After this plain warning: after knowing the nature of the design against me: after the savage threats of the man Probus: I ought to have hesitated no longer: I should have taken Alice and the child to her brother Tom, and should then have retired somewhere until the inevitable bankruptcy relieved me from fear of conspiracy. Once before, I had suffered from delay: yet had I not learned the perils of procrastination. I had formed in my mind an idea that they would try in some way to fix upon me the crime of forgery, and I thought that this would take time: so that I was not hurried: I confess that I was disquieted: but I was not hurried.

On Monday morning I repaired to Soho Square and laid the whole business before Jenny.

'Will,' she said, after hearing all and asking a few questions, 'this seems a very serious affair. You have to deal with a man driven frantic by the loss of all his money: the money that he has spent his life in scraping together. He throws out hints about your possible death in the counting-house, and makes a bargain in case you die: he threatens you with some mysterious revenge.'

'I believe he will trump up some charge of forgery.'

'He is quite unscrupulous. Now, I will tell you something. The man Merridew's perjury about your alleged debt put me on the scent. Probus works through Merridew. First of all Merridew owes him money—more than he can pay. This debt goes on rolling up. This puts Merridew in his power. What Probus orders Merridew must do.'

'Is there always behind every villain a greater villain?'

'I suppose so. The greater the rogue the safer he is. Merridew goes to the shopkeepers and offers to return them stolen goods—at a price. It is one of his ways of making money. Then he finds out their necessities. Most shopkeepers are always in want of money. Then Merridew takes them to Probus who lends them money. Oh! at first there was never such a kind friend—on the easiest terms: they can pay when they please: then they want a little more: and so they go on. When their debt has risen to half the value of their stock, Probus wants to be paid. Then he sells them up. The father of the family becomes bankrupt and goes into a prison for the rest of his days: what becomes of the children I know not—no one knows. I dare say some of them go to St. Giles's.'

This is what Jenny told me. I know not if it is true, but I think it must be.

'Well, you see, that Probus pulls the strings and sets Merridew's arms and legs at work, and Merridew has all the rogues under his thumb. Now you understand why the position is serious.'

She considered for a few minutes. 'Will,' she said, 'for sure they will talk it over at the Black Jack. When anything is arranged it is generally done in the kitchen and in the morning.' She looked at the clock. 'It is now nearly one. If I were to go round!' She considered again. 'Doll will be there. They may be there too. But this time they must not recognise me. Wait a bit, Will.'

She left me and presently came back dressed, not as an Orange Girl, but as a common person, such as one may see anywhere in St. Giles's. She had on a linsey woolsey frock: a dirty white apron all in holes: a kerchief round her neck: another over her head tied under her chin: a straw hat also tied under her chin: and woollen mittens on her hands. One cheek was smudged as by a coal, and her left eye was blackened: no one would have recognised her. On her arm she carried a basket carefully covered up.

'Now,' she said, 'I'm a woman with a basket full of stolen goods for Mother Wilmot.'

I let her out by the garden-door which opened on to Hog's Lane. Presently she returned: from what she told me, this was what passed.

She found her mother nodding over knitting, and her sister Doll busy with the slate. The kitchen was well-nigh empty because most of the frequenters were abroad picking up their living. Like the sparrows they pick it up as they can from pockets and doorways and from shop bulks.

'Doll,' she whispered. 'Pretend not to know me. Turn over the things in the basket.'

'What is it, Jenny?'

She looked round the room. There were only two or three sitting by the fire. 'No one who knows me,' she said. 'Tell me, Doll. Has Mr. Merridew been here—and when?'

'Why, he's only just gone. Him and the Bishop—and the Captain—and another one—a gentleman he looked like. All in black.'

'All in black? Was he tall and thin and stooping? So?'

'Yes. They've been talking over it all the morning.'

'What is it, Doll? You've got ears like gimlets. I sometimes think it must be pleasant to be able to hear so much that goes on.'

'I can hear a thing if I like. The Bishop don't like it, Jenny.' She dropped her voice. 'It's business for getting a man out of the way. They'll have to give evidence at the Old Bailey, and he's afraid.'

'How is the man to be put out of the way?'

'I don't know. There's money on it. But they're afraid.'

'Why are they afraid?'

'Because they're going to make a man swing. If he doesn't swing, they will.'

'I suppose it's an innocent man, Doll.'

'How should I know? It isn't one of themselves. If the case breaks down they'll have to swing. Mr. Merridew promised them so much, for I heard him. He means it, too—and they know it. I heard him. "If you do break down," he says, "after all, you will be no worse off than you are at present. For your time's up and you know it, both of you. So, if you break down, you will be arrested for conspiracy and detained on my information on a capital charge." After which—he made so——' with her finger on her neck.

'Well, what did they say, Doll?'

'The Bishop said it would be easier and quicker to knock him on the head at once. Mr. Merridew wouldn't hear of it. He said if they obeyed him they should have two years' more rope. If not, they knew what to expect. So they went away with him, looking mighty uneasy.'

'When is it to be, Doll?'

'Lord, sister, you are mighty curious. 'Tis no affair of yours. Best know nothing, I say. Only a body must hear things. And it makes the time pass knowing what to expect.'

'Can you find out when it is to be?'

'If I learn, I will tell you. It's all settled, I know that. We shall have the pair of them giving evidence in the Old Bailey.' Doll laughed at the thought. 'All St. Giles's will go to the Court to hear—all them that dare.'

'So they went away with Mr. Merridew,' Jenny repeated, thoughtfully.

'Yes, after a mug of purl, but the Bishop went away shaking. Not on account of the crime, I suppose, but with the thought of being cross-examined in the Old Bailey, and the terror that he might be recognised. But the only London Prison that knew him was the King's Bench.'

Jenny took up her basket and went away. Just outside the door she met a young country fellow: he had come up from some village in consequence of trouble concerned with a girl: Jenny had had speech with him already, as you have heard, at the Black Jack.

'Jack,' she said, 'you don't remember me: I was at the Black Jack some time ago in the evening. They called me Madam. Now you remember.'

'Ay——' he said, looking at her curiously. 'But I shouldn't know you again. You are dressed different.'

'Jack, why don't you go home?'

'A man must live,' he replied.

'You'll be hanged. For sure and certain, one of these days, you'll be hanged. Now, Jack, I'll give you a chance. Let us sit here by the rails, and talk—then people won't suspect. You've seen Mr. Merridew to-day. I thought so. He told you that he might want you on some serious job. I thought so. Your looks are still innocent, Jack. Now tell me all about it—and I'll give you money to take you home again out of the way and safe.'

Jack had very little to tell. He had been in the kitchen that morning. Mr. Merridew called him—bade him not to go away: said that he should want him perhaps for a good job: so he waited. Then a gentleman came in: he was in black—a long, and lean figure. Jack would know him again; and they all four—but not Jack—talked very earnestly together. Then the gentleman went away and presently Mr. Merridew also went away, with the Bishop and the Captain.

'Very good, Jack. I will see you to-morrow morning again—just in the same place. Don't forget. If anything else occurs you will tell me. Poor Jack! I should be sorry to see so proper a fellow hanged,' so she nodded and laughed and pressed his hand and left him.

She came home: she joined me again. There was something hatching; that was certain.

'Perhaps,' she said, 'the plot is not directed against you. Merridew is always finding out where a house can be broken or a bale of stuff stolen.'

'Then what did Probus want there?'

'The long, lean man in black was not Probus, perhaps.'

She considered again.

'After all, Will, I think the best thing is for you to disappear. They are desperate villains. Get out of their way. Your friend Ramage gave you the best advice possible. If all he says is true, Matthew cannot hold out much longer. Once he is bankrupt, your death will no longer help Probus. Where could you go?'

I told her that I thought of Dublin, where I might get into the orchestra of the theatre. So after a little discussion, it was settled. Jenny, always generous, undertook to provide for Alice in my absence, and gave me a sum of money for present necessities.

I stayed there all day. In the evening I played at a concert in the Assembly Room. After the concert I took supper with Jenny.

During supper Jenny entertained me with a fuller description of the wretches from whose hands she was trying to rescue me. There was no turn or trick of villainy that Jenny did not know. She made no excuses for knowing so much—it was part of her education to hear continually talk of these things. They make up disguises in which it is impossible to recognise them: they arrange that respectable people shall swear to their having been miles away at the time of the crime: they practise on the ignorance of some: on the cunning of others. They prey upon mankind. And all the time, behind every villain stands a greater villain. Behind the humble footpad stands the Captain: behind the Captain stands the thief-taker: behind the thief-taker stands the money-lender himself unseen. It would surely be to the advantage of the Law could it tackle the greater villains first. A cart-load of gentlemen like Mr. Probus on its way to Tyburn would perhaps be more useful than many cartloads of poor pickpockets and hedge-lifters. Sometimes, however, as this history will relate, Justice with tardy step overtakes a Probus, and that with punishment so dreadful that he is left incapable of any further wickedness.

'Now,' she said, 'when Probus wants money, he squeezes Merridew. Then he lays information against some poor wretch who expected a longer rope. In order to get at these wretches he has to encourage them to break the law. So you see, if he has to make a payment to Probus, he must manufacture criminals. As I said, there cannot be many things worse than the making of criminals for the satisfaction of the money-lender.'

I hardly understood, at the time, the full villainy of this system. In fact, I was wholly absorbed in my own particular case. What was going to be done?

About midnight I bade this kindest of women farewell.

'Remember, Will,' she said, 'trust nothing to chance. Take boat down the river before daybreak. There is sure to be a Holyhead coach somewhere in the morning. In a month or two you can come back again in safety.'

Yes—I was to come back in safety in that time, but not as Jenny meant. I shouldered my trusty club and marched off.