The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 281: what you’re looking at

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Sa a en a eI a ee rene ee ee we ee THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. of that pitchy darkness. “Good heavens! he does not answer me!” —then groping her way to the spot where he had fallen in the alcove whence the bed, it will be remembered, was drawn out, she stooped down and placed her hand upon his face. His features were motionless, though bathed in those cold damps that send a chill through the warm living flesh that comes in contact with them: and her terror now increasing almost to an agony, she placed her ear to his lips. But she could catch the sound of neither breathing or gasping; and while her brain reeled and she felt as if she were going mad, she placed her hand upon his heart. It throbbed not—no pulsation could she feel,—and with a loud cry that rapg forth thrillingly and wild upou the night air, she said, “He is dead—he is dead! My God! ’tis Il whose wickedness has killed him. O God! O God!’ — and then all con- sciousness abaudoned her. ooo CHAPTER LXXI. THE HANGMAN IN HIS GLORY AGAIN, Iv was about ten o’clock in the morning; and Mr, Daniel Coffin, having disposed of the beards of all his customers, proceeded to scrape off his own. Seldom was the ludicrous more singularly blended with the ferocious, than in the expression of that man’s countenance, as he stood before the glass making those grimaces which usually accompany the progress of the razor over the parts whence the capillary stubble is to be removed. Having shaved himself as closely and neatly as he could, the Hangman ascended to his bed-chamber, where he proceeded to dress himself in his Sunday’s ap- parel: and his toilette being completed, he went down again to his parlour, where he ordered Sally Melmoth to give him a dram of brandy “to keep the cold out of his stomach.” “ And where are you off to so smart this morn- ing ?” she inquired, as she handed him the liquor. “ A ye—where indeed?” asked her brother Dick, “Well, youll be surprised perhaps when I tell you,” returned Coffin: then looking hastily round, and observing that Jack the Foundling was not in the room at the moment, he said in a low voice, “JT am going to call on our friend Mr, Larry Samp- son.” “Larry Sampson!” ejaculated the brother and sister, with looke of amazement. “ What on earth can you want with him ?” * Well, I suppose you are not afraid of my going to his place,” observed the Hanginan, with a grim smile of mingled cunning and ferocious satisfac- tion: “it’s no longer the lion’s den into which a fellow situated as I was, didn’t dare poke his head; and though Larry himself was for a short time a lion in my path, yet he has lost his claws and his teeth now so far as I am concerned. He can’t bite or yet scratch: the royal pardon,” added Coffin, tapping his pocket significantly, “has made me proof agaiustall dangers in that quarter.” “Of course—we know that,’ observed Sally Melmoth. “But why go near such a person at all? The very look of him must be edious after all you suffered on his account—playing at hide and seek as you was, and all the latter part of the 267 time not daring to goto your old haunts either at the Folly Bridges, or Polly Scratchem’s, or any of the flash cribs, because we got the information that they were all being watched by Larry’s men——” ‘Well, well—what’s the use of recapitulating all these things that we know so thoroughly 2?” cried the Hangman. “The fact is, Larry got scent some how or another of my being alive and kicking: and, by jingo! now that the thought strikes me,” ejaculated the man, his countenance suddenly assuming a look terribly ferocious,—“ I do really believe that I can guess who it was that gave Larry a hint of my having escaped the Thames and being sfill in the land of the living.” * Ah! who do you think ?” exclaimed Dick Mel- moth. “ Not the Foundling—eh ?” said Sally. “Not at all,” answered Coffin. “I know poor Jack is staunch, But who was the first person that I went to after leaving Beechey Manor——” “'Taggarty, to be sure!” cried both brother and sister as it were in the same breath. “ Aye—that’s it,” said Coffin, with a look gloomily ominous. “Don’t you recollect the fel- low wouldn’t either have me in his house to live a short while—nor would he lend a hand in putting Larry quietly and comfortably out of the way when there was such a capital opportunity. Be- sides, the very fact that Larry was there that night——” “ Yes—but that was about Jack the Foundling,” observed Dick Melmoth. “Ah! but when once a fellow gets any way in league or connexion with a Bow Street runner,” exclaimed the Hangman, dogmatically, “you never can tell what he may be enticed into. At all events, it’s very certain,” he continued, “that from the moment I went and showed myself at Tayggarty’s, all the flash cribs and boozing-kens were closely watched by Larry’s spies.” “To be sure! The information was deuced soon passed round to all the knowing ones,” observed Dick Melmoth: “and so we lost no time in putting you up to what was going on. Why, there was Joe Parkes’s on Saffron Hill—Sharp Mawley’s over in the Mint—Meg Blowen’s in the Almonry — Polly Scratchem’s down in Whitechapel — and Bencull’s crib in Jacob’s Island,—they were all close watched day and night, without ceasing———” “ And devilish lucky it was, then, that I hadn’t gone to either,” said Daniel Coffin, “as was my original intention, But by going and staying first with Old Jeremy Humpage in Whitechapel—then with the Swag Chovey Bloak in St. George’s Fields —I managed to escape all Mr. Sampson’s devices till the very day that Dysart was to be hung and I was wanted again at the Old Bailey. Come— give me another glass of lush,” he exclaimed with a chuckle that sounded like the subdued growl of a hyena: “for after all, I like talking of these things when they are all past and gone and the danger’s over.” “ And so you really do suspect Taggarty ?” said Sally Melmoth, as she réfilled the Hapgman’s glass. “Well, I don’t see how the devil J can help suspecting him,” returned Coffin. ‘The idea flashed to my mind all in a moment: but it at once took a deep root there—and now let me tell ———————————<—<—<X<s&&——<—<<<KK<<K<<<<<r<—<—<«<—«r<r<«<—<—<—<<< —_— —rK<<<<—<rKrK<<s<—<—<Xs<—X—<—<—a—————__O_—X—X—SS___— SSS Ny oS - CORnnIECLOO (Cc S) (CO)