Run to Earth - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (classic reads .TXT) 📗

scrutinizing the address of a letter--a foreign letter.

"Didn't you say your friend's name was Jernam?" he asked.

"I did."

"Then this letter must be for him. It has been lying here for the last two or three days; but I forgot all about it till just this minute."

Joyce took the letter. It was addressed to Captain Valentine Jernam, of the 'Pizarro', at the 'Jolly Tar', care of the landlord, and it came from the Cape of Good Hope.

Joyce recognized George Jernam's writing.

"This means a disappointment," he thought, as he turned the letter over and over slowly; "there'll be no meeting yet awhile. Captain George is off to the East Indies on some new venture, I dare say. But what can have become of Captain Valentine? I'll go down to the 'Golden Cross,' and see if he's there."

He told Dennis Wayman where he was going, and left a message for his captain. From Ratcliff Highway to Charing Cross was a long journey for Joyce; but he had no idea of indulging in any such luxury as a hackney- coach. It was late in the afternoon when he reached the hotel; and there he was doomed to encounter a new disappointment.

Captain Jernam had been there on the second of the month, and had never been there since. He had left in the forenoon, after saying that he should return at night; and in evidence that such had been his intention, the waiter told Joyce that the captain had left a carpet- bag, containing clean linen and a change of clothes.

"He's broken his word to me, and he's got into bad hands," thought Harker. "He's as simple as a child, and he's got into bad hands. But how and where? He'd never, surely, go back to the 'Jolly Tar', after what I said to him. And where else can he have gone? I know no more where to look for him in this great overgrown London than if I was a new-born baby."

In his perfect ignorance of his captain's movements, there was only one thing that Joyce Harker could do, and that was to go back to the "Jolly Tar," with a faint hope of finding Valentine Jernam there.

It was dusk by the time he got back to Ratcliff Highway, and the flaring gas-lamps were lighted. The bar of the tavern was crowded, and the tinkling notes of the old piano sounded feebly from the inner room.

Dennis Wayman was serving his customers, and Thomas Milsom was drinking at the bar. Joyce pushed his way to the landlord.

"Have you seen anything of the captain?" he asked.

"No, he hasn't been here since you left."

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure."

"He's not been here to day; but he's been here within the week, hasn't he? He was here on Tuesday, if I'm not misinformed."

"Then you _are_ misinformed," Wayman said, coolly; "for your seafaring friend hasn't darkened my doors since the morning you and he left to go to the coach-office."

Joyce could say nothing further. He passed through the passage into the public room, where the so-called concert had begun. Jenny Milsom was singing to the noisy audience.

The girl was very pale, and her manner and attitude, as she sat by the piano, were even more listless than usual.

Joyce Harker did not stop long in the concert-room. He went back to the bar. This time there was no one but Milsom and Wayman in the bar, and the two seemed to be talking earnestly as Joyce entered.

They left off, and looked up at the sound of the clerk's footsteps.

"Tired of the music already?" asked Wayman.

"I didn't come here to hear music," answered Joyce; "I came to look for my captain. He had an appointment to meet his brother here to-day at twelve o'clock, and it isn't like him to break it. I'm beginning to get uneasy about him."

"But why should you be uneasy? The captain is big enough, and old enough, to take care of himself," said the landlord, with a laugh.

"Yes; but then you see, mate, there are some men who never know how to take care of themselves when they get into bad company. There isn't a better sailor than Valentine Jernam, or a finer fellow at sea; but I don't think, if you searched from one end of this city to the other, you'd find a greater innocent on shore. I'm afraid of his having fallen into bad hands, Mr. Wayman, for he had a goodish bit of money about him; and there's land-sharks as dangerous as those you meet with on the sea."

"So there are, mate," answered the landlord; "and there's some queer characters about this neighbourhood, for the matter of that."

"I dare say you're right, Mr. Wayman," returned Joyce; "and I'll tell you what it is. If any harm has come to Valentine Jernam, let those that have done the harm look out for themselves. Perhaps they don't know what it is to hurt a man that's got a faithful dog at his heels. Let them hide themselves where they will, and let them be as cunning as they will, the dog will smell them out, sooner or later, and will tear them to pieces when he finds them. I'm Captain Jernam's dog, Mr. Dennis Wayman; and if I don't find my master, I'll hunt till I do find those that have got him out of the way. I don't know what's amiss with me to- night; but I've got a feeling come over me that I shall never look in Valentine Jernam's honest face again. If I'm right, Lord help the scoundrels who have plotted against him, for it'll be the business of my life to track them down, and bring their crime home to them--and I'll do it."

After having said this, slowly and deliberately, with an appalling earnestness of voice and manner, Joyce Harker looked from Dennis Wayman to Black Milsom, and this time the masks they were accustomed to wear did not serve these scoundrels so well as usual, for in the faces of both there was a look of fear.

"I am going to search for my captain," said Joyce. "Good night, mates."

He left the tavern. The two men looked at each other earnestly as the door closed upon him.

"A dangerous man," said Dennis Wayman.

"Bah!" muttered Black Milsom, savagely; "who's afraid of a hunchback's bluster? I dare say he wanted the handling of the money himself."

All that night Joyce Harker wandered to and fro amidst the haunts of sailors and merchant captains; but wander where he would, and inquire of whom he would, he could obtain no tidings of the missing man.

Towards daybreak, he took a couple of hours' sleep in a tavern at Shadwell, and with the day his search began again.

Throughout that day the same patient search continued, the same inquiries were repeated with indomitable perseverance, in every likely and unlikely place; but everywhere the result was failure.

It was towards dusk that Joyce Harker turned his back upon a tavern in Rotherhithe, and set his face towards the river bank.

"I have looked long enough for him among the living," he said; "I must look for him now amongst the dead."

Before midnight the search was ended. Amongst the printed bills flapping on dreary walls in that river-side neighbourhood, Joyce Harker had discovered the description of a man "found drowned." The description fitted Valentine Jernam, and the body had been found within the last two days.

Joyce went to the police-office where the man was lying. He had no need to look at the poor dead face--the dark, handsome face, which was so familiar to him.

"I expected as much," he said to the official who had admitted him to see the body; "he had money about him, and he has fallen into the hands of scoundrels."

"You don't think it was an accident?"

"No; he has been murdered, sir. And I think I know the men who did it."

"You know the men?"

"Yes; but my knowledge won't help to avenge his death, if I can't bring it home to them--and I don't suppose I can. There'll be a coroner's inquest, won't there?"

At the inquest, next day, Joyce Harker told his story; but that story threw very little light on the circumstances of Valentine Jernam's death.

The investigation before the coroner set at rest all question as to the means by which the captain had met his death. A medical examination demonstrated that he had been murdered by a blow on the back of the head, inflicted by some sharp heavy instrument. The unfortunate man must have died before he was thrown into the water.

The verdict of the coroner's jury was to the effect that Valentine Jernam had been wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown. And with this verdict Joyce Harker was obliged to be content. His suspicions he dared not mention in open court. They were too vague and shadowy. But he called upon a celebrated Bow Street officer, and submitted the case to him. It was a case for secret inquiry, for careful investigation; and Joyce offered a handsome reward out of his own savings.

While this secret investigation was in progress, Joyce opened the letter addressed to Valentine by his brother George.

"DEAR VAL," wrote the sailor: "_I have been tempted to make another trip to Calcutta with a cargo shipped at Lisbon, and shall not be able to meet you in London on the 5th of April. It will be ten or twelve months before I see England again; but when I do come back, I hope to add something handsome to our joint fortunes. I long to see your honest face, and grasp your hand again; but the chance of a big prize lures me out yonder. We are both young, and have all the world before us, so we can afford to wait a year or two. Bank the money; Joyce will tell you where, and how to do it; and let me know your plans before you leave London. A letter addressed to me, care of Riverdale and Co., Calcutta, will be safe. Good luck to you, dear old boy, now and always, and every good wish.--From your affectionate brother_," "GEORGE JERNAM."

It was Joyce Harker's melancholy task to tell Valentine Jernam's younger brother the story of the seaman's death. He wrote a long letter, recording everything that had happened within his knowledge, from the moment of the 'Pizarro' reaching Gravesend to the discovery of Valentine's body in the river-side police office. He told George the impression that had been made upon his brother by the ballad-singer's beauty.

"_I think that this girl and these two men, her father, Thomas Milsom, and Dennis Wayman, the landlord of the 'Jolly Tar', are in the secret-- are, between them, the murderers of your brother. I think that when he broke his promise to me, and came back to this end of London, before the fifth, he came lured by that girl's beauty. It is to the girl we must look for a key to the secret of his death. I do not expect to extort anything from the fears of the men. They are both hardened villains; and if, as I believe, they are guilty of this crime, it is not likely to be the first in which they have been engaged. The police are on the watch, and I have promised a liberal