The Greatest Thrillers of Fergus Hume. Fergus Hume

gift!" she faltered, and--died.

      A moment later the door was pushed open, and a portly man with gray hair entered the room. He saw Jane sobbing by the bedside, Hagar kneeling with tears in her eyes, and on the bed the dead body of the woman he had loved.

      "I am too late," said he, approaching. "Poor Margaret!"

      "She has just died," whispered Hagar. "Take your wife away."

      "Come, my dear," said John, raising the repentant woman; "we can do no good. Poor Margaret! to think that she would not marry me! Well, it is best so; God has given me a good and true wife in her place."

      "A good and true wife!" muttered Hagar, with irony.

      With Jane on his arm, the former lover of Margaret moved towards the door. "I shall of course see to the funeral," he said in a pompous tone. "She shall be buried like a princess."

      "Indeed, Mr. Mask!--and she lived like a beggar!"

      A faint flush of color crept into the man's cheeks, withered with age. "That was not my fault," he said, haughtily; "had I known of her wants, I would have helped her; though, indeed," he added, bitterly, "she deserves little at the hands of one whom she wronged so deeply. I loved her, and she was faithless."

      "Ah!" cried Hagar, and for the moment she felt inclined to tell the truth, but the memory of her promise restrained her; also a glance at the white face of Jane, who thought that her secret was about to be revealed.

      "What do you say?" asked John, looking back.

      "Nothing. But--the silver teapot?"

      "My gift. Let it be buried with her."

      He passed through the door without another word, leaving Hagar alone with the dead. Had he known of the contents of the teapot which the dead woman held clasped in her arms, he might not have departed with his wife by his side. But he went out ignorant and happy.

      Hagar looked at the retiring forms of the married pair; at the white face of the dead woman at the bare, bleak room and the silver teapot. Then she laughed!

      Chapter VIII.

       The Seventh Customer and the Mandarin

       Table of Contents

      There was something very queer about that lacquer mandarin; and something still queerer about the man who pawned it. The toy itself was simply two balls placed together; the top ball, a small one, was the head, masked with a quaintly-painted face of porcelain, and surmounted by a pagoda-shaped hat jingling with tiny golden bells. The large ball below was the body, gaily tinted to imitate the official dress of a great Chinese lord; and therefrom two little arms terminating in porcelain hands, exquisitely finished even to the long nails, protruded in a most comical fashion. Weighted dexterously within, the mandarin would keel over this side and that, to a perilous angle, but he never went over altogether. When set in motion the big ball would roll, the arms would wag, and the head nod gravely, a little red tongue thrusting itself out at every bow. Then the golden bells would chime melodiously, and rolling, wagging, nodding, the mandarin made all who beheld him laugh, with his innocent antics. He was worthy, in all his painted beauty, to be immortalized by Hans Andersen.

      "A very pretty toy?" said Hagar, as the quaint thing tipped itself right and left, front and back. "It comes from China, I suppose?"

      She asked this question of the customer, who demanded two pounds on the figure; but in place of answering her, he burst out into a hoarse laugh, and leered unpleasantly at the girl.

      "Comes from other side of Nowhere, I reckon, missus!" he said, in a coarse voice; "and a bloomin' rum piece of goods 'tis, anyhow!"

      Hagar did not like the man's looks at all, although she was by no means exacting on the score of personal beauty--especially with regard to the male sex. Still, there was something brutal about this fellow which revolted her every sense. He had a bullet-head, with a crop of closely-cut hair; a clean-shaven face of a blue-black dirty hue, where the beard had been removed; a low forehead, a snub nose, a large ugly mouth, and two cunning gray eyes which never looked any one straight in the face. This attractive gentleman wore a corduroy suit, a red linen handkerchief round his throat, and a fur cap with earflaps on his head. Also he carried a small black pipe between his teeth, and breathed therefrom an atmosphere of the vilest tobacco. Certainly the toy was queer; but the man queerer. Not at all the sort of person likely to be in possession of so delicate a work of Chinese art and fancy.

      "Where did you get this?" demanded Hagar, drawing her black brows together and touching with one finger the swaying mandarin.

      "It's all on the square, missus!" growled the man in an injured tone. "I didn't prig the blessed thing, if that's yer lay. A pal o' mine as is a sailor brought it from Lord-knows-where an' guy' it me. I wants rhino, I do; so if you kin spring two quid---"

      "I'll give you twenty shillings," said Hagar, cutting him short.

      "Oh, my bloomin' eyes! if this ain't robbery an' blue murder!" whined the man; "twenty bob! why, the fun you gits out of it's worth more!"

      "That's my offer--take it or leave it. I don't believe you came honestly by it, and I'm running a risk in taking it."

      "Sling us the blunt, then!" said the customer, sullenly; "it's the likes of you as grinds down the likes of me! Yah! you an' yer preachin'."

      "In whose name am I to make out the ticket?" asked Hagar, coldly.

      "In the name of Mister William Smith--Larky Bill they calls me; but 'tain't hetiikit to put h'endearin' family names on pawn-tickets. I lives in Sawder Alley, Whitechapel."

      "Why didn't you go to a nearer pawn-shop, then?" said Hagar, taking down Mr. Smith's address, without smiling at his would-be wit.

      "That's my biz!" retorted Bill, scowling. "'Ere, gimme the tin; an' don't you arsk no questions an' you won't be tol' no lies! D'ye see?"

      Hagar stamped her foot. "Here's the money and the ticket. Take yourself and your insolence out of my shop. Quick!"

      "I'm gitting!" growled the man, shuffling towards the door. "See 'ere, missus; I comes fur that doll in three months, or it may be four. If it ain't all right an' 'anded up to me proper, I'll break your neck!"

      "What's that you say?"

      Hagar was over the counter, and close at hand by this time. Larky Bill stared open-mouthed at her spirit. "You say another word, my jail-bird," said Hagar, seizing his ear, "and I'll put you into the gutter!"

      "Lordy! what a donah!" muttered Bill, rubbing his ear when he found himself outside. "She'll look arter the toy proper. Three months. Tck!" he rapped his thumbnail against his teeth. "I can't get less from the beak; but I've bested Monkey anyhow!"

      And with these enigmatic words, Mr. Smith turned on his heel and went to Whitechapel There his forebodings were realized, for at the very door of his own house in Sawder Alley, he was taken in charge by a grim policeman, and sent to prison for four months. He had stolen some fruit off a coster's barrow on the day previous to his arrest, and quite expected to be--as he phrased it--nabbed for the theft. Therefore he employed the small remnant of freedom still remaining to him in pawning the mandarin in the most distant pawn-shop he could think of, which happened to be Hagar's. As Mr. Smith left the court to do his four months, a wizen-faced man slouched close to him.

      "Bill," he growled, edging against the policeman, "where's that doll?"

      "That's all right, Monkey! I've put it where you won't git it!" grunted Smith.

      When Black Maria rolled away with Bill inside, the man he had called Monkey stood on the edge of the pavement and cursed freely till a policeman moved him on. He had a particular desire to gain possession of that doll, as he called it; and it was on this account that Larky Bill had taken the trouble to hide it. Monkey never thought of a pawn-shop. It was a case of diamond cut diamond; and one rogue had outwitted the other.

      In