Part 4 (1/2)
... ”Business was going well. There seemed no prospect of a child just then, so Mary got in with Church work at St. Philip's. That brought a lot more customers to the shop too. Fancy soaps, scents and toilette articles and all that. Dr. Mitch.e.l.l of Hackney, was a church-warden at St. Philip's and in time all his prescriptions came to me. No one had a better chance than I did. And Mary was that good to me.” ...
Two facile, miserable tears rolled from the man's glazing eyes. He wiped them away with the back of his hand.
”You can't think, sir, being a bachelor. Anything I'd a mind to fancy!
Sweet-breads she could cook a treat, and Burgundy we used to 'ave--California wine, 'Big Bush' brand in flagons at two and eight.
And never before half-past seven. Late dinner you might have called it, while my a.s.sistant was in the shop. And after that I'd play to her on the violin. Nothing common, good music--'Orer pro n.o.bis' and 'Rousoh's Dream.' You never heard me play did you? I was in the orchestra of the Hackney Choral Society. I remember one day ...”
”And then?” the Doctor said, gently.
He had already gathered something, but not all that he had come to gather. The minutes were hurrying by.
The man looked up at the doctor with a sudden glance, almost of hatred.
For a single instant the abnormal egoism of the criminal, swelled out upon the face and turned it into the mask of a devil.
Dr. Morton Sims spoke in a sharp, urgent voice.
”Why did you ask me to come here, Hanc.o.c.k?” he said. ”You know that I am glad to be here, if I can be of any use to you. But you don't seem to want the sort of sympathetic help that the chaplain here could give you far better than I can. What do you want to say to me? Have you really anything to say? If you have, be a man and say it!”
There was a brief but horrible interlude.
”Well, you are cruel, doctor, not 'arf!--and me with only an hour or two to live,”--the man said with a cringing and sinister grin.
The doctor frowned and looked at the man steadily. Then he asked a sudden question.
”Who were your father and mother?” he said.
The convict looked at the doctor with startled eyes.
”Who told you?” he asked. ”I thought n.o.body knew!”
”Answer my question, Hanc.o.c.k. Only a few minutes remain.”
”Will it be of use, sir?”
”Of use?”
”In your work--It was so that I could leave a warning to others, that I wanted to see you.”
”Of great use, if you will tell me.”
”Well, Doctor, I never thought to tell any one. It's always been a sore point with me, but I wasn't born legitimate! I tried hard to make up for it, and I did so too! No one was more respectable than I was in Hackney, until the drink came along and took me.”
”Yes? Yes?”--The hunter was on the trail now, Heredity? Reversion? At last the game was flushed!--”Yes, tell me!”
”My father was a gentleman, Doctor. That's where I got my refined tastes. And that's where I got my love of drink--d.a.m.n him! G.o.d Almighty curse him for the blood he gave me!”
”Yes? Yes?”
”My father was old Mr. Lothian, the solicitor of Grey's Inn Square. He was a well-known gentleman. My mother was his housekeeper, Eliza Hanc.o.c.k. My father was a widower when my mother went into his service.