that there was a many difficulties in the way; ‘cause why, it waen’t any dead body that would enit, but must be one of a certain age, a certain height, and a certain colour hair. The genelman said as how he was aweer of all them difficulties, and was prepared to pay a good price. In short, he offered me a couple of hundred guineas for the job, and gived me twenty guineas as an earnest. He told me that I was to come to him the wery moment I succeeded, and so of course he let me know who he was—the Honourable Mr, Everton—and he had a house somewhere up at the West End of the town, I forget exactly at this mo- ment where it waa.” “ No matter where,” observed Lady Bess. “Pro. osea with your statement.” “When the genelman had gone,” continued old Shakerly, “I remained thinking of the business I had to transact, but couldn’t exactly see my way clear at first. At last a thought struck me. I¢ happened at the time that I had a precious bad leg through having tumbled into a grave one night when I was doing a bit of body-snatching work; and is rayther suited me than otherwise to lay up for a week or two and get it cured. So I fancied I might lall two birds with the same stone: I therefore went bang at once into the workus of my ows parish, which was Saint Pancras, and got put into the ‘firmary. The workuses then wasn’t what they are now under the New Poor Law: it was easy enough to get into ‘em, and there was always a pre- cious ewarm im the ‘firmary. So I calkilated to my- self that it would be odd indeed if out of such a lot there wouldn’t be at least one young feller answer- ing the purpose who'd die in the place;—and surs enough there was just such a lad as the genclman COMM (C OO SS CO