The Trail of the Serpent

Slopperton believed in Jabez North. Partly because Slopperton had in a manner created, clothed, and fed him, set him on his feet, patted him on his head, and reared him under the shadow of Sloppertonian wings, to be the good and worthy individual he was.

The story was in this wise. Nineteen years before this bad November day, a little baby had been dragged, to all appearance drowned, out of the muddy waters of the Sloshy. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, he turned out to be less drowned than dirty, and after being subjected to very sharp treatment⁠—such as being held head downwards, and scrubbed raw with a jack-towel, by the Sloppertonian Humane Society, founded by a very excellent gentleman, somewhat renowned for maltreating his wife and turning his eldest son out of doors⁠—this helpless infant set up a feeble squall, and evinced, other signs of a return to life. He was found in a Slopperton river by a Slopperton bargeman, resuscitated by a Slopperton society, and taken by the Slopperton beadle to the Slopperton workhouse; he therefore belonged to Slopperton. Slopperton found him a species of barnacle rather difficult to shake off. The wisest thing, therefore, for Slopperton to do, was to put the best face on a bad matter, and, out of its abundance, rear this un-welcome little stranger. And truly virtue has its reward; for, from the workhouse brat to the Sunday-school teacher; from the Sunday-school teacher to the scrub at Dr. Tappenden’s academy; from scrub to usher of the fourth form; and from fourth form usher to first assistant, pet toady, and factotum, were so many steps in the ladder of fortune which Jabez mounted, as in seven-leagued boots.

As the clocks chime the quarter, the rope is at work again, and five minutes afterwards the usher clambers into the room.

Not very good to look upon, either in costume or countenance; bad to look upon, with his clothes mud-bespattered and torn; wet to the skin; his hair in matted locks streaming over his forehead; worse to look upon, with his light blue eyes, bright with a dangerous and wicked fire⁠—the eyes of a wild beast baulked of his prey; dreadful to look upon, with his hands clenched in fury, and his tongue busy with half-suppressed but terrible imprecations.

“All for nothing!” he mutters. “All the toil, the scheming, and the danger for nothing⁠—all the work of the brain and the hands wasted⁠—nothing gained, nothing gained!”

He hides away the rope in his trunk, and begins to unbutton his mud-stained gaiters. The little boy cries out in a feeble voice for his medicine.

The usher pours a tablespoonful of the mixture into a wineglass with a steady hand, and carries it to the bedside.

The boy is about to take it from him, when he utters a sudden cry.

“What’s the matter?” asks Jabez, angrily.

“Your hand!⁠—your hand! What’s that upon your hand?”

A dark stain scarcely dry⁠—a dark stain, at the sight of which the boy trembles from head to foot.

“Nothing, nothing!” answers the tutor. “Take your medicine, and go to sleep.”

No, the boy cries hysterically, he won’t take his medicine; he will never take anything again from that dreadful hand. “I know what that horrid stain is. What have you been doing?

As Mr. Jinks made these complimentary remarks, he and his friend walked on. Richard, puzzled, bewildered, and unresisting, walked between them towards the railway station; but presently Mr. Jinks condescended to reply to his prisoner’s questions, in this wise:⁠—

“You want to know what inquest? Well, a inquest on a gentleman what’s been barbarously murdered. You want to know who’s dead? Why, your uncle is the gent as has been murdered. You want to know why we are going to take you back to Slopperton? Well, because we’ve got a warrant to arrest you upon suspicion of having committed the murder.”

“My uncle murdered!” cried Richard, with a face that now for the first time since his arrest betrayed anxiety and horror; for throughout his interview with Mr. Jinks he had never once seemed frightened. His manner had expressed only utter bewilderment of mind.

“Yes, murdered; his throat cut from ear to ear.”

“It cannot be,” said Richard. “There must be some horrid mistake here. My uncle, Montague Harding, murdered! I bade him goodbye at twelve last night in perfect health.”

“And this morning he was found murdered in his bed; with the cabinet in his room broken open, and rifled of a pocketbook known to contain upwards of three hundred pounds.”

“Why, he gave me that pocketbook last night. He gave it to me. I have it here in my breast-pocket.”

“You’d better keep that story for the coroner,” said Mr. Jinks. “Perhaps he’ll believe it.”

“I must be mad, I must be mad,” said Richard.

They had by this time reached the station, and Mr. Jinks having glanced into two or three carriages of the train about to start, selected one of the second-class, and ushered Richard into it.

He was what is called hard of hearing on one side, and his⁠—to use a common expression⁠—game ear happened to be nearest Richard.

“Guilty,” said the judge. “So, so⁠—Guilty. Very good.”

“Pardon me, my lord,” said the counsel for the defence, “the prisoner pleaded not guilty.”

“Nonsense, sir. Do you suppose me deaf?” asked his lordship; at which there was a slight titter among the habitués of the court.

The barrister gave his head a deprecatory shake. Of course, a gentleman in his lordship’s position could not be deaf.

“Very well, then,” said the judge, “unless I am deaf, the prisoner pleaded guilty. I heard him, sir, with my own ears⁠—my own ears.”

The barrister thought his lordship should have said “my own ear,” as the game organ ought not to count.

“Perhaps,” said the judge, “perhaps the prisoner will be good enough to repeat his plea; and this time he will be good enough to speak out.”

“Not guilty,” said Richard again, in a firm but not a loud voice⁠—his long imprisonment, with days, weeks, and months of slow agony, had so exhausted his physical powers, that to speak at all, under such circumstances, was an effort.

“Not guilty?” said the judge. “Why, the man doesn’t know his own mind. The man must be a born idiot⁠—he can’t be right in his intellect.”

Scarcely had the words passed his lordship’s lips, when a long low whistle resounded through the court.

Everybody looked up towards a corner of the gallery from which the sound came, and the officials cried “Order!”

Among the rest the prisoner raised his eyes, and looking to the spot from which this unexampled and daring interruption proceeded, recognized the face of the man who had spelt out the words “Not guilty” in the railway carriage.

Mr. Peters is very grave for some time, as they walk away; but at last, when they have got halfway down Piccadilly, he has recourse once more to his fingers, and addresses his young friend thus:

“What did you think of him, Slosh?”

“Which,” says the “fondling;” “the cove in the red velvet breeches as opened the door, or the swell ghost?”

“The swell.”

“Well, I think he’s uncommon handsome, and very easy in his manners, all things taken into consideration,” said that elderly juvenile with deliberation.

“Oh, you do, do you, Slosh?”

Slosh repeats that he does.

Mr. Peters’s gravity increases every moment. “Oh, you do, do you, Slosh?” he asks again, and again the boy answers. At last, to the considerable inconvenience of the passersby, the detective makes a dead stop, and says, “I’m glad you think him han’some, Slosh; and I’m glad you thinks him easy, which, all things considered, he is, uncommon. In fact, I’m glad he meets your views as far as personal appearance goes, because, between you and me, Slosh, that man’s your father.”