LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1864, 13 February 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

NUMBER “47.”

Thk Waitkr’s Story. ( Concluded .) ‘No. By the by, now you mention it.’ said Jack, correcting himself, ‘ I did. It was very slight, but he said pup —pup—paragraph. ’ •All right,’said I; ‘I am much obliged to you. It’s nut the man 1 thought it was.’

‘ And who did you think it was ?’ ‘ It’s no matter. I have come on a fool’s errand, but I thank you all the same. If I can do anything for yon next meeting’’—l meant, of course, the Brighton race-meeting, for Jack was not a chapel-goer, far from It—‘command mo.’

Then I went home men confident in my old opinion than ever. It was Adamson

himself, (though he now wore no beard) who had put that statement into the Lewes Express. The question, of course, was, why had he done it ? since nobody now accused him of being a thief And why should he have adopted so clumsy and dangerous a method of getting his exculpation printed if he had had the money at command to get it done in safer ways ? As I read it, the man, though he had stolen the money, had by no means got it in his pocket. It was hidden somewhere under the roof of the Hand and Glove, and, now that his character was in the eyes of the world re-established, he would some day return to take possession.

I was not fool enough to communicate these ideas to any one else ; I had already experienced the inconveniences of talking, and I felt that,3f I was right in my conjecture, the value of it depended on my keeping it to myself. Consequently I bore with much good humor thn sly remarks of the other waiters about the mare’s nest I had discovered as respected the guilt of Mr Adamson, whom they proceeded to pity as an ill-used and innoceot man. I confessed that I had made a mistake such as human nature is liable to, and after a few weeks there was an end of it. The robbery, having been explained, was forgotten, just as, I make no doubt, the man who had done it had calculated upon ; only Bob Taylor (at your service) happened to be the exception, as proved the rule. It was in the autumn time, and about three weeks before the race meeting, that a Mr Morton arrived at our hotel by the evening train, and asked for a bedroom. What he couldn’t abide, as he told Eliza (which was the pretty housemaid’s name), was the noise of the sea at night. He didn’t care where he slept, but the room must be at the back of the house, and at the same time airy. Now, the only room which combined these advantages, as it happened, was No. 47. I did not take much notice of Mr Morton at first, except as regarded his portmanteau, which I thought a very shabby on for a gent as was ■ particular about his sleeping ; but as it happened it fell to me to wait upon him, and the way in which he ordered dry champagne and the best of everything the house afforded did strike me (in connection with that portmanteau) as peculiar. He spoke very little, occupying himself chiefly in smoothing his black moustache, which was very fine and silky, and in reading a sporting newspaper. I noticed that one leg of his trousers was patched at the knee, and said to myself, ‘There's bricks in that portmanteau.’ But that of course, was no business of mine at that time, being only the waiter. Before the house closed he went out for a walk, with one of our best cigars in his mouth, and on his return asked for hot whisky and water ; only he called it wnr-wnr-whisky. You might have knocked me down with a feather, for when he said that it flashed npon me in an instant that he was my man. His beard had grown, it was true, but that I was prepared for, “from Information received ” as the police would say; his moustache had changed its color—indeed it was a false one; but that unfortunate hesitation in his speech recalled Mr Adamson to my recollection at once. When I handed him the spirit and water, my hand shook so that you would have thought I had taken any amount of the same prescription myself. To think he had taken the very same room again—No. 47—though of course, that was only what you may call the association of ideas—seemed to carry conviction with it. The room was, I think I have said, in the servants’ quarter, and my own little dog-hole was close to it. I slept—no, I didn’t sleep—l laid awake all that night with my door ajar and listened till there was a buzzing in my brain equal to a million of bees in swarming time. At 2 o’clock in the morning I heard his door open and was out of bed in the twinkling, with my eyes at the chink of my own door. It was a moonlight night, and I saw him go down the passage in his nightgown, as noiseless as a ghost. Then I hear something scrape against the floor. It was the foot of the ladder of the fire-escape that led up through the trap door on to the roof. ‘He has hidden them there,’ said I to myself, and in my hurry to follow him, I stumbled in the passage and fell. When I picked myself np, all was quiet as death, and on turning the corner of the passage I see my gentleman coming towards me, walking quite slow and rigid. ‘ Hullo, ’ I said, ‘ how come yon here ?’ He didn’t answer a word, but with his eyes wide open and staring over my shoulder, tried to pass me. I took him by the arm, however, and again asked him what he was doing in the passage at that time of night Then he drew a long sigh, passed his hand 1 over bis eyes, and says—- ‘ Where am I ?’ ‘ Well,’says I, ‘you’re where you’ve no business to be. Your room is No. 47, I believe.’ ‘ Thank you,’ he says, ‘so it is. I’ve been walking in my sleep. It’s a habit I have. Good nun—nun —night.’ And then he turned into his room and locked the door. We was certainly one of the coolest hands I ever saw, but his device did not impose upon me for an instant; what he wanted, I now felt positively certain, were those nun—nun—notes, which were lying, no doubt, stuffed under the tiles or in some spout or other in the roof. The trap door was a long way up, and could not be reached except by the ladder; so this is what I did : I went down into the pantry, where I knew of a chain and padlock that had belonged to the kennel of a Newfoundland dog of ours as was dead, and I just fastened that ladder to a staple in the wall as had been put there for that very purpose, but never used. After that, though I heard my gentleman go out again about 3,30, I felt more comfortable in my mind. I rather fancied that he would soon come back again—which _he did ; a-cursing and a-swearing under his breath, without any sort of hesitation whatsoever. The adventures of the night, however, were not over, for at four o’clock there was such a thundering noise in his room that I thought the floor must have given away. ‘ Good heavens!’ says I, knocking at his door, ‘ what is the matter ?’ ‘ It’s nothing,’ he says ; ‘ I’ve been walking in my sleep again, that’s all.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘1 hope you’ll not do it again, or you’ll rouse the house.’ After which he was as quiet as a mouse; quieter than me, I assure you, for I lay in my bed shaking like an aspen leaf, and without a dry rag on me, as the saying is. For, as I’m a living man, I knew from that moment where those £11,003 wortl|cf notes were’hid as well as he did. In the morning he came down to breakfast and then went out, saying he would not return before Inncheon time as he had some business to transact in the town. Eliza made his bed and thought nothing had happened, for I was not going to be made a fool of the second time; and when the coast was clear I just walked into No 47 and looked myself in—with the ladder. I have said that the room had been thoroughly searched, and so it had been, for even the very wainscot had been ripped up. Only nobody had thought of the celling, which was twenty feet out of everybody’s reach, and had not even a chandelier; but where the chandelier ought to have been, as I have mentioned, there were a few roses and things made of plaster, by way of ornament. Mr Adamson, as I was now convinced, had been trying to reach those pretty flowers by the help of hia bedstead an 1 dressing-table, only they had not come uo to the mark, and had also given way under him. By putting the ladder against the bedstead I con’d, however, reach the ceiling easily enough (as my gent’eman himself had done on a certain occasion), and under the rose (one may make a little joke when everything turns out so comfortable) I found the notes. The whole thing oidn’t take five minutes, and after tailing my master of my discovery we scut at once for p dioetnan. Before Mr Adamson came back there arrived for him a largish package, which we took the liberty to open. It was an iron ladder that folded up very neatly, and was labelled ‘ Mr Morton No. 47.’ If he had had the prudence to bring it With him in the first instance, things might have turned out more fortunately for him, but as it was, it came a little late. Of course he was given into custody, and a telegram sent to Mr Dodds. That gentleman, sir, behaved like a gentleman, for on the day that Mr Adam-on was ‘copped’—he got twenty years—l not only received my thousand pounds, but ‘ a hundred added, as Mr Dodds called it, * for my perseverance, sagacity, and integrity,’ and it is with that money that I have become master of tho Hand and Glove.