Chapter 22

Mr Bucket

llegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though

the evening is hot; for, both Mr Tulkinghorn's windows

are wide open, and the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy.

These may not be desirable characteristics when November comes

with fog and sleet, or January with ice and snow; but they have

their merits in the sultry long vacation weather. They enable

Allegory, though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like

bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves to its legs and

muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool tonight.

Plenty of dust comes in at Mr Tulkinghorn's windows, and

plenty more has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies

thick everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its

way, takes fright, and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it

flings as much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law―or Mr

Tulkinghorn, one of its trustiest represent atives―may scatter, on

occasion, in the eyes of the laity.

In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into

which his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of

earth, animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr Tulkinghorn sits

at one of the open windows, enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a

hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine

with the best. He has a priceless binn of port in some artful cellar

under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines

alone in chambers, as he has dined today, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he

descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted

mansion, and, heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering

doors, comes gravely back, encircled by an earthy atmosphere,

and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two

score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so

famous, and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern

grapes.

Mr Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window,

enjoys his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence

and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than

ever, he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy;

pondering, at that twilight hour, on all the mysteries he knows,

associated with darkening woods in the country, and vast blank

shut-up houses in town; and perhaps sparing a thought or two for

himself, and his family history, and his money, and his will―all a

mystery to everyone―and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of

the same mould and a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life

until he was seventy-five years old, and then, suddenly conceiving

(as it is supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave

his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening, and

walked leisurely home to the Temple, and hanged himself.

But, Mr Tulkinghorn is not alone tonight, to ponder at his usual

length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly

and uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild,

shining man, who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the

lawyer bids him fill his glass.

"Now, Snagsby," says Mr Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd

story again."

"If you please, sir."

"You told me when you were so good as to step round here, last

night―"

"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir;

but I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that

person, and I thought it possible that you might-just-wish-to-" Mr

Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion, or to

admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr

Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask

you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure."

"Not at all," says Mr Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that

you put on your hat and came round without mentioning your

intention to your wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a

matter of such importance that it requires to be mentioned."

"Well, sir," returns Mr Snagsby, "you see my little woman is―

not to put too fine a point upon it―inquisitive. She's inquisitive.

Poor little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to

have her mind employed. In consequence of which, she employs

it―I should say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of,

whether it concerns her or not―especially not. My little woman

has a very active mind, sir."

Mr Snagsby drinks, and murmurs, with an admiring cough

behind his hand. "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!"

"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself, last night?" says Mr

Tulkinghorn. "And tonight, too?"

"Yes, sir, and tonight, too. My little woman is at present in―not

to put too fine a point on it―in a pious state, or in what she

considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the

name they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He

has a great deal of eloquence at his command undoubtedly, but I

am not quite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor

there. My little woman being engaged in that way, made it easier

for me to step round in a quiet manner."

Mr Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby."

"Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer, with his

cough of deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!"

"It is a rare wine now," says Mr Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years

old."

"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It

might be―any age almost." After rendering this general tribute to

the port, Mr Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his

hand for drinking anything so precious.

"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr

Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty small-

clothes and leaning quietly back in his chair.

"With pleasure, sir."

Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-

stationer repeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at

his house. On coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great

start, and breaks off with―"Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was

any other gentleman present!"

Mr Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face

between himself and the lawyer, at a little distance from the table,

a person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when

he himself came in, and has not since entered by the door or by

either of the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges

have not creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet

this third person stands there, with his attentive face, and his hat

and stick in his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and

quiet listener. He is a stoutly-built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed

man in black, of about the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr

Snagsby as if he were going to take his portrait, there is nothing

remarkable about him at first sight but his ghostly manner of

appearing.

"Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr Tulkinghorn, in his quiet

way. "This is only Mr Bucket."

"Oh indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough

that he is quite in the dark as to who Mr Bucket may be.

"I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I

have half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very

intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?"

"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on,

and he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr Snagsby don't object

to go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can

have him here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it

without Mr Snagsby, of course; but this is the shortest way."

"Mr Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in

explanation.

"Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr Snagsby, with a strong tendency in

his clump of hair to stand on end.

"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr Bucket to

the place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to

you if you will do so."

In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr Snagsby, Bucket

dips down to the bottom of his mind.

"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do

that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only bring

him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and he'll

be paid for his trouble, and sent away again. It'll be a good job for

him. I promise you, as man, that you shall see the boy sent away

all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to do

that."

"Very well, Mr Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr Snagsby cheerfully, and

reassured, "since that's the case―"

"Yes! and lookee here, Mr Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking

him aside by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and

speaking in a confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you

know, and a man of business, and a man of sense. "That's what

you are."

"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion,"

returns the stationer, with his cough of modesty, "but―"

"That's what you are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't

necessary to say to a man like you, engaged in your business,

which is a business of trust and requires a person to be wide

awake and have his senses about him, and his head screwed on

tight (I had an uncle in your business once)―it an't necessary to

say to a man like you, that it's the best and wisest way to keep little

matters like this quiet. Don't you see? Quiet!"

"Certainly, certainly," returns the stationer.

"I don't mind telling you," says Bucket, with an engaging

appearance of frankness, "that, as far as I can understand it, there

seems to be a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a

little property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some

games respecting that property, don't you see!"

"O!" says Mr Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly.

"Now, what you want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr

Snagsby on the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is,

that every person should have their rights according to justice.

That's what you want."

"To be sure," returns Mr Snagsby with a nod.

"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a―do you

call it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle

used to call it."

"Why, I generally say customer myself," replies Mr Snagsby.

"You're right!" returns Mr Bucket, shaking hands with him

quite affectionately,―"on account of which, and at the same time

to oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in

confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's, and to keep the whole thing quiet

ever afterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about

your intentions if I understand you."

"You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr Snagsby.

"Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as

intimate with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am."

They leave Mr Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of

his unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into

the streets.

"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the

name of Gridley, do you?" says Bucket, in a friendly converse as

they descend the stairs.

"No," says Mr Snagsby, considering, "I don't know anybody of

that name. Why?"

"Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only, having allowed his

temper to get a little the better of him, and having been

threatening some respectable people, he is keeping out of the way

of a warrant I have got against him―which it's a pity that a man of

sense should do."

As they walk along, Mr Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that,

however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in

some undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever

he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed

purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off,

sharply, at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a

police constable on his beat, Mr Snagsby notices that both the

constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come

towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other

and to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr Bucket, coming

behind some undersized young man with a shining hat on, and his

sleek hair twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost

without glancing at him touches him with his stick; upon which

the young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most

part Mr Bucket notices things in general with a face as

unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger, or the

brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting,

which he wears in his shirt.

When they came at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr Bucket stops for

a moment at the corner, and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the

constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own

particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors Mr

Snagsby passes along the middle of a villanous street, undrained,

unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water―though the

roads are dry elsewhere―and reeking with such smells and sights

that he, who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his

senses. Branching from this street and its heap of ruins, are other

streets and courts so infamous that Mr Snagsby sickens in body

and mind, and feels as if he were going, every moment deeper

down, into the infernal gulf.

"Draw off a bit here, Mr Snagsby," says Bucket, as a kind of

shabby palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy

crowd. "Here's the fever coming up the street!"

As the unseenwretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of

attraction, hovers round the three visitors, like a dream of horrible

faces, and fades away up alleys and into ruins, and behind walls;

and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning,

thenceforth flits about them until they leave the place.

"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr Bucket coolly asks, as

he turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins.

Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for

months and months, the people "have been down by dozens," and

have been carried out, dead and dying "like sheep with the rot."

Bucket observing to Mr Snagsby as they go on again, that he looks

a little poorly, Mr Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't

breathe the dreadful air.

There is inquiry made at various houses, for a boy named Jo. As

few people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign,

there is much reference to Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or

the Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky,

or the Brick. Mr Snagsby describes over and over again. There are

conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some

think it must be Carrots; some say the Brick. The Colonel is

produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr Snagsby

and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and

from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr Bucket.

Whenever they move, and the angry bull's eyes glare, it fades

away, and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and

behind the walls, as before.

At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough

Subject lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough

Subject may be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr Snagsby and

the proprietress of the house―a drunken face tied up in a black

bundle, and flaring out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-

hutch which is her private apartment―leads to the establishment

of this conclusion. Toughy has gone to the Doctor's to get a bottle

of stuff for a sick woman, but will be here anon.

"And who have we got here tonight?" says Mr Bucket, opening