The String of Pearls 65Todd Receives Some Startling Intelligence
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The String of Pearls 65
Todd Receives Some Startling Intelligence
PrestEnglish
It took Todd, master as he was, or used to be, in the art of dissimulation, some few minutes to recover his composure, after the officer had left the shop, and during that time, the gentleman from Fogg's looked at him with the quiet sniggering kind of laugh so peculiar to him. Todd was evidently, day by day, losing that amount of nerve which had at one time formed his principal characteristic. It was getting, in fact, clear to himself that he was not near so well fitted for the business he was carrying on as he had been. Turning to the man from Fogg's, he said, while he put on as bland a smile as he could--
"Well, my friend, I suppose you have sought me with some motive? Pray speak out, and tell me what it is."
The man laughed.
"I have had a row with Fogg," he said, "and we parted in anger. I told him I would split upon the den, but he is a deep one, and he only coughed. Fogg, though, somehow don't laugh as he used. However, as well as he could laugh, he did, and, says he, 'Peter, my lad,' says he, 'if you do split upon the old den, I'll get you transported, as safe as you think yourself.'"
"Well?"
"Well. I--I--didn't like that."
"Then you are probably," said Todd in a bland manner--"you are probably aware that you may be obnoxious to the law."
"A few!" said the fellow.
"And what followed?"
"'Why, Peter,' added Fogg, 'you may leave me if you like, and once a month there will be a couple of guineas here for you. There's the door, so away, I insist;' and it has struck me, that if Fogg gives me a couple of shiners a month to hold my tongue, other gentlemen might do as much, and through one and another, I might pick up a crust and something to moisten it with."
The man laughed again. Todd nodded his head, as much as to say--"You could not have explained yourself clearer," and then he said--
"Peter, in your way you have a certain sort of genius. I might just remark, however, that after paying Fogg handsomely for what he has done, it is rather hard that Fogg's cast-off officials should come upon Fogg's best customers, and threaten them out of any more."
"I know it's hard," said the man.
"Then why do you do it?"
"Because, to my thinking, it would be a deuced sight harder for me to want anything; and besides, I might get into trouble, and be in the hands of the police, when who knows but that in some soft moment some one might get hold of me, and get it all out of me. Wouldn't that be harder still for all?"
"It would."
"Ah! Mr. Todd, I always thought you were a man of judgment, that I did."
"You do me infinite honour."
"Not at all. I say what I think, you may take your oath of that. But when I saw you come about that last boy, I said to myself--'Mr. Todd is carrying on some nice game, but what it is I don't know. Howsomdever he is a man with something more than would go into a small tea-spoon here-abouts.'"
Mr. Peter tapped his forehead with his finger as he spoke, to intimate that he alluded to the intellectual capacity of Todd.
"You are very obliging," said Todd.
"Not at all. Not at all. How much will you stand, now?"
"I suppose, if I say the same as Mr. Fogg, you will be satisfied, Mr. Peter. Times are very bad, you know."
Peter laughed again.
"No, no! Mr. Todd, times are not very bad, but I do think what you say is very fair, and that if you stand the same as Fogg, I ought not to say one word against it."
"How charming it is," said Todd, casting his eyes up to the ceiling, as though communing with himself or some higher intelligence supposed to be in that direction. "How charming it is to feel that you are at any time transacting business with one who is so very obliging and so very reasonable."
Somehow Peter winced a little before the look of Todd. The barber had come into his proposal a little too readily. It almost looked as though he saw his way too clearly out of it again. If he had declaimed loudly, and made a great fuss about the matter, Mr. Peter would have been better pleased, but as it was he felt, he scarcely knew why, wonderfully fidgetty.
"That boy," he said, "to change the conversation. That boy, used to say some odd things of you, Mr. Todd."
"Insanity," said Todd, "is a great calamity."
"Oh, very."
"And so clouds the faculties, that the poor boy no doubt said things of me, his best friend, that, if he had been restored to reason, he would have heard spoken of with a smile of incredulity."
"Ha! ha! By the bye--Ha! ha!"
"Well, sir?" said Todd, who did not in the smallest degree join in the odd laugh of Peter. "Well, sir?"
"I was merely going to say. Have you, by any chance, heard anything more of him?"
Todd walked close to Peter, and placed his two brawny hands upon his shoulders, as he slowly repeated--
"Have I by any chance heard anything more of him? What do you mean? Speak out, or by all that's powerful, this is the last moment of your existence. Speak out, I say."
"Murder!"
"Fool! Be more explicit, and you are safe. Be open and candid with me, and not a hair of your head shall suffer injury. What do you mean by asking me if I have heard anything more of him?"
"Don't throttle me."
"Speak."
"I--I can't while you hold me so tight. I--I--can--hardly--breathe."
Todd took his hands off him, and crossing his arms over his breast, he said in tones of most unnatural calmness--
"Now speak."
"Well, Mr. Todd--I--I--only--."
"You only what?"
"Asked you naturally enough, if you had heard anything of the boy Tobias Ragg, you know, since he ran away from Fogg's. That's all."
"Since he what?"
"Ran away from Fogg's one night."
"Then he--he is not dead? The villain Fogg sent word to me that he was dead."
"Did he though? Well I never. That was so like Fogg. Only to think now. Lord bless you, Mr. Todd, he made his escape and ran away, and we never heard anything more of him from that time to this. The idea now of Fogg telling you he was dead. Well, I did wonder at your taking the thing so easy, and never coming down to enquire about it."
"Not dead? Not dead?"
"Not as I know on."
"Curses!"
"Ah! that will do you good, Mr. Todd. Whenever I am put out, I set to swearing like a good one, and that's the way I come round again. Don't mind me. You swear as long as you like. It was a shame for Fogg not to tell you he had bolted, but I suppose he thought he'd take his chance."
"The villain!"
"Worser! worser! nor a willain!" said Peter. "Who knows now what mischief may be done, all through that boy. Why, he may be now being gammoned by the police and a parson to tell all he knows. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
Todd sunk upon a chair--not the shaving one--and resting his hand upon his head, he uttered a sepulchral groan.
Peter shook himself.
"You don't seem well, Mr. Todd. I didn't think you was the sort of man to be down on your blessed luck in this sort of way. Cheer up. What's the use of grieving? as the old song says."
Todd groaned again.
"And if so be as the kid," continued Peter, "did run away, my opinion is as he'd seen enough and felt enough, while he was at Fogg's, to make him as mad as a March hare."
There was hope in that suggestion, and Todd looked up.
"You really think, then, Mr. Peter, that--that his intellects--"
"His what?"
"His mind, I mean, has not withstood the shock of what he went through while he was in Fogg's establishment?"
"How could it? Once or twice things very nigh infected me, and how should he stand up agin 'em? But arter all, Mr. Fogg, what was it all about? That's what used to bother me. Was there anything in what he said, or wasn't there?"
"My good fellow," said Todd, "I have only one question to ask you--"
"Fire away."
"And that is, if you would prefer to have a sum of money down, and not trouble me any more?"
"Down!"
"Yes, down."
"On the nail? Well, its temptatious, I own. Let me see. Thus Fogg's riglar annuity, as a fellow may call it, and a good round sum down from you, Mr. T. I think you said a good round sum down on the nail, didn't you?"
"Yes--yes. Any sum in reason."
"Done, then. I'll do it. Honour bright and shining. Mr. T., when I says a thing, it's said, and no mistake, and if I takes something down, you won't hear no more of me; whatever you may think, Mr. T., I ain't one of them fellows as will spend their tin, and then come asking for more--not I. Oh, dear no! Only give me what's reasonable down, and the thing's settled."
"Very good," said Todd, in a voice which was calm and composed. "Just step this way, into the back parlour, and I'll satisfy you. As for troubling me any more, I am, I assure you, as perfectly easy upon that point as it is at all possible to be."
