RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON DETECTIVE -(Continued.)

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 26 February 1891, Page 4

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON DETECTIVE -(Continued.)

lowed at ncr tor a little, and then said with a, bit of a laugh— : been drinking, Poll, or such thoughts would never enter your head. •How can you be afraid of a miserable shell like him? Why, one slap of your hand would kill him." "I know all that, but I'm afraid," she answered, fearfully. "You've no idea how be looked. I saw murder in his eyes, if murder's to be seen in any one's eyes. And though I have been drinking, what I have had hasn't shut out that look. I wish I could drink it away. I'd feel more comfortable." 11 If you're in bodily fear we can easily stop his little game." I said, pitying the poor lass. •• No, no ; I daren't make any complaint," she answered, in terror. " Don't say anything about it, but keep your eyes open." I promised as she wished, and in a moment she ran off among the sailors, laughing and chatting as gaily as before. Her dress was always different from the common run, from a taste she had in that way, and from her having been a dressmaker one time. The one she wore on this * occasion— and I suppose the only one she had— was white, with pink flounces round the skirt. - It was only cotton, I believe, but looked very nice, and by those pink flounces Poll could have been spotted half a mile off. ! I saw Poll, after that queer talk with her, for some weeks going about much as usual, and then I missed her and asked one of the Ktmen n in that same saloon what had come of her. ' " Oh, Poll ?" he said, busy wiping down his tables and carrying off empty glasses ; •' blest if she ain't made it up with Travers and left the 'Ighway." I " Made it up ? You mean rone to live with her husband again?" I cried, quite amazed. ■( r Travers was a lazy warehouseman, and would never work if he could live without, and as for taking home the wife he had driven from him by starvation and every kind of cruelty, I could not believe it. It was the very last thing I should have expected, and I said so to the waiter. p""But I saw him with her o' Sunday night," the man persisted. " I knew him, but I wasn't sure of her, though I know her white dress in the pink flounces. She'd a different head-piece— a bonnet and veil instead qi the hat— but, bless ye, there ain't another dress like hers in the place, and that's enough to go by. Then I spoke to some others who'd seen them, and spoke to him, and they said it was all right between them, and he was a-taking her off to Ramsgate for a week or two's 'olidays. Little " Bob, over in the other house, "c saw them go dff in the train when 'c was takin' his young woman out for the evening. 'Twas the pink flounces he knew her by — every one knows Poll by them or the taloo marks." •*>*■■ $'•«:•• > " P'r'ap3 they've gone away for good ?" I suggested. " That's wot I say — that's wot I've been trying to drive into their thick 'eds all along," said the waiter with great energy. II 'Taint likely a 'spectable cove like Travers would care to show her off much after they've been parted so long. He'll have took her away to some quiet place, and we'll never see her again." ! I had my own thoughts about this strange move, but I said nothing to the man. It was very unlikely that Travers should act thus except for a purpose. If he really had taken her away it boded | no good for the wretched and lost girl. <; It might be to put her quietly out of the way, or work her up into a mad state and clap her into an asylum, a trick I've seen played many a time by men tired of their wives, or he might only wish her out of the City for a tim<* till he could marry the pretty barmaid and get hold of her money. I was rather busy with my own work at the time, but I remembered my promise to Poll, as well as her terror when extracting it from me ; so I went after Travers the first time I had to call my own. He was not at his work, and i had not been there for a week, nor was the | place to be kept open for him. The head man there said that he understood that . Travers had come into some money or , property, and left the City, and so would | not need the work any more. I could not i get any clue to the direction he had taken when leaving London, and thought I might get that from the pretty barmaid, Blue Bell. I went to the place in which she served, expecting to catch sight of her high top-knot of hair and her haughty face the moment I got within the door, but I was disappointed. For the first time for many a day Blue Bell was absent, and another woman quite as flashy in her place. "Where's Blue Bell?" I asked of the new girl, as I lifted the glass of stout she had drawn for me. " Oh, she's retired," she answered, showing all her white teeth in a big smile; "gone away to be married, I believe." " Married ? who* to ?" I said, with a start ; but the girl was busy, and was gone serving others for a full quarter of an hour before she could attend to the question. ' " Who to ? Oh, that's more than any of them can tell, for she was very close about it," she merrily answered ; "but there was a fellow named Travers who was never away from her for weeks and months before, and he is said to be the lucky man." Again she was called away by a press of customers, and I had time to finish my drink and think a good deal as well before she got back. The more I thought more muddled my head seemed to get,' and when the girl stood before me I asked her if the stout was good, for I half suspected that it had"got into my head. If Travers had taken back his lost wife it was clear to ma that he could not have also married Blue Bell.^the barmaid ; unless, indeed — and there* it was that my professional instincts > began to quickcn — unless he had in some queer way first shut up his real wife's mouth. How could he do that ? By buying her silence ? I've known a bargain of that kind made and adhered to many a time— or by stopping her speech for ever ? I thought the first the likeliest, for, as I noticed, Travers was a little miserable-look-ing chap, a coward every inch, and one whom Poll could have mastered easily with one hand. And yet, knowing Poll as I did, I could not believe that she would be bought off. She thought too much of the coward lo tamely allow another to carry him off— md money had no value to her. I have seen her throw shillings away in handfuls, though the next day she might be starving. If I had only bad time I should have run down to Ramsgate to look for Travers ; but I was put out to a queer case at the Bonded Warehouses at the Tower, and had to stick to that for some days, thinking all the while oi Poll, and quite determined to get to the aottom pi the matter. I was going along from that place to Seething Lane Police Station one night pretty late— it must have Deen near midnight — when a hand like an icicle touched mine out of the darkness $*' suddenly enough to make me jump. A little ragamuffin stood before me, and I had not heard him hurry up to my side because he 5 had neither shoes nor stockings on his feet. it was November, and bitter cold, and I did I not envy him. I? " What do you want ? and what did you 1 do that for?" Isaid, as angry as possible. is, grippingihim .by the shoulder and burning ||b> face round to the Hghtof a street lamp. ■IP AU bis clothes s^med Jp_be_a_pajr of H^v (To be continued.)